Noted Poker Authority

Using The Free Showdown Play

Ed Miller — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 18:16:27 +0000

Last issue I introduced you to a tactic called the free showdown play. The idea is that, if you have position, you can raise the turn with a marginal hand to encourage your opponent to call and check the river. Then you can check behind and take a free showdown. Choosing this line instead of simply calling down charges your opponents more to draw, and it also lays down some cover for those times that you have a legitimately strong hand.

Free Showdown in No-Limit

Your opponent bets the turn, and you raise, planning to check behind on the river. Generally speaking, you’ll want your raise to be something significantly smaller than pot-sized, as depending on the stacks, a pot-sized raise might commit too many chips if your plan is to abandon your hand to a raise. For instance, say you have a shaky hand against an aggressive player. He bets the pot on the turn, and you have maybe ten times that left in your stack. If you call, he might bet something less than pot on the river, or he might check. If you make a pot-sized turn raise, you’ve already committed more chips than you would have had you just called, and committing lots of chips isn’t your goal with the free showdown play.

Indeed, the free showdown in no-limit tends to act as a sort of preemptive blocking bet. If you call $20 on the turn, your opponent might bet another $50 on the river. But you can make a $30 turn raise and often escape the $50 river bet. There’s no “right” size for a free showdown raise, but sometimes a minimum raise will be perfect, and sometimes you should choose something more substantial, depending on the opponent, and the game history.

You Don’t Want Outs

Usually having outs is a good thing, but the free showdown play is typically better when you have few to no outs if behind. More accurately, when you have outs, other options that ensure you’ll see the river card become relatively more valuable. For instance, our example from last issue gave us the T T on a Q 9 5 flop. When the turn card was a blank, the 3 , we still had just two outs if behind to a queen. Say we raise the turn and get reraised. We can be fairly certain that if our opponent isn’t bluffing, we’re drawing to at most two outs. That gives us less than a 5 percent chance of pulling it out on the river, so being forced to fold doesn’t give up much equity.

But what if the turn card had been the 8 instead? Now we have six outs against most better hands: two tens and four jacks. We have nearly three times more equity when behind than we did in the first example, so being forced to fold to a turn reraise is significantly costlier. Better to simply call, see the river card, and perhaps call again to see a showdown.

Similarly, if the turn card had been the 3 , we’d now have spade flush outs to go with our tens.

The bottom line is, the more outs you likely have, and the stronger these outs are, the more valuable seeing the river card becomes, and the less attractive it is to raise the turn, planning to fold to a reraise. Most good free showdown situations arise when you have few to no outs if behind.

Watch the Stack Sizes

You have to have the right stack sizes to use the play correctly in no-limit. In particular, you have to make sure of two things:

Your turn raise won’t leave your opponent with a convenient remaining stack size for an easy all-in push.
Your stack sizes have to be right so that a smallish turn raise doesn’t look too suspicious.

The first condition means essentially that you need to make sure you’re not in, “The heck with it, I’m all-in” territory. Once the stacks get below a certain size, many players will use the logic, “Well, if I’m going to call, I might as well just put the rest in as well. He might fold.” Which is, of course, exactly what you plan to do if he puts the rest in. The reraise semi-bluff is the bane of the free showdown play, so don’t try it when reraise semi-bluffing is relatively painless for your opponent. Do it when the reraise semi-bluff is a scary play for him to try, when your opponent has a lot to lose if he’s wrong and you really “have it.”

The second condition means that you should make sure it’s plausible that you might really “have it.” There are numerous situations where you might make a minimum raise or other small raise on the turn with a genuinely good hand. The free showdown play will work best when you would be in such a situation if you did have a genuinely good hand. You don’t want your opponents to be able to figure out that if you had a strong hand you’d surely play it another way, so you must be weak.

An Integral Tool for the Positional Toolchest

Whether your opponents are tricky or predictable, aggressive or flaccid, the free showdown play deserves a role in your overall strategy. When you are playing limit against predictable players who always back down in the face of turn aggression, you can abuse the free showdown play, using it again and again to exploit the weak play. When your opponents are tricky and can spring a turn reraise, you have to be more judicious. But you should still use the play occasionally. It’s an integral part of a balanced strategy, and if you never use it, your positional advantage will be sapped.

