Andy Bloch

In No-Limit Hold ‘em, it can be difficult to know what the right play is on the river when you’re out of position with a marginal hand. In my experience, if you think your hand is good enough to call with, you should consider betting the river if you don’t think your opponent will try to bluff.

Say you’re playing in a tournament and raise in late position with K-10. You know K-10 isn’t a great hand, but from late position, it’s strong enough to pressure the blinds. The player on the button calls and both blinds fold.

Now the flop comes 10d-7c-3d. This is a nice flop for you and you lead out at the pot. The button calls. What are you to make of the call? Well, he’s probably got something – maybe a flush draw or another ten – but it’s hard to pinpoint an exact hand.

The turn brings the 2c. This wouldn’t appear to have helped your opponent, but you don’t really know where you stand and you’re trying to avoid playing a big pot at this point in the tournament, so you check. Your opponent bets about half the pot and you call.

The river brings an interesting card: the 4c, making the board, 10d-7c-3d-2c-4c. What’s your best play? It’s tempting to check again, because of the completed flush draw. But betting here has a few advantages over checking and then having to make a decision if your opponent fires at the pot.

Since the flush cards came backdoor (on the turn and river), your opponent probably doesn’t have the flush, and he may doubt that you have it, too. Thus, he will suspect that you’re bluffing, having missed the diamond flush draw. So if you bet here, he may call with a hand weaker than yours, like J-10, Q-10, or even 9-9 or A-7. However, there’s still the possibility that you have the club flush, so your opponent probably won’t raise with a hand like A-10, J-J, or maybe even a set. On the other hand, if you check, your opponent might bet on the river with those hands and you may pay him off, because you think he might be making a thin value bet with a weaker hand like Q-10.

The trick here is to bet a little less than your opponent would have, had you checked to him when he had the best hand. By putting out a somewhat smaller bet, you get to show down your hand cheaply against a better ten or a set, and you will also get your opponent to call with weaker hands that he would have otherwise checked with. Your bet here serves a purpose whether you’re ahead or behind in the hand.

If your opponent raises, you can be pretty sure he has you beat and you can fold (unless he’s a tricky opponent who may bluff in this spot), having gotten some very good information on the strength of his hand at minimal cost.

Note that this is the kind of bet you want to make when you’re pretty sure that your opponent has some sort of hand that you have a decent chance to beat, and that he won’t bluff if you check. In spots where your opponent might hold a busted draw and bluff, it’s often more profitable to check and then pick off the bluff with a call. For example, you might check and call in this same situation with 10-9 or 9-9 against an opponent who bluffs a lot.

There aren’t too many worse hands (if any) that your opponent will call you with if you are beat, and your opponent may check some of the marginal better hands like J-10 or Q-10. The idea in this situation is to lose fewer bets against better hands while you get some value from your opponent’s bluffs.

Do that often enough and you’re sure to have a good poker career.

Jay Greenspan

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On Friday, Allen Cunningham completed another amazing World Series of Poker*. He made three final tables in the 2006 WSOP*, won one bracelet, and finished 4th in the Main Event. This comes on the heels of his 2005 WSOP* performance, when he was named Player of Year after making four final tables and winning a bracelet.

During this year’s WSOP*, I wrote a blog for Full Tilt Poker and, during the Main Event, I decided to focus my coverage on Allen. For four days, I observed his play and, in that time, I came to see some of the qualities that make him so great. For this tip, I thought I would share some of what I have learned about the best WSOP* player over the past two years.

Big Pot – Big Hand

The pros often say they’re not going to play big pots without big hands, but Allen applies this principle better than most. Over the two days leading to the final table (about 18 hours of play), Allen played a total of four big pots. In two of them, he had sets. In one, he had the nut flush and, in the last, he had pocket Aces and was all-in pre-flop against pocket Kings.

When he had something like top pair, Allen played far more cautiously. He’d simply call bets or check one street so that he could control the size of the pot. When the big money went in, Allen had a hand that would hold up.

Don’t Panic

The WSOP* Main Event is a grueling two weeks. During that time, there are bound to be big shifts in fortune and Cunningham saw his change several times. On days 2 and 3, he was among the chip leaders. But a bad stretch of cards brought him close to the felt on day 4 and again on day 5. At one point on day 5, Allen had to survive a race to stay in the tournament.

When his chips got low, Allen didn’t panic. He didn’t push his chips in the pot with dreadful cards. While he had enough chips to survive a few rounds with the blinds, he waited for a hand that could win at showdown.

Of course, it took some luck to survive when his stack got low, but by being calm and patient, Allen gave himself the best possible chance to see another day.

Always the Observer

At the table, Allen is quiet, but friendly. He doesn’t say anything during the course of a hand and he never shows his cards unless a hand goes to showdown. In the Main Event, Allen’s opponents regularly showed their bluffs or tabled big hands that were uncalled. This gave Allen a distinct advantage that he could exploit. He was gaining knowledge on how they played their big hands and their bluffs, while his opponents were learning next to nothing about him.

Allen was always focused on his opponents, even when he wasn’t in a hand. When a big confrontation occurred at his table, he studied the players’ actions, picking up information that he could use later.

It’s been an incredible year for Allen Cunningham. When ESPN broadcasts his play in the coming weeks, you’ll get to see just how well he played in this year’s WSOP*.

Acknowledging Mistakes
Team Full Tilt

At this year’s World Series of Poker*, there are thousands of players walking the halls of the Rio. Moving through the corridors, you’re bound to hear players telling tales of the hands that bounced them from tournaments. Often, the players are upset as they tell the stories of bad beats and lousy luck. The Full Tilt Poker pros also share stories of their more interesting hands. However, among the pros, you’re far more likely to hear someone say something like, “I played that really badly.”

The best players have the ability to acknowledge and learn from their mistakes – it’s one of the qualities that make them so good. John D’Agostino noted, “When you listen to the general public you hear, ‘I got so unlucky.’ Generally, all you hear the pros talk about is how they played a hand poorly. We understand we make mistakes and we try to get better from them.”

Chris Ferguson noted that humility is vital to winning poker. “To improve, you have to know you’re making mistakes,” Ferguson said. “There are a lot of hands I don’t know how to play. There are a lot of situations I don’t know how to handle. If I thought I knew everything, I’d never improve.”

How often do the pros make mistakes? D’Agostino says, “[We] make mistakes almost every single hand. They’re small mistakes, but maybe I could have gotten paid off a little more on a given hand or avoided a bluff.”

Howard Lederer says, “To become a pro or a really good player, you have to become brutally objective about your game. If you aren’t, you won’t make the changes and improvements you need.”

While Lederer believes in the need for tough self-assessment, he notes that there’s no need to dwell on past errors. “You have to be honest with yourself and you can’t gloss over mistakes,” he says, “but there’s no need to beat yourself up. You need to learn from the mistakes and move on.”

Many of the pros refuse to discuss hard-luck hands in detail, knowing that there’s little to learn form a stab of bad luck. Recently, after Chris Ferguson busted from a tournament early on, he was asked about the hand that put him on the rail. “Bad beat,” was all he said. He didn’t feel the need to offer any more detail.

If you avoid talking about luck and concentrate on the hands where there is something to be learned, your game is bound to improve. Emulate the pros by finding the will to say, “Boy, did I mess that one up.”