Floating

by Nick Eisel

The game of Texas Hold'em has evolved considerably over the years, thanks largely in part to the Internet. Because of online strategy forums, books and articles, the average poker player has a greater understanding of the game and this in turn makes the games much tougher. Just because the games got tougher doesn't mean they aren't beatable, you just need to have the right tools and know when to apply them.

This month I want to talk about a very important tool in any good No Limit player's arsenal; the Call Bluff, which is more commonly known as Floating in the online community. The idea of course is that you call one street with little hand or no hand at all with the intention of making a play later in the hand. I'm sure if you're reading this article that you have likely heard about this before or even seen it first-hand. Just because you've heard about this concept doesn't mean you've added it into your own game though.

For those of you saying to yourselves "I know about the Call Bluff and it's a part of my game," I can say with a high degree of certainty that you aren't doing it nearly often enough! Especially in the virtual realm of poker, floating has a high degree of success and even most of the regulars in my games don't use the move to anywhere near its fullest potential.

So let's talk about some common spots where floating should reap big rewards and why.

The first thing I want to say is that a lot of guys I've played with on the net are big on bluff-raising or bluff check-raising the flop yet they rarely just call. This is obviously a big leak for so many reasons. First, it lets me know that when they call they either have a speculative middle-pair type of hand, a monster they're slow-playing, or possibly a draw (though they tend to raise those on the flop). Knowing this allows me to play pretty well against their likely range, unless they start to adjust and flat-call the flop with a lot more hands. In most cases a flat call should show just as much strength as a raise as will, so long as you don't start calling every flop where you have position. I should note also that floating someone out of position is a really bad idea since they can just check behind the turn and look you up on the river and you'll rarely know when it's profitable to fire out a river bluff. So make sure you're in position before attempting a move like this. I'll also assume you're playing a solid, tight style for these examples, because it gets much more complicated if you're playing loosely.

The first situation I want to talk about is a pretty common one. Let's say another tight player raises in early position and you call the raise in middle position. Heads-up to the flop, which comes down A82 rainbow and the preflop raiser fires his obligatory continuation bet into you. Most of the time you should just be folding here but you can call with literally any two cards a fair amount. The reason you can call here, no matter what you have, is because the raiser's hands are essentially tied in a spot like this. If he bets the turn again he likely has the ace and you can just give up on the hand (bluff-raising the turn here is very ballsy and you need a read that he can make a big laydown, which is outside of the scope of this article). Remember though that he'll be raising a good amount of hands that won't contain an ace, like KK-TT and possibly some other stuff depending on the player. Most of those hands hate this flop and you can literally make free money in a spot like this. Say now he checks the turn which is a brick like a 9. You don't even have to bet here yet! Against some people who always think you're bluffing or who can make some light calldowns, I'd probably bet the turn here and then give up if called because I seriously doubt they'll call the turn with a hand like JJ knowing a river bet is likely coming. Against most players though you can even check back the turn and see what they do on the river. They can't really bet out unless they have the ace and when they check again you can take the pot away. The board doesn't have to be this dry for this type of move to work either, as you can represent a flush if there is a draw on the flop and it comes in.

A second situation off of the top of my head is when you flat-call a raise preflop with a hand like AK and then call a continuation bet on a rags flop. This is good for a couple of reasons. First of all, your opponent may also have overcards that missed in which case you can take the pot away on a later street without too much risk involved as he will have to fear that you flopped a set. Second, he may have an overpair like JJ or QQ and if you spike an Ace or King it will be nearly impossible for him to put you on it. He will either have to put you on a big hand like a flopped set or some type of bluff and likely call at least one bet. He could also have AQ or AJ and then bet again when the ace comes on the turn and you'll get two streets of value out of him because he'd never expect you to call a bet with AK on a 874 flop.

A third common situation is to float when you have a weak draw like a gutshot, but you think a lot of your opponent's range missed the board. If he plays somewhat straightforwardly, you can easily steal the pot away from him later and if you happen to hit your gutshot when he has a big hand you stand to win a huge pot as again, it is an unlikely holding for you.

Another spot which I believe is totally underutilized in the online community right now is to float with absolutely nothing, but plan to represent scare cards that come off. Some players will do this to an extent, but I believe if you are good at reading hand ranges, you can really abuse a lot of the straightforward tight players on the internet by just calling and then bluffraising when the flush comes in. You certainly need the hand-reading skills to go along with this, but there is a lot of money being left on the table because players don't get creative enough postflop.