Try the free showdown play when you have a decent hand that would normally be worth showing down. It’s best when that hand has a fair chance to be ahead, but has relatively little chance to draw out if behind. It gets an extra bet out of your opponent when he’s semi-bluffing or betting a weak made hand, but it exposes you to a dangerous semi-bluff reraise or slightly less dangerous out of position river bet. Consider the risk of those outcomes before you try the play.

The free showdown play works well to frustrate strong players with your position, but it really shines against weak players who will never play back at you. In games with weak players, wield the turn raise like a hammer to enforce the tyranny of position.

[This article appeared in the June 17, 2009 issue (Vol. 22, No. 12) of Card Player.]

Introduction To The Free Showdown Play

Ed Miller — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 14:18:15 +0000

Having position bestows an enormous advantage. But to make the most of the advantage, you have to employ what I call tactics of ambiguous aggression. You make plenty of bets and raises in position. Sometimes those bets and raises imply a strong hand, and they signify more bets and raises to come. Other times those bets and raises are bluffs or semi-bluffs. And other times still, the bets and raises represent posturing from a fundamentally weak hand.

The free showdown play is a terrific tool that falls into the third category – it’s mostly positional posturing. Here’s how it works. You are heads-up, in position on the turn. Your opponent bets. You raise, intending that money to be the last you put in the pot. If your opponent reraises, you’ll fold. If he calls and checks, you’ll check behind. If he calls and bets the river, you intend to fold, though sometimes that decision can get complicated. You can use the play in both limit and no limit, though it takes a slightly different form between the games. Here’s a limit example:

You have T T . You raise preflop, and the big blind calls. The flop comes Q 9 5 . Your opponent checks, you bet, and he raises. He plays aggressively on the flop, so the check-raise certainly doesn’t mean you’re beaten. You think he would check-raise with any pair and a straight or flush draw. You call. The turn is the 3 . He bets the turn, and you raise. It’s a free showdown play, so you plan to fold to a 3-bet, and you plan to check it down on the river.

Like any play in poker, the free showdown play is perfect in some situations and poorly-suited for others. It has strengths and weaknesses, and you should use it in situations that play well to its strengths.

What It’s Good For

The free showdown play has two major upsides.

It often helps you to win the most from a semi-bluffing opponent.
Sometimes you can get your opponents to fold a hand they shouldn’t – sometimes even hands that are better than the one you hold.

Say you have a modest, but decent hand that has little chance to improve. The underpair of tens in the above example is typical. It’s ahead a fair percentage of the time, so it may be worth taking to showdown. But when it’s behind, it’s way behind. The tens have only two outs against someone with a queen.

The most common line to take with this hand would be to defer to your opponent’s aggression and call twice, once on the turn and once on the river. Against many opponents, you would bet the river if checked to.

But what if your opponent is semi-bluffing with a flush or straight draw? He check-raises the flop as a semi-bluff, and you call. Then he follows up on the turn, hoping you’ll fold. You don’t. He misses his draw and gives up his bluff on the river, checking. You bet, and he folds. That line gets two flop bets and one turn bet out of your drawing opponent.

If you raise the turn, though, he has to pay an extra bet. He can check and fold on the river, but he’s already had to pay two turn bets. The semi-bluffer pays more when you use the free showdown play.

When your opponent is betting a made hand, sometimes he will fold. That’s obviously good for you because he can’t draw to his outs (usually five). And occasionally he’ll even fold a better made hand.

So generally speaking, the free showdown works well against out of position players who like to play aggressively on the flop with a wide range, but who back off when faced with turn aggression.

The Downsides

The obvious downside to the blocking bet is that you expose yourself to 3-bet bluffs on the turn and also to last-ditch bluffs on the river. The play is predicated on your opponent becoming docile after your show of muscle on the turn. In many games, particularly medium limit games in B&M casinos, that reaction can be fairly reliable. But it’s not so reliable online, in high limit games, and in many no limit games.

