Small Change

Poker is cool. This is an established fact. And as with most things that are cool we usually focus on the sexier elements. When people consider a Ferrari they think about its astonishing looks and acceleration, not its luggage space, much as when ladies think about Johnny Depp, they don’t fixate on his punctuality.

In poker, people like to focus on huge bluffs, sexy two-street check-raises and monster set-over-set pots, but the reality is that many huge pots play themselves. Any player can shove with Aces and have another player at the table go broke with Kings. The true, often unnoticed, difference between an average player and a great player comes from the small pots they win. Whereas a weaker player will give up when he doesn’t have a hand, a better player will constantly look to pick up small and medium-sized pots by staying aggressive and routinely causing opponents to fold better hands.

These pots may even be tiny, such as picking up the blinds and a couple of preflop limps, but they quickly add up and have a huge effect on your bottom line. If you want confirmation of this then who better to turn to than Doyle Brunson, who wrote in 1979’s Super System that, ‘the accumulation of all those small pots is a big part of my winning formula. It’s the bonus I get for playing the way I do, and it’s the secret of my success.’

The lesson is to understand the importance of every pot and always be looking to add the money in the middle to the stack in front of you. Let’s look closer at some specific ways to make it happen.

Continuation Betting

There was a time in poker when only the top players knew how lucrative it could be to follow up a preflop raise with another bet on the flop, regardless of whether they’d improved or not. Nowadays, most players use continuation bets as part of their game, but many players misuse this vital weapon.

It’s worth remembering why continuation betting is so effective. It’s a simple truth that most of the time players’ preflop holdings aren’t improved by the flop – if you hold two different hole cards you’re a 2-to-1 underdog to pair just one of them. And even if you do hit a pair it’s often not enough to continue in the hand under pressure. For example, you might call a preflop raise with a hand like 7s-8s and hit a flop of A-8-4. Your hand has improved but can you call a bet from the preflop raiser? If you do call and the turn brings another overcard, possibly another bet, life gets very difficult.

Continuation betting will always be an effective strategy in no-limit Hold’em, no matter how widespread the practice becomes. This means that as the preflop raiser you often need a good reason not to bet the flop, as betting should be your default strategy. When you make a standard continuation bet of two-thirds of the pot you’re getting a great price on your wager. The bet has to be successful less than half the time to show a profit, while your opponent will have improved his hand only around a third of the time.

However, there are times when game conditions mean that c-betting is just throwing money away. C-bet bluffing in multi-way pots can often be spewy, especially on wet flops such as 7-8-9 against three players. You will also encounter aggressive players who like to exploit your c-bets by check-raising a lot. Against these players you should c-bet less frequently but be prepared to defend your flop bets by occasionally calling the check-raise in position to see if the opponent gives up on the turn. You may even hit a pair.

Against perennial calling stations who will peel the flop with Ace-high or bottom pair it may be a better strategy to delay your continuation bet until the turn when you have a greater chance of getting the desired fold and winning the small pot.

Three-betting

Hold’em has changed a lot in the last few years and the main change is in the amount of reraising that goes on preflop. Making a reraise or three-bet preflop is an extremely powerful play that’s very hard to counter. Even if your opponent knows you three-bet a wide range of hands, he can’t be sure whether you have 8-5 offsuit or Aces.

Three-betting is a critical move that separates the best Hold’em players from their less successful opponents. A good six-max cash player will put constant pressure on their opponents by three-betting as much as 10% of their hands, picking up lots of small pots without contest along the way.

As an example let’s say you have As-Qs in the cutoff and the player to your right open-raises. One approach is to be defensive and flat-call, but three-betting instead has a number of advantages. First, it will frequently win you the pot there and then, perhaps causing your opponent to fold the best hand if he has a mediocre pocket pair. The second is that it gives you the initiative in the hand if you get called. As neither of you will often improve on the flop a simple continuation bet will prove very profitable, as the villain will fold a large amount of the time.

