Andrew Seidman - Easy Game - Reasons to Bet Part I

The importance of information in the game

At the very beginning, before we have any poker experience, we have no idea what is going on around us. We don't take in the information as we should. In fact, we are limited to two main pieces of information - the two initial cards in our hand and the cards we see when the Board is turned over. The rest of the information is completely unknown to us - things like the possible Range of our opponents' hands, Game-Flow, style effects, player types, trends and so on. The most important thing to understand is that the more information a player is able to gather and use, the better he is at poker. And vice versa. In the following sections, we will talk about how to gather and use information, what to look out for, what it means and how to find the answer to the questions you have. The aim of the first part of the book is to explain the basic strategies and theories of the game that will help you to gain an edge over weak players, while preparing you for a game against more broad-minded opponents. Each concept complements the other, which is why the first chapter is the most important in this part of the book.

Chapter 1: Causes of bets Part I

I hope you're ready, because we're going to explore the entire existence of poker. It all starts with a simple word: why? Poor players never ask themselves the question: why did they make this decision? Average players ask themselves "why?", but usually get the wrong answers. This is one of the most common mistakes I see in coaching students and it needs to be corrected. When a student makes a bet, I ask him why did you make this bet? The most common answers are: "I'm sure I have the best hand", "I made the bet for information, to see where I stand", or "I made the bet because I want to defend my hand". The problem is that these are not reasons for making a bet. Things like information or defending a hand are secondary factors in making a bet, but they are not reasons. So what are the real reasons for placing bets? There are only three. In order to justify our bet or raise, we need to find out these three (and only these three) reasons.

I will start with the first two reasons:

1. Value. This is the definition of a bet that we want to get an answer to or a beat with an inferior hand. Making a bet on the grounds that you are likely to have the best hand is simply not enough to say that we have made a bet for value.

2. Bluff. This is the definition of a bet made to force an opponent to fold who holds a better hand. Making a bet for the sole reason that we cannot win in any other way is not enough to say that we bet to bluff.

The two reasons are very simple. They are based on relying on the information we get from the mistakes of our opponents. The most common are either folding too often or calling too often. It is human nature to over-answer. We are inherently curious, so we want to see what hand our opponent is holding, what the fourth card is going to be, whatever happens we want to see if we will hit our flush on the river.

People are more likely to make mistakes by calling too often than by folding too often.

Therefore, reason number #1 must dominate our bets. Bets that are placed on the value (value bet) has always been and will always be the best way to make money. In low buy-in games, well, let's say NL25, almost all players at the table will call absurdly often, which makes reason number #2 more or less useless. In higher buy-in games, such as NL5000, almost all opponents at the table will be good enough to avoid a value bet (value bet) tax, which reduces the benefits of the first reason and makes reason #2 more important. In general, even regular players in high buy-in games are, as a rule, more likely to make bad calls (bad calls), nor bad departures (bad folds).

What about c-betting? Let's say we've made a raisin (raise) with KQo from the button and the opponent in the big blind (a loose - passive style player who almost never folds on the flop after catching any pair) calls our bet. The flop opens and it is A75r. The opponent checks. This situation is very standard for a c-bet. Why?

Let's think about it. We can't get a response from inferior hands (QJ is the wrong hand for the action in this situation) even a hand like 86 is roughly a coin-flip against us in equity terms. So we cannot bet on value. Assuming that the opponent will not take any pair, we cannot bluff either, even if we have the best non-pair hand. However, we still place the bet. Why?

3. we would be appropriating dead money. This is the definition of the action we take to force an opponent to fold a better or worse hand and collect the accumulated pot.

Taken together, this reason is clearly more complex than those mentioned above. So what makes this mysterious third reason work?

We'll discuss what makes the third reason work next week.

Stay tuned for the sequel.

This series of articles is based on Andrew Seidman's poker book "Easy game". If you would like to purchase the original, which is available in English, you can do so balugawhale.com.

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