A reraise bluff is a disaster for the free showdown play. Usually you’re using the play on hands you intend to take to showdown. The goal of the play is largely maximization – you’re going to lose two bets either way if you’re behind, but this way you get a bit extra from weaker hands. In no limit, obviously, there’s also the extra value sometimes of getting a blocking bet in.

So the play stands to offer you modest gain when it works. It turns a win into a somewhat bigger win. But if you get reraise bluffed off your hand, then you suffer a major loss, turning a win into a significant loss. For the free showdown play to workout well for you, a reraise bluff has to be a low percentage threat.

Similar, and also threatening, is the river out of position bet. Your opponent bets the turn, you raise, and he calls. A blank comes on the river, and he bets. Or maybe one draw comes in, but another misses, and he bets. What do you do? Often the pot is offering juicy odds, and the choice isn’t clear. You have a hand you originally thought was worth showing down, and it still might be. Opponents can be tricky these days, and it certainly isn’t unheard of to get bluffed at after a turn raise.

There’s no clear-cut play in this circumstance. Sometimes the pot odds and likelihood of bluffing will indicate a clear fold. Sometimes it will indicate a clear call. In the case that you have to call, your free showdown play has backfired, because not only was your showdown not free, but you ended up paying three bets when you could have paid only two. This is a natural threat to the free showdown play, and as usual, you have to gauge each situation independently. The more likely your opponent is to fire the river, though, in general the less willing you should be to try the free showdown play.

Next issue I’ll talk more specifically about using the free showdown play in no-limit.

[This article appeared in the June 3, 2009 issue (Vol. 22, No. 11) of Card Player.]

Three No-Limit Realities

Ed Miller — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:23:40 +0000

Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. An image enters the eye and hits the back of the retina. Almost immediately the brain goes to work trying to fill in the blanks. Was only half of a face in view? Just the back of a head? The brain seamlessly fills in the missing information, creating an image of what the entire person should look like. This process works out well enough to get us through everyday life, but it’s simply not reliable enough to meet a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. Many of the things we “see” never actually existed. They are merely the creative products of an active human brain.

No-limit players can be similarly tricked by their eyes and brains. Any poker writer will tell you to observe your game – that important information is available everywhere if you’re disciplined enough to look for it. It’s true enough. But our brains don’t dispassionately catalog data. Every morsel of information is automatically run through a series of cognitive filters to determine its significance and context. Two players can watch the same game and come to quite different conclusions. They both see the same raw data, but they each make sense of it their own way.

I’d like to offer you three no-limit realities. You can verify them by observing a game and logging events with a pen and paper. They have strategic significance. Yet many players play as if the opposite of these realities were true. I think their brains are tricking them.

Most Pots Never Reach Showdown

Unless you play in a crazy, loose game, most pots won’t reach the showdown. In many games far more than half the pots are won without showdown. Often the turn is the critical round: A good-sized turn bet will win a lot of pots. What’s the significance?

You can clean up betting the flop and turn. You don’t need a hand. You don’t even need a draw. You just need to bet. Sometimes one bet will do. Sometimes you’ll need two. They can’t be wimpy $20 bets into $200 pots. You have to put some oomph into it. But it works in nearly every no-limit game.

I can’t say how many times I’ve watched no-limit hands where the players all checked it down. Everyone shrugs, shows their junk, and someone gets the pot. Pots like these are freely available to anyone willing to bet.

But most players don’t think this way. They just try to make a hand. If they miss the flop, they give up on the pot. They adopt this passive “make a hand” mindset because aggressive play has burned them in the past. Once they tried bluffing the flop and turn only to run into someone who decided to slowplay a big hand. “Not doing that again,” they think.

No-limit rewards the persistently aggressive. You can verify that fact by watching a game and writing down when each pot is won. Aggression doesn’t work every time. And if you try it every pot you’ll land yourself in hot water. But betting the flop and turn, when tried judiciously, will make you a lot of money.

Check-raise Bluffs Are Rare

On the turn and river, players don’t check-raise very often. Check-raise bluffs are even rarer. You can easily watch a game for hours and never once see someone check-raise the turn or river as a bluff. What’s the significance?

You can profitably bet the turn and river for value with a wide range of hands. Making these bets is critical to no-limit success. It’s where the real money is made. After all, preflop and flop bet sizes are usually just a small fraction of those on the turn and river.

