To Bet or Not To Bet (1)

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To Bet or Not To Bet (1)

by MiiWiin

The success of a bet or raise often depends on lots of different variables. How strong is your hand, who's your opponent, what does the board look like?

Sometimes a variable doesn't work at all and is the reason you decide not to bet. One of these factors is a very dry board. It's about time to start addressing this problem.

Overview:

There are lots of ways to approach this topic. Here are a few important aspects which should be systematically dealt with in the future:

• What are dry boards?
• Consideration of opponents/stats
• What are the paramount problems here?
  
• Balancing/deception
• When should you bet and when shouldn't you?
• How can you bluff?
• How can you extract the maximum value?
• The way ahead - way behind principle
• Turn and river play after a bet on the flop
• Turn and river play after a check on the flop
• Marginal holdings
• How to play out of position
• How do you play as the preflop aggressor?
• Multi-way pots
• 3-betted pots
• What happens if Villain bets?

What are dry boards?

In theory, "dry" could mean a lot of things. The main focus here, however, is on a particular flop: one high card, two low cards and no draws possible.

$25 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($25)
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
Hero ($25)
SB ($25)
BB ($25)

Preflop: Hero is BU with
UTG raises $0.75, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.75, 2 folds

Flop: ($1.85) (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero...

The perfect example. Your opponent raises from early position and you call on the button with a suited connector. The flop is dry, there's a king in it which your opponent could well have hit, as well as two low cards which don't open up any strong draws.

You've hit practically nothing, leaving you without any equity (please ignore a backdoor straight and backdoor trips/two pairs).

If you see this flop one thing should be clear: your opponent will bet this flop in most cases. It's the ideal flop on which to make a contibet as you aren't likely to have hit a lot yourself.

Now something unexpected happens. Villain checks.

What should you do in this spot? The first counter-question to this needs to be: "Who exactly is my opponent?"

Note (1): opponents

We'll choose a regular player as the opponent here, ideally a TAG.

We've chosen this player as we can rudimentarily estimate his plays and ranges. If you come across players who play too loose, too tight, too passive or too aggressive, assumptions and actual events drift further apart.

It goes without saying that you have to make assumptions here you can work with. That's why you've got a standard player as an opponent:

22 / 17 / 3 (VPIP / PFR / AF)

You don't know a lot about him, other than he plays solid and can make tricky moves now and then.

Further stats aren't important, the focus here is on basic board analysis and interpreting plays. Stats could help here, but in most cases, they'll just be confusing.

Note (2): stats

Stats generally have the problem of being overvalued. In order to use stats to their best in these cases, you need significant values about everything your opponent could do here, as well as a huge sample size.

For example, contibet flop, turn and river, his check/call behaviour, his check/raise habits and much more, what's important postflop (AF distribution, WTS…).

Nonetheless, there's a problem here: logically, these values are related to every spot Villain plays. There's no differentiation between heads-up and multi-way pots, between draw heavy boards and dry boards, between battles between regs and value extraction against weak players.

That's why it's hardly possible to interpret the stats reasonably on boards like this in order to work out the best play. These values can't do any harm, but don't assign them too much value.

Back to the example.

$25 NL Hold'em (6-handed)

Stacks & Stats
UTG ($25) (22 / 18 / 3)
MP ($25)
CO ($25)
Hero ($25)
SB ($25)
BB ($25)

Preflop: Hero is BU with
UTG raises $0.75, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.75, 2 folds

Flop: ($1.85) (2 players)
UTG checks, Hero...

Up to now this spot has been pretty uninteresting: not a lot has happened. However, this is the first question to take seriously since Villain checked: should you bet here, or rather not?

You don't need to think about the definition of the bet, it's a pure bluff with almost 0% equity. So it has to be successful through the fold equity alone. Put in mathematical terms: in the event of a 2/3 pot size bet on your part, Villain would have to fold in 40% of cases.

Alternatively, you have the chance to win the pot on later streets (multiple barrels), although you can disregard this for the time being.

In order to make a decision for or against a bluff bet, you need to be clear about this problem on the flop, as well as about your opponent.

What's the overriding problem here?

The following thoughts are relatively pronounced, but you only need to go through them once at your own speed. They apply to all these types of flop.

As you can assess your opponent well, his thoughts will be similar to yours (you need to make this assumption).

Villain could be holding five possible hand groups here:

• Absolute nuts
• A good made hand
• A marginal made hand
• A weak made hand + draw
• No hit

Absolute nuts

Range: KK, 88, 22

Your opponent flopped the nuts. You can see yourself that this board isn't so great for pocket kings. It looks fantastic, no question, however while you're betting you're already thinking: "which weaker hands should pay out to me here?"

Now, if he's holding one of the six combinations of 88 or 22 or the last remaining king, it's a bit tight to be expecting fantastic call downs.

Your opponent's game: he'll still generally bet, now and again however, he'll check in order to either check/call or check raise.

Good made hand

Range: AA, AK-

A similar problem as with the nuts (what should pay out to this?) However, there's a further aspect: how does Villain react to a raise?

Imagine you're in Villain's position with KQ and you bet then you cash in a raise. You soon find yourself in a "level war." AK should have raised preflop, 88 and 22 wouldn't raise on this dry board, or would they?

It would be really difficult to throw away this hand on the flop, but if there's a call, you'll play a big pot out of position and you put a big question mark on the flop over your upcoming plays.

Your opponent's game: he'll bet more often, but also regularly check to you as he's aiming for way ahead - way behind with hands such as KJ-.

Marginal made hand

Range: QQ-99, 8x

By their nature, the medium strength hands embody all the previously mentioned problems. Even a value bet is no longer clear here, as lots of weaker hands won't call if your opponent bets with pocket tens here.

Your opponent's game: he'll bet frequently here too, sometimes he'll check and aim for way ahead - way behind. Check/fold is less likely.

Weak made hand + draw

Range: A2s, 2x

Luckily, draws aren't terribly likely, leaving just 2x hands, outs to trips and two pair (still 5 outs altogether). In some circumstances, you can also include the 8x hands.

Your opponent's game: your opponent will mostly bet here. He's got fold equity and even a 5-outer on his side. However, the hand is too weak to check/call and it would be a shame to check/fold.

No hit

Range: everything else

The big problem started in the last range: your opponent didn't hit anything and has no outs, how does he play?

He'll generally bet as a pure bluff. If you look at an article on fold equity, these boards are described as ideal for bluffing. Why should your opponent check/fold 56s here? He can bluff fantastically and logically only needs 40% fold equity if there's a 2/3 pot size bet.

Summary of Villain's play:

You've gone through everything now and next you need to assess your opponent's check. You don't need to analyse his complete preflop range in minutia here and you don't need to count combinations. What will your opponent check/fold here?

According to the range above, practically nothing.

• If your opponent isn't holding anything, he'll bluff
• If your opponent is holding something marginal, he'll bet or check/call
• If your opponent is holding something good, he'll bet, check/call and rarely check raise
• If your opponent is holding the nuts, he'll bet, check/call or check raise

So what should he check/fold? How can you ever get to 40% fold equity there?

You need to quickly dismiss the idea that this would be a great spot for a bluff bet on your part and that can achieve enough fold equity. You'll very rarely see a check/fold from your opponent here.

However, this clearly throws up a whole host of new problems, as a blind bet/fold will often end the hand and you won't have to think anymore. But that would be too easy.

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