Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Volume 1 (10 page)

Your opponent makes a continuation bet. If he is competent, he will bet his entire range on this flop, representing an overpair. If you call and your opponent has a weak hand, his turn check will let you know that. If he bets again, he probably does have the overpair and you can fold. If you raise, he will fold all his weak hands and probably call or push the strong ones. This is a spot where raising makes sense, as long as you are deep-stacked. An amateur may look at this hand and think, “He raises pre-flop, and so I put him on A-K. He bet the flop, so I raised and he went all-in. I called because I put him on A-K but I lost to his A-A. Where did I go wrong?”

Once you raise the flop and he re-raises all-in, his range shrinks to only big pairs, which beat you, so you