High-stakes pro Simon ‘Rhymenoceros’ Hemsworth presents a masterclass in playing multiway cash game pots
Playing pots with multiple opponents can be a tricky area in poker where less experienced players can quickly find themselves out of their depth, not knowing what to do. The more people there are in the pot the more information there is to try and think about. This can lead to a lot of confusing situations and therefore a lot of mistakes. We are going to try to cover some of the more important things to think about when playing multi-way pots; from what sort of hands you might want to play preflop, to good spots to bluff.
The Basics
Let’s start with a simple concept to be aware of when playing multiway pots. The more people there are in the pot, the stronger you will need your hand to be postflop. If you raise A-7, get three callers and see a flop of A-T-8 you really shouldn’t be ecstatic about the situation. Your hand could well be the best at that time, but this isn’t generally a spot where you will want to be shovelling in all your money. So the more people in the pot, the more hands there are seeing a flop, the more likely it is at least one person hits that flop well. Simple.
Because of this we need to think about the type of hands we want to play in multiway pots. In the above example when we raised A-7 we didn’t know we would get three callers but there are many times where we will be closing the action. If we know we are going to be playing a multiway pot we want hands that hit boards well enough to be the (effective) nuts. Suited connectors, suited Aces and small pairs are ideal candidates for this job. These are hands that have the ability to have very good combo draw value or can put coolers on your opponents.
On the other hand there are hands that play bad multiway. These are hands like unsuited Broadway cards or unsuited rag Aces and have ‘reverse implied odds’. This simply means that we don’t really want to hit the flop because we will often hit some sort of one pair hand and either call down and lose to a better hand or end up folding to aggression. Either way, it ends up being an unprofitable situation. So as a very over-general rule; call with 5-6 suited, fold with K-T offsuit.
Know your opponents
As with all strategic decisions in poker, knowing your opponents is essential. The difficulty with multiway pots is that you will have two, three, four or sometimes even more opponents to think about, all of whom will influence how you play your hand. You need to assign each player ranges of hands they play preflop and how they might play these postflop on different types of boards. This can be challenging so we might want to simplify matters by placing players into perhaps ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories. For example, good players are likely to give continuation bets respect from a player betting into multiple opponents and will probably fold anything less than top pair. Bad players on the other hand will not want to fold top pair on any street. So we can take from this that often it is better to continuation bet as a bluff against better opponents than it is against poor players.
Stack sizes
The size of the various stacks in play is extremely important in multiway pots. The deeper the stacks are the more room you have to manoeuvre. You can play draws aggressively knowing that you won’t easily be put in a situation where you don’t have good implied odds to hit them. There will also be more capacity to bluff where multiple streets of pressure can be applied. This will require representing a very strong hand if you are betting into many players, so you will need some serious poker heart too.
Short stacks in multiway pots can make things rather awkward and much less fun in multiway pots (aren’t they just the killjoys of poker?). Let’s use the example of you three-betting J-9, getting three callers and seeing a flop of Q-8-5 rainbow. Here we are facing three opponents with deep stacks so we will want to continuation bet as we can not only represent a strong hand, but also have the possibility of hitting a gutshot and the chance to play further streets depending on what happens on the flop. However, one short stack will mean we can’t really bet the flop knowing this villain will be committing with most hands that connect with that flop in any way, many of which have us in terrible shape. Short stacks generally mean everyone else in the pot has to play their hands more honestly and that sucks.
Bluffing
Although common poker knowledge would tell you that bluffing into multiple opponents is a bad idea there are still good spots to do it. The most typical of these is when you are the preflop aggressor and have the initiative in the hand. Let’s say there is an open and a call before you squeeze Q-8 suited from the blinds and both players call.
Whether or not you c-bet the flop in this situation is mostly dependent on its texture. Ideally we are looking for a flop we smash like two pair, trips, combo draws with Q-8 suited, but sadly hitting the flop in hold’em is surprisingly difficult! So really what we want is a flop that doesn’t hit our opponents’ ranges well such as very dry flops like 3-3-7 or T-4-4 rainbow. In this situation it is very unlikely the two callers have overpairs (or pairs of any kind on such a flop) and although they may suspect you are weak there really isn’t much they can do apart from fold. In fact the pot being multiway can work in our favour because when we c-bet the person next to act has the person behind him to think about and therefore a hand like 8-8 becomes a fold where it probably wouldn’t be in a heads-up pot.
