Most poker players are not aggressive enough. If you want to compete with high-level players and increase your winnings against weaker opponents, you need to incorporate more aggressive moves into your game, used at the right time and place.
Specifically, you need to do two things:
- Identify situations where you never bluff or rarely bluff, and consider what bluffs you can have in your range.
- Constantly create new betting and raising ranges for situations where you usually never do so.
Finding spots where you can play more aggressively is not an easy task. And the last thing we want is for you to waste all your chips by over-bluffing in your next session. Therefore, we will try to help you get started by presenting four situations where players tend to play too passively:
- Probe bet on the turn
- Raising after a continuation bet on the turn.
- Delayed continuation bet.
- Check-raise on the flop after calling an opponent's 3-bet.
We will conclude the article by discussing situations where you should never play aggressively.
Let's begin!
Probe bet on the turn
A probe bet is a bet made when you are out of position, and your opponent did not make a continuation bet despite having the opportunity. This bet is only possible on the turn or river.
In general, you can often bluff with a probe bet because most players' checking range on the flop is very weak. Therefore, for this reason, you can include more bluffs in your probe betting range, especially against weak players who do not care about balancing.
Of course, this does not mean you should bluff with a probe bet every time you have the opportunity. Why not? Here are a couple of reasons:
- You will become vulnerable to more experienced players who will “catch” your strategy.
- You will eventually encounter situations where the board cards are more favorable to your opponent.
It is very important to adjust your range to the board cards. If the cards are more favorable to your range, for example – 8-6-5-3 or T-9-5-4, you can make a probe bet quite often and force opponents to fold weak hands. On unfavorable boards for you, like J-9-4-A or A-K-6-6, check more often to avoid over-bluffing against a range that contains many strong hands.
Another tip for probe bets: considering that many players have a weak checking range, you can probe bet for value.
Raising after a continuation bet on the turn
After you call on the flop, you should not raise on the turn very often. Most hands with which we want to extract value on the turn were valuable on the flop as well, so we can raise on the flop.
There are other situations where we can raise only on the turn; let's discuss one example.
100 NL 6max. Effective stack size 100BB.
Our hero is dealt 5d 5h in the BTN position. HJ raises to $2.50, CO folds, SB and BB also fold, hero calls.
Flop (pot $6.50) Js 8c 2d.
HJ makes a continuation bet of $2.75, hero calls. The call on the flop is somewhat “loose,” but it cannot be called very bad because the hero is playing in position and got better than 1 to 3 odds.
Turn (pot $12) 5c. HJ continues and bets another $7. What will the hero do?
A suitable card has come. Now we have a set and want to raise for value, but we should also have a few hands with which we would raise as a bluff in this situation to maintain balance.
Since the pair of fives (3 possible combinations) makes up your entire range (for value) in this situation (unless you passively played with 88 or 22), you need only 2 or 3 combinations with which you will bluff to maintain balance. Considering equity, the best hands for bluffing are Qs Ts or Ts 9s; on the other hand, it is better to play these hands with a call to avoid situations where the opponent can 3-bet shove. T9s (without a flush draw) is also a good candidate for a bluff because it also has enough equity. The specific hands you choose to bluff with are not very important; the main thing is to have a balance between your value bets and bluffs. You can use a similar strategy in pots where both you and your opponent check on the flop. Just consider which hands you would bet on the flop because you often cannot represent them by raising on the turn.
Delayed continuation bet
A delayed continuation bet is when the aggressor checks the flop and makes a bet on the turn. Usually, we delay the continuation bet when our hand is not strong enough to bet on both the flop and the turn and the river. A suitable example is when you raise pre-flop with an ace and a low card of the same suit (As3s) and check even though an ace is on the board. We also often choose to delay the continuation bet when we have a very strong hand and block possible strong combinations of the opponent. For example, we have QQ, and the board is Q 7 2.
Choosing the right hands for a delayed continuation bet as a bluff is much more difficult than deciding which hands to bet for value. It is especially difficult for players who always bet on the flop with a straight or flush draw. Then they no longer have hands with which they can bluff on the turn.
A good strategy is to sometimes check the flop with some backdoor draw, intending to raise if a card favorable to your draw comes on the turn. For example, you can check Kd 5d on a flop of Js 7c 6d with the intention of bluffing if a draw card (9, 8, 4, 3, or a diamond) comes on the turn. Admittedly, there will be situations where an unfavorable card comes on the turn, and you will be forced to fold your cards after a probe bet, but that is the reality of solid and balanced play.
