Pt. 2 of Advanced Plays, Tricks and Moves

by Rolf Slotboom

An excerpt from Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha, by Rolf Slotboom and Rob Hollink.

In Pt. 1 of the excerpt "Advanced Plays, Tricks and Moves", Slotboom was going over the delayed bluff/float, describing a hand… "you are heads up... on the button, having flatcalled a preflop raise by the under the gun player, with 100BB effective stacks. The flop comes 8 4 4 rainbow, and you have 7 6 5 3 single suited."

In the end, Slotboom decides this isn't a spot to raise, and "would prefer a call most of the time," cautioning that opponents could be "slowplaying a big hand." Slotboom then proceeded to give two plans of attack:

Option 1: Fire a second barrel to show that he is serious about winning this pot...
Option 2: Simply check, to see what you will do...

In Pt. 2, Slotboom will expand on both options. Click here to read Pt. 1.

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Response to Option 1:

Assuming a card arrives on the turn that is unlikely to have given him a full house (yet that also hasn't helped you), this may seem like a good spot to raise him - as he will fold often here. However, the problem is that it is very expensive if it fails and, especially, if your opponent has made a hand on the turn like overpair plus flush draw or overpair plus open ender, he may say: "Ah well, what the hell, let's gamble and stick it in. If he has me beat, he has me beat - so be it, I will still have outs." Yet if he makes this play he will have raised you off a hand that could have had up to nine outs to improve! Plus, the size of your raise on the turn may give away tremendous information. Three times his bet may look too scared, and just doubling his bet may entice him to stay in because of the good price. (If I would raise in this spot as a semi bluff, it would probably be around 2.3 or 2.4 times the initial bet.)

An option that I like a bit better is simply flatcall one more time on the turn. Especially if the turn card hasn't produced a flush draw and thus you are unlikely to have picked up any additional outs in case you were drawing, this second call will definitely ring alarm bells in your opponent's head. After all, assuming he sees you as a good player, two flatcalls on a paired board with no apparent draws will make him think there's a very good chance that you are holding a very big hand, perhaps with an outside chance that you have taken a passive line with A A x x or K K x x.

Assuming he doesn't have a four and doesn't get any help on the river, he will probably check, and expect you to simply check back any big pairs that you might have - hands that are good as a bluff catcher, but definitely not ones to value bet with. This means that if you do bet now, all from your opponent's assumption that you would probably have dumped a draw against his turn bet, there is basically no way you can be bluffing and thus must be betting for value here.

A few things that are important here. First, at the most basic level, it could seem that with a big pair, your opponent would have a good bluff catcher on the river. Assuming that the river is a blank that has not completed any apparent draws, a typical way to play a marginal hand like kings or aces up would be to check call on the river to snap off a bluff.

However, as this opponent is thinking on a higher level, he knows that you are unlikely to chase a draw on both the flop and turn when the board is paired - even more so because 7 6 5 x happens to be the only draw available. Basically, what his bet on the turn suggested (assuming the read of him having a big pair was right) was a last attempt to take down the pot, where in case of a call he would only put any more chips into the pot if he would actually improve to top full. In other words: an ideal situation for you to go for the delayed bluff - where if a blank comes on the river you will make a standard 50 60% pot bet to take it down. (And if you are really creative, maybe make an even smaller bet if you have actually improved to a straight on the river. If you make a bet between one fifth and one third of the pot, then this may definitely look like a milking bet to him, and he will know that given the board there is hardly a hand he can still beat. But the bet being so small, and check folding to such a small bet looking not just weak but also being bad for the ego, it could very well work. He may rationalize this bad call by thinking or even saying: "Well, if I am going to start check folding decent hands to even these tiny bets, in the future people will start to take all kinds of shots at me. And I cannot let that happen, so I must simply call here.")

Response to Option 2:

The reason why the delayed bluff from above may work is the type of holding that your opponent probably has. With just a big pair on a paired board, your opponent may feel that this is typically the type of hand that will win small to decent sized pots when there's betting and calling on one street, sometimes also when there is betting and calling on two streets (usually when the big pair would work as a bluff catcher, and the check as a bluff inducer), but that will lose almost all the big pots when his opponent will put money in the pot on all three streets. After all, on a 4 4 x x x board with no apparent draws, he may judge it as highly unlikely that his big pair can still be good if after all the flop and turn action his opponent will still bet the river. And while this view is of course a good and logical one - it may allow you to use this thinking against him by pulling off a bluff in a situation where a bluff seems highly unlikely.

Given the way your opponent thinks, he will rarely play check fold on the turn, assuming this is not a seven, six or five. Any check folds by him will tend to take place on the river with this hand, not on the turn. The psychology is this. As he has fired just one time (on the flop), you could have called rather lightly with a smaller pocket pair, the 7 6 5 x draw or even a float, in addition to of course all the three of a kind or better hands that you might have. If, in this situation, he would often play check fold on the turn, he would be inviting people to float him. So, if he really has a big pair, you can expect that any checks by him on the turn will almost always be followed by a call, rather than by a fold. Of course, after his check call on the turn you may still have a decent bluffing opportunity on the river. However, the pot has now grown big, and you will therefore have to bet big. Plus, you may still get called rather frequently, as your opponent may feel that he could have lured you into semi bluffing or bluffing because he surrendered the initiative to you on the turn. In other words: the chances of you bluffing successfully on the river are substantially higher after you have called his turn bet, than after he has check called your turn bet. Strange, in the eyes of some - but undoubtedly true.

What all of this means is that in this situation, you should almost always respond to a check by him after a blank on the turn by simply checking it back, rather than try to pick up the pot after this weakness that he has shown . You should simply take the free card that you are given. However, in contrast to your response to option 1, this time you would not go for the river bluff. Say that the river is another blank, and your opponent checks - this time it is highly likely that he is using his big pair as a bluff catcher. (After all, with so little betting of any significance up to this point, a "bet out of nowhere" by a busted draw or a weak holding may be just as likely in the eyes of your opponent as a slowplayed monster.) So, in this situation, you would not make any kind of bluffs on the river. You would only bet the river for value if you have actually made your straight. And this time, in contrast to situation 1, you would not make a very small bet with your straight like the one thirds or even one fifths of the pot from before. No, this time you would simply make a standard bet in the range of 60 70% of the pot. And because your opponent may view that this could very well be a bluff, and given that he will have played the hand according the simple rule of thumb "bets on two streets may mean my hand is still good, bets on all streets smells trouble", you can expect to get called by a losing hand a significant percentage of the time.

Please note that had the flop action been multiway, this would have been a good spot to pick up the pot. Because now, from the perspective of your opponent, the "only hands that can call me on the flop must be hands that have me beat" - making your turn bet much more credible. But heads up, he will realize that he will get called much lighter, and that you may make a flop call in position simply to try to take away the pot on the turn.

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Rolf Slotboom is the author of the classic Secrets of Professional Pot Limit Omaha, along with numerous poker lessons which can be found on his Poker Pages Free School bio. In Rolf's first attempt in 2007 at the World Series of Poker, he cashed four times, including the $10,000 Main Event.

For more on Secrets of Short-handed Pot-Limit Omaha, by Rolf Slotboom and Rob Hollink, click here.

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