Bluffing without initiative can be tricky to master. It usually requires representing a very strong hand and trying to get your opponents to fold hands they really won’t want to. However, it is becoming more prevalent in today’s games as regulars continually try to out-level each other. To use the above example again one of the preflop callers might float the flop with a hand like A-J (which happens to be winning here but they don’t know this). By floating they can perhaps hit an Ace or Jack which stands to win at showdown a lot or represent a very strong hand later in the hand with a bluff. Calling a c-bet in a multiway pot represents a lot more strength than in a heads-up pot. Bluffs like these work much better with deeper stacks where you have more room to manoeuvre. They also require you to know your opponents well enough to know they can fold big hands. But proceed with caution, most people hate folding!
Semi-bluffing
Drawing hands in multiway pots can be very profitable if played correctly. Our pot odds will often be more in our favour in multiway pots because the size of the pot will typically be bigger and implied odds greater, as there is more chance of someone having something they don’t want to fold. If we have 7h-8h on a three-way flop of J♥-T♥-3♣ and there is a bet and a call before us a raise puts our opponents in a difficult situation. J-T and 3-3 are both possible hands and play the same way so what does the villain with A-J do? He can call and play out of position seeing a lot of horrible turn cards. He can shove all-in and possibly get called by a hand that crushes him. Or he can fold which seems tight. As the raiser with 7♥-8♥ we either win without showdown or gamble with very good equity. Either scenario is great. Semi-bluffs can be very powerful in multiway pots and are usually best utilised by playing them aggressively.
Conclusion
Because multiway pots are rarer than heads-up pots (at least in online cash games) you will get much less practice at them and therefore there are much fewer ‘standard’ spots. The key is to try to analyse as much information as you have at your disposal (history, player reads, stack sizes) and then logically figure out what the best play is. This is obviously much easier said than done, but something the best players manage to master.
Common mistakes
Many of the errors made in multiway pots are common knowledge because you see them frequently from more amateur players. This includes things like playing garbage such as K-T offsuit preflop, or postflop mistakes like over-valuing weak made hands like top pair or passively chasing draws. But regulars make mistakes too.
One I frequently see is three-betting or squeezing hands in position that have excellent postflop value in a multiway pot. For example a reg might raise from early position, a fish calls the cut-off and then the action is on another reg on the button with 9-Ts. Regs will often squeeze here which I think is a mistake.
For me, it would be better to flat with that hand and play with deeper stacks postflop, in position with a hand that can hit plenty of flops well. It’s important to recognise why you are squeezing a hand rather than seeing something pretty, and then just raising for the sake of it.
Multiway shenanigans with Benyamine, Negreanu and Brunson
In this fascinating pot between three well-known pros David Benyamine check-raises two opponents and manages to get a better hand to fold and a worse hand to call. He claims this is exactly what he meant to do but don’t poker players always say that afterwards? Either way, it is a great demonstration of how multiway pot dynamics can lead to difficult situations. In this case, Daniel Negreanu is stuck in the middle position with a tough decision which he ultimately gets wrong.
Some multiway shenanigans of my own
Seat 1: Reg 1 ( $581.33 USD )
Seat 2: Short stack ( $145.00 USD )
Seat 3: Rhymenoceros ( $579.50 USD )
Seat 4: Reg 2 ( $400.00 USD )
Seat 5: Fish ( $179.30 USD )
Seat 6: Reg 3 ( $658.50 USD )
Dealt to Rhymenoceros [2♥-2♦]
Reg 3 folds
Reg 1 raises [$12.00 USD]
Short stack calls [$12.00 USD]
Rhymenoceros calls [$10.00 USD]
Reg 2 raises [$52.00 USD]
Reg 1 calls [$44.00 USD]
Short stack calls [$44.00 USD]
Rhymenoceros calls [$44.00 USD]
Flop [K♠-5♠-4♠]
Rhymenoceros checks
Reg 2 checks
Reg 1 checks
Short stack checks
Turn [2♣]
Rhymenoceros bets [$72.00 USD]
Reg 2 calls [$72.00 USD]
Reg 1 raises [$525.33 USD]
Short stack folds
Rhymenoceros folds
Reg 1 shows [Q♠-K♥]
Reg 2 shows [10♣-10♥]
River 7♦
Reg 1 wins $981.00 USD from main pot
In this hand the dynamics of fairly deep stacks between three regulars with history as well as a short stack make for an interesting spot. Preflop is standard with the stack sizes and my implied odds of hitting a set. The lack of flop action made for a difficult decision on the turn where my reads on Reg 1 were that he would shove the turn with a hand worse than mine very rarely. Clearly not only was my read wrong, Reg 2 had a much different read! I think in this particular hand I over-thought the situation rather than simply thinking, ‘I have a set, I’m not folding’. The latter thought process usually works out for the best!