But many players would rather just see a showdown with decent hands like two pair than try to make more money. If you watch them play, you can tell they know that their good hands will probably win. They’re just terrified of getting raised or check-raised. So they take the “safe” route and check it down.

The fact is, however, they’re scaring themselves out of a lot of profit. When they bet, typically they’ll get called by a weaker hand and win a big pot. Sometimes they’ll get raised, but usually that raise will come from a strong hand made on the river like a straight or flush. These pots they lose no matter what they do. And every once in a while, on a rare occasion, they’ll get check-raise bluffed off the best hand.

The consistent extra profit from successful value betting is more than worth the occasional catastrophic loss. Check-raise bluffs are rare, so don’t let your brain trick you into fearing them. Bet your good hands.

Pocket Aces Usually Win

I’ve seen hand databases from players who have played more than a million online no-limit hands. Over the tens of thousands of times these players have been dealt pocket aces, they have won more than 80 percent of the time. More than 80 percent! The fact is, pocket aces usually win.

Sure, if you play in a loose game where three or four players routinely try to crack your aces, you won’t win quite that often. But even in these games pocket aces win more than half the time. And when they win, they win huge pots.

Many players treat pocket aces like they’re cursed. They won’t raise them preflop. They’ll make a small bet like $30 into a $120 pot on the flop. They’ll happily check down the turn and river. Then they’ll breathe a sigh of relief when they drag the pot. Don’t play like this!

Pocket aces usually win. Play them that way. Raise them preflop. Bet them confidently on the flop. Most of the time they’ll win you a nice pot. Sure you’ll occasionally endure a heart-breaking loss. But don’t let your brain trick you into thinking a big loss is the expected outcome. The reality is that every time you get dealt pocket aces, it’s like money in the bank. Play them that way.

[This article appeared in the May 20, 2009 issue (Vol. 22, No. 10) of Card Player.]

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em Coming Out Tomorrow!

Ed Miller — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:00:24 +0000

The day is nearly upon us. Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em comes out tomorrow! If you haven’t preordered it yet, go do it right now.

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em Release in One Week

Ed Miller — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 21:09:10 +0000

The big day is just one week away! Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, the affordable no-limit hold’em e-book, is coming out one week from today on June 16.

We now have a cover.

And updated since I last posted it, here is the final table of contents. You can learn more about the e-book by reading the Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em FAQ.

Introduction
Part 1: Framework

64 Squares
Showdown Equity And Steal Equity
Using Equity To Make Decisions
Stealing
What Makes Stealing Likely To Succeed

Part 2: Beating Online $1-$2 6-Max Games

Introduction: Why $1-$2 6-Max?
Stealing Blinds And Playing Position
Profiling Opponents And Using Stats
Barreling
Going For Value With Good Hands
3-Betting Light And The 3-Bet, 4-Bet, 5-Bet Game
Isolating Bad Players
Handling Opposing Aggression
Specific Preflop Decisions
Putting It Together

Part 3: 7 Easy Steps To No-Limit Success

Step 1: Play Tight
Step 2: Don’t Play Out Of Position
Step 3: Don’t Overcommit In Small Pots
Step 4: Big Pots For Big Hands
Step 5: Pull The Trigger
Step 6: Adjust To Your Opponents
Step 7: Keep Your Head In The Game
Congratulations

Part 4: Beyond $1-$2 No-Limit

Understanding Fixed Bet Sizes
Planning Big Bluffs
Overbetting The Flop
Underbetting In Multiway Pots
Balancing Your Lines
Bankroll Requirements

Preorder Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em Now!

Ed Miller — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:05:40 +0000

The affordable poker e-book Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em by Ed Miller, Sunny Mehta, and Matt Flynn is almost here. Just two weeks until release on June 16, 2009!

Preordering is now open.

A few things:

Buy the book right now. Yes, the preorder period lasts two weeks, but don’t put it ...
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Answering Two Questions About The New Book

Ed Miller — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 04:54:45 +0000

I’m really excited because I’ve been getting a lot of emails since my last post went up expressing interest in preordering Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em. I really appreciate your interest, and I hope the book knocks your socks off.