Here are some rules to help you decide whether to bet on the flop or delay the continuation bet with your backdoor draws:
- C-bet the flop with low backdoor draws that will be difficult to play against probe bets, for example, 6s 5s on a flop of As Kh 3d.
- Choose a delayed continuation bet with higher cards that can sometimes call a probe bet. Example with Kd 5d above.
There will also be cases where you check the flop, do not get more equity on the turn, and have a chance to bet if your opponent checks again. The choice of hands in such situations may seem arbitrary, but do not let that stop you. The least you can do is consider which hands you block and, if you have no equity, take it this way.
Check-raise on the flop after calling an opponent's 3-bet
Sometimes you call a 3-bet without a positional advantage and catch a monster with which you could extract a lot of chips from your opponent, who has top pair or a pair in hand higher than all the cards on the board. When you get a c-bet, you have two options:
- Check-raise the flop against the opponent's c-bet and shove all-in on the turn.
- Just call, then get value both because the opponent bets for value and because they bluff.
If you choose the first option, you also need to consider which hands you will check-raise as a bluff. Let's look at an example:
$0.50/$1.00, 6-max. Effective stack size – 100BB.
Our hero is dealt Tc Td in the HJ position. The hero opens to $2.50, CO 3-bets to $8, everyone folds, the hero calls.
Flop (pot $17.50) Jd Ts 4s. The hero checks, CO bets $10, the hero raises to $32. Hands with which we could raise for value are TT, JJ, JTs. So, we need to think about hands with which we would bluff in this spot. The clearest candidates are combinations with a draw to something strong, AsQs and KsQs, and also As Ks and 9s 8s if we call pre-flop with such hands.
On the other hand, these combinations have too much equity to be considered as bluffs. If these are your only “bluffs,” your range will always be too strong, so the opponent, noticing this, will almost always fold against your check-raises. Therefore, we need hands with less equity.
Possible candidates are KQs (not diamonds) or AKo and AQo with one diamond. We can balance our shoving range by check-folding some AKo, AQo combinations if a diamond does not come on the turn and shoving everything else.
Do not donk bet on the flop
The purpose of this article is to help incorporate more bluffs into your game. On the other hand, there are situations where you should never bet. For example, when you are playing HU (heads-up) against someone who was the aggressor pre-flop and you do not have a positional advantage on the flop.
Taip yra todėl, nes įprastai varžovo range bus stipresnis nei jūsų, kas reiškia, jog jūsų statymai dėl vertės galimi tik su labai stipriomis rankomis, kurios sugebės įveikti oponento laikomas kortas. Yra keletas priežasčių, dėl kurių geriau rinktis check-raise liniją nei atlikti statymą pačiam.
- Jūsų oponentas dažniausiai pats statys dėl vertės su stipriomis rankomis, tad check-raise linija leis išsipūsti banką.
- Išprovokuosite oponentą blefuoti su keletu iš jo galimai turimų kombinacijų.
- Tai apsaugos jūsų tikrinimo range.
Donkinimas su pažeidžiamomis kortomis (aukščiausia žema pora, kai ant stalo 8-6-5) labai būdinga klaida naujiems žaidėjams. Tai tikrai blogas ėjimas, nes oponentas dažnai privers jus išmesti stipresnę kombinaciją arba atsakyti į statymą, kai jis turi kažką stipresnio. Kitaip tariant, tokie statymai yra neveiksmingi.
Jeigu konkrečioje situacijoje jūs niekada nestatote dėl vertės, tai tokioje situacijoje negalite ir blefuoti. Net kai atrodo, kad būtų protinga statyti, nes jūsų oponentui neturėtų tikti toks flopas, geri žaidėjai supras, kad tokioje vietoje jūs negalite statyti dėl vertės ir apžais jus atsakydami ar keldami statymus.
Apibendrinkime
Straipsnyje pateikta nemažai informacijos, kurią reikia suvirškinti. Jeigu jaučiate, kad visko jums per daug, nesinervinkite, niekas netapo geru agresyviu žaidėju per naktį. Perskaitykite straipsnį, tiek kartų, kiek jums reikia.
Sėkmės!
Versta iš: https://www.upswingpoker.com/aggressive-poker-strategy-spots/
