Scared money

	There are 26 cards in the deck that will make our decisions very difficult. It’s so ugly that we might just lay down the best hand

In past articles we have done a pretty thorough analysis of how to play big hands after the flop when the board is uncoordinated. It was time well spent, as we should now have firmly under control the concepts we need to analyse any other situation in post-flop no-limit hold ’em play. It means that coveri ng big hands on a different range of boards can be dealt with much faster, because the concepts become more familiar. So let’s get to it.

Let’s move to a subject that causes many players to freeze or pushes them outside of their comfort zone – playing big hands on a draw-heavy board. Obviously, the main difference between flopping a big hand on a textured board and flopping a big hand on an untextured board is going to be the likely difficulty of decisions going forward.

Let’s say you have the same A-9 or 9-9 as in previous articles, and you flop two pair or a set, but instead of the board looking super-safe like A?-9?-3? it now reads A?-10?-9?. This board is super coordinated, as there are multiple draws now available. Those available draws will dictate any choices you make as to how you play this hand on the flop.

On the A-9-3 rainbow board there aren’t really any cards that will give you fits on the turn. If you have a hand like 9-9 and have flopped a set you aren’t really worried about any card that might hit on the turn in terms of how difficult your decisions will become at that point, as pretty much the whole deck feels safe.

On a safe-looking flop we can choose to slow our play down if we want to, because we aren’t risking some disastrous card hitting that makes us want to puke. Sometimes the slow-play will get us more money from our opponent, but in order for that to be an option we have to be comfortable that the slow- play will inevitably lead to us seeing the turn.

If you play a line that ensures the turn will hit, you’d better be comfortable with most of the cards that are available in the deck. That is not the case on a board with abundant straight and flush draws.

PLAYING IT UGLY

The key to setting your goal when you flop a set or two pair on a highly textured board is understanding that you are a favourite to be unhappy with any card that hits on the turn. On the A?-10?-9? board, as an example, we know we are unhappy with a club. We also know that the straight cards are going to be ugly, particularly a King, Queen or Jack in the case of the A-9 hand. An 8 or 7 isn’t the best either, and even a 6 might give us a little pause.

When you add up all the ugly cards in the deck, it comes to more than half of the deck. There are 47 cards remaining and about 26 of them are going to make us unhappy. Now, I am not saying that in a heads-up pot your opponent will have all 26 outs. Of course not. What I am saying is that there are 26 ugly cards in the deck that we know will make our decisions very difficult if our opponent puts any pressure on us. It is so ugly, in fact, that we might just lay down the best hand and our opponent might not even think he was bluffing!

What if you have an opponent who has a hand like A-K with the K?. The flop comes A?-10?-9? and you have A-9. Obviously, your opponent is in bad shape, down to six outs (the remaining Kings and Tens). Now, let’s say the J? hits on the turn. Your opponent thinks he has the best hand and knows that even if he doesn’t he has the nut flush draw as a back- up, so he moves all-in on you. Can you call?

Of course not. And your opponent doesn’t even really think he bluffed you! That is a disaster. It is such a disaster that if he moved all-in it would be an extremely difficult call even with a set of nines. Imagine getting bluffed off a set when your opponent didn’t even think he was bluffing!

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

So, how do we avoid being forced into making a bad laydown when the turn makes things ugly for our hand? Well, let’s look at what we are trying to achieve with our play on the flop. When the board came favourably for our big hand the goal was simple: figure out the line of play that extracts the most money from our foe. We knew we had the best hand and we just had to figure out how to get the most value from it.

But now, even though we’re still confident we have the best hand, we have to worry about the dangers posed by the turn card, so therefore our goal must be to avoid a tough decision on the turn. That means we want to opt out of the decision-making process right there on the flop.

We want to play the hand in such a way that when we do see the turn card, there are no further decisions to be made. There are only two ways to opt out of the decision-making process in no-limit hold’em: fold (which is clearly wrong here since we have the best hand) or bet big enough that you effectively have no further decisions in the hand.

You can do this either by forcing your opponent to fold, or by ensuring that you are all-in (or at least pot-committed so that you can’t fold on the turn anyway). In other words, you should basically just move all-in on flops like this.

PLAYING IN POSITION

Let’s take the case of playing the hand in position in a heads-up pot. Whether or not you were the pre-flop raiser, when a flop like A?-10?-9? arrives and your opponent checks to you, you should bet very big. If your opponent folds you don’t really care.

You are happy to pick up the chips without the trouble of making a decision on the turn. If your opponent calls you are happy too, as you almost always have the best hand at this point.

When you push on a flop like this the great thing is that you just don’t care what your opponent does. If he folds that’s awesome because you didn’t have to face some ridiculously ugly card on the turn. If he calls, more power to him because he pretty much never has the best hand there. Now, obviously, if your opponent bets into you, you would just push all-in on him for the same reasons.

One handy result of playing the hand this way is that you are actually more likely to get a call from a weaker hand, because your opponent is more likely to read you as either not wanting a call or as having a flush draw. Moving in on a board like this will cause confusion, because people generally play hands like sets more slowly. Playing the hand so fast will increase the probability that you get called by a hand like A-K, which is drawing very thin against you.

If you slow it down, however, you risk either killing your action when one of the draws completes (and not getting money out of hands like A-K), or making a bad laydown to the A-K when an ugly card hits.

When you play the hand super-fast you avoid ever making a bad laydown and you never kill your action against a hand like A-K because you get all the money in before the action-killing turn can hit. Better yet, by over-betting the pot on the flop, you make sure that if someone with a flush draw decides to gamble with you they are gambling at a loss because they are not getting the 2/1 odds they need to break even.

So, in position you would make sure you got all the money in on the flop and this would be true whether you were in a heads-up pot or in a multi-way pot. If you get checked to, over-bet. If someone bets into you, move all-in. Simple as pie.

KEY POINTS

• Never slow-play on a highly textured board, as you are likely to face a tough decision on the turn. More than half the deck will put you to a testing decision, so don’t try to be tricky on flops of this nature

• Aim to eliminate difficult decisions when scare cards arrive on the turn by getting all the money in on the flop. By pushing when you are in front you will be making the right play every time