In particular, people have been asking two questions. I’m in a ...

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em: Preordering Starts June 2

Ed Miller — Sat, 30 May 2009 13:35:00 +0000

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em is soon to be released upon the world!

Preordering will start Tuesday, June 2 and last for two weeks until the release date of June 16. During preordering you can buy the affordable poker e-book for $39.95 – 60% off the regular price of $99.95.

In the ...

Pocket Kings Flop An Ace… Again

Ed Miller — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:03:45 +0000

It happens to us all more times than we’d like to count. We build a nice pot with pocket kings and then the flop comes and… BAM! There’s the ace. The way you handle it depends a lot on your opponents, the stack sizes, and more. Let’s look at a ...

Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em Excerpt: How Far Should Bill Go To Unbalance His Line?

Ed Miller — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:24:24 +0000

Today we completed all the editing on the new e-book Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em. This is a big milestone. The book is now final. All we have left to do is layout (basically make it look pretty) and then a final proofreading pass to make sure the prettying process didn’t break anything.

Editing took a few weeks longer than we anticipated, mainly due to complications from having three authors. But it’s done. Here’s what to expect now:

In about a week we’ll announce a firm release date. Release will likely be in or about the first half of June.
We will be offering a variety of payment methods. If we don’t offer a method that is convenient for you, you can email us and we will work something out.

I’ll make all the important announcements here, so if you’re reading this post, you’re in the right place.

And now for today’s excerpt from the section on Range Balancing.

How Far Should Bill Go [To Unbalance His Line]?

How far does Bill need to go to fix his unbalanced line? Unfortunately, there is no math answer to this problem. Too much depends on opponents, game conditions, and what street you are on. However, there are a few guidelines to follow.

The more unbalanced a line, the more profitable it is for your savvy opponent. An 80%/20% line gives your opponent an exploitable situation. [By “80%/20%” we mean 80% of the hands are either strong or weak. Sometimes you won’t have a good hand much more often than 20% of the time. So be it. At least it’s not a 90%/10% line.] A 90%/10% line gives him a sledgehammer. To start, make sure you don’t have any 90%/10% lines.

On the flop, the proportion of good hands in a line should be within several percentage points of the proportion of good hands you expect to flop. For example, say you expect to flop top pair or better 25 percent of the time. (Flopzilla calculates these numbers for you.) When you check the flop, you should have top pair or better around 15 percent to 35 percent of the time. Similarly, when you bet the flop, you should have top pair or better 15 percent to 35 percent of the time. This is just a guideline. We chose these margins because they work well against most $1-$2 opponents. Against a tougher opponent, you may have to balance further. But for starters, just make sure to check enough good hands on the flop that an opponent cannot assume you missed when you check. Also, bet enough weak hands on the flop that an opponent cannot assume you have a good hand when you bet.

After the flop, the proportion of weak hands in a balanced line typically decreases. Many hands get folded on the flop. Most of these folded hands will be weak, so your range becomes stronger on average if the hand reaches the turn. However, if you have not folded many hands by the turn, then little changes. This is the case with Bill’s turn-check line above, so the proportion of good hands in that line should still be within several percentage points of the proportion of good hands he expected to flop.

However, if you have folded many hands, we use a different guideline. As a general rule for the turn and river, lines are reasonably balanced for $1-$2 if at least 25 percent or so of the hands in the range are weak and another 25 percent or so are decent made hands. The remaining 50 percent is the middle ground for you to work with. This can still be exploitable, but it plugs the big leaks.

The more unbalanced a line is, the easier it is to recognize and exploit. Above all, avoid 90%/10% lines against thinking opponents. After that you can work on your 80%/20% lines if you find opponents are exploiting them. Again, you don’t want to balance lines perfectly. You just want to balance them enough that your opponents cannot exploit you easily.

A great deal of line balancing is just mixing up your play. You may have heard advice like “Don’t always bet the flop when you hit top pair with an ace,” or “Sometimes you should check the nuts on the flop.” These simple strategies help you avoid unbalanced lines. But each of those strategies addresses only a single situation. Thinking in terms of line balance can help you address all your lines systematically.