Andrew Seidman Easy Game Reasons to Bet Part II

Chapter 1: Causes of bets Part II

Last time we finished the column under the secret that will give away every third reason for betting is effective. We are therefore repaying the debt immediately and adding even more useful information.

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

1. We force the opponent to fold his hand and keep his share of the money invested in the pot. On a flop like A75r, where we have KQ and our opponent has a hand like JT, in which case our opponent still has 6 outs and a good amount of equity to complete the hand.

Therefore, forcing your opponent to fold and keep a portion of the money you have invested in the pot is a good option.

The exception is if our opponent is a bluff-loving player and our hand is strong enough to respond to a potential bluff). If we miss our turn after the flop, our opponent will also miss his turn with hands that he didn't hit the flop with, and will bet with hands that are any pair or higher. So, if our opponent is not a bluffing player and the hand we have is not strong enough to catch bluffs, then we simply cannot skip the turn. We'll talk more about this concept in the section called "Showdown Theory"

2. Dead money compensates for situations where our opponent responds and we lose. I once played against a very well-known player called Cole in a high-stakes game, whose style of play is extremely loose-aggressive, you could say. He was a deepstack, CO (cut off) and played against an opponent in the button position. Cole reraised, the opponent in button position 3-bet, Cole 4-bet, the opponent in button position 5-bet, and then Cole pushed all in. The player in button position folded and Cole showed T9o. Obviously, in this situation Cole did not push all-in for value (it would be difficult to get a call from 9 high). But we can't be sure that the opponent in button position folded a strong hand, because Cole is notoriously loose - aggressive - nobody will fold a very strong hand against Cole. But he still rallied. Why? Because when his opponent made a 5-bet in button position, there was a lot of dead money in the pot. For Cole's all-in to be correct, a comparatively very small percentage of the opponent's button position folds is enough.

The more aggressive the game becomes, the more often people start to bluff and bet their money with weaker hands. This equates to more dead money in the pot. In low buy-in games, a c-bet can lead to a #3, as in this example, where we are holding ( KQ on the A75r board ). In this situation, we choose a c-bet because at this level, the players will rarely come out from behind the standard lines, and they will only beat us with a better kind of hands. In high buy-in games, where the game is more aggressive, we need to take advantage of dead money if we want to make a profit.

In addition, reason #3 is very rarely (almost never) the main reason for bets. In many cases, it can be used as a free support for reasons #1 and #2. As an example, let's use the following situation: let's say we have a nut flush draw and the board is T♠8♠4♣K♣, and we decide to bet in the tournament. So our decision to bet is driven by the reason #2, we expect the opponent to fold hands like JT or A8. The opponent may also have hands that we would like to see him continue with, such as a weaker flush draw. However, the fact is that the money is already in the pot and we can force the opponent to fold a hand like JT, which is not the worst option. For the next example, let's take a situation where we have KT and the board is T♠6♠5♣J♣. Re-betting here might be a bit unprofitable (we will explain more about this in the section called "Betting size and low value"). However, forcing the opponent to fold straight draws, flush draws or any floats is also a good option for us, especially if we think that if we miss a move, the opponent with a flush draw or a straight draw will simply settle for a free card.

In general, dead money compensates for the "thinness" (low profitability) resulting from cause #1 or cause #2. For example, a bluff may be too thin (if the opponent calls our bluff too often) when the pot is 50bb. However, if the pot is 100bb, the bluff has more value because there is more dead money in the pot that we can win. To further understand, a bet with little value may not be profitable in a small pot, but in a large pot it is offset by dead money. The point is that we are always betting for reason #1 or reason #2, but reason #3 is always related. Even if we raise before the flop, we do so for value or to bluff, but our raise is offset by dead money - dead money in this case being the blinds.

So, what is it really like when players say they are betting on the "protection" of the arm defence? Isn't protection one of the reasons for betting?

The answer is NO - defence is a consequence of betting, not a cause. Let's say our hand is red QQ and the board is Q♠T♠9♣. We are betting for value because there are many worse hands in this situation that our opponents will call or even beat. The fact that we are taxing draws and "defending" our hand is cool, but it is not the real reason for our bet. Let's take another example and say we have 6♥6♦ and the board is Q♥9♥3♣. In this situation, we can bet to collect the dead money, but certainly not to defend the hand we have. Almost all of the opponents' draws against us in this situation are 50/50 or clear favourites (if we mean A♥J♥). The moral of the story is that when we have a set of queens, our hand needs defence (pretection), but first and foremost what this combination needs is value. When we have a pair of sixes, our holding doesn't need a defence, because our holding against A♥J♥ looks pretty stupid, given that A♥J♥ is the clear favourite against us in this spot. Sometimes we might bet with 66 on a board like Q♥9♥3♣ and translate that bet into a thin bluff (against hands like 77 or 88), or we might bet for low value (against hands like A♥4♥), but most of the time in this situation we will be betting to collect dead money against hands like A♣T♣, which will have too few outs on the flop to respond to our bet.

What about information bets? Let's say we have QJ on a board like QT5r and we know that the opponent we are playing against is loose - passive style. We are betting for value. If the opponent calls our bet, we get the information that our hand is probably the best in this situation, in which case we can continue betting for value. If the opponent calls, we have information that the opponent's hand is stronger than his normal range, in which case we should fold. However, even if we have to fold after the bet, it is still a good decision because we have bet for value. The real problem with betting for information comes when we bet with KK on a board like A22. Every time our opponent calls our bet, we are likely to get behind and thus lose some of the money we bet (but more on that in a moment). Every time our opponent decides to fold, we will know that we were favourites. If the opponent is playing well and, generally speaking, is not wrong, we simply don't make money. If we bet for information instead of betting for one of the three reasons, then we are isolating ourselves with the stronger hands and folding with the weaker hands. In short, we make mistakes and our opponents do not. And that is very bad.

However, let's try to look again at the situation where we have KK and the board is A22. Let's start with two assumptions: 1) If we bet, our opponent will never respond to our bet with an inferior hand, and 2) If we miss a move, our opponent will NEVER BLIND! In this situation, betting to collect dead money is still a good choice. Let's say our opponent is holding a hand like 44. If he never bluffs when we miss a move, then we are giving him intangible odds of catching the set. So, in such a situation, making a bet and forcing the opponent to fold the pair of fours he has is a good solution, because the opponent will only call or raise when he expects to get value. Obviously, these two assumptions are not always irrefutable, sometimes we can make a value bet with KK on a board like A22 against smaller pairs and sometimes when we miss a move the opponent will decide to bluff like a lunatic. But we have to stay aware and use the dead money rule and have a good understanding of when this rule applies in these situations.

So now we have three reasons. So every time you want to make a bet, ask yourself "Why am I making this bet?". As soon as you realise that there are only three answers to this question, poker will take on a whole new meaning.

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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