Most of your three-bets should be for value with big made hands, but your range should also include the odd complete bluff to maximise your win rate with this strategy. By constantly turning up the heat with three-bets you will pick up so many uncontested pots that it can affect your winnings dramatically.

Double-barrelling

Double-barrelling is the massively hip way of describing the practice of making a second continuation bet on the turn after you’ve made an initial c-bet on the flop. In other words you are the preflop raiser and your hand doesn’t improve but you use your preflop initiative to bluff both on the flop and turn. Successfully getting to grips with this advanced bluff can see your profits soar.

In today’s poker scene, where almost everyone is aware of the continuation betting concept, it’s important to have a counter-strategy. Players now give c-bets less respect, making it critical to sometimes follow up with a further bet on the turn. A perfect scenario to double-barrel would be if you raised with Q-J and got a call from the big blind. The flop comes K-8-6 with a flush draw. Your opponent checks, you make a continuation bet and he calls. The turn is an Ace and again your opponent checks. Here you should almost always double-barrel. As the preflop raiser it now looks as if the board must have improved your hand. Not only does it become very difficult for your opponent to continue with his draws but he will also have to fold a lot of pocket pairs and maybe even some paired Kings. As well as causing better hands to fold, this bet prevents your opponent from drawing for free if he holds a flush or straight draw which is currently losing to your Queen-high.

It can sometimes be tough to know when to fire again on the turn and when to give up. Consider a spot where you hold A-Q and the flop comes 2-4-9. You make a c-bet and your opponent calls. The turn pairs the four – now what? A spot like this is very opponent-specific and depends on the game conditions. If you bet again on this paired baby board you’re representing a very small range that can bet for value: big pairs, monster hands like sets, trip fours and occasionally A-K. Can you convince your opponent that a hand like 8-8 is no good and should be mucked? In a spot like this it’s tough to represent a real hand and you should think twice before double-barrelling.

Knowing when to fire the second barrel takes some practice but a lot of players don’t do it enough. When this bluff is executed successfully it can add a nice chunk of free chips to your stack.

Bluff-raising The Flop

As we’ve established, a great way of picking up small pots is by c-betting the flop. Unfortunately, other players also use this weapon against you. The obvious counter-strategy is to bluff these continuation bets. After all, it’s likely the preflop raiser/c-bettor doesn’t have a hand that’s been helped by the board, and even if he does have a strong hand it’s possible that your bluff-raise on the flop will force him to fold. This play can either be made as a raise of a c-bet lead, or can be done as a check-raise depending on your position.

Flop texture is a vital consideration here. With many players you can be reasonably precise about their preflop raising range from certain positions and of the kind of board that’s helped them. In this example a weak-tight player raises from early position and you decide to defend in the big blind with Q-J. The flop comes 4h-5h-6c. This is a really scary flop for most of the hands in your opponents’ preflop raising range and attacking this board by going for a check-raise bluff will often work. Not only is your opponent’s hand hardly ever helped by this flop, it’s also exactly the kind of flop that could have hit you hard, defending your big blind with hands that could have made a set, two pair, a straight or a big draw.

Another bluff-raising opportunity occurs on dry boards when the preflop raiser makes a continuation bet into you. You call a preflop raise again with Q-J and see a flop of K-6-2 rainbow. A raise here against a tight, thinking player, looks very strong as you can’t be drawing to anything and are representing a big hand. This play can also work well on Ace-high flops, as it’s so hard for your opponent to continue without an Ace in their own hand. These dry board bluff-raises shouldn’t be your standard play but are a useful tool to have in your arsenal.

The Little Things

These four strategies – continuation betting, three-betting, double-barrelling and bluff-raising – are just some of the ways you can win more small pots than your fair share in no-limit Hold’em. If you remain focused at the table you’ll find countless opportunities to use them to your advantage. The key thing is to understand how important it is to pick up these smaller pots and to change your mindset so that you’re the player constantly asking the questions of your opponents, and adding extra money to your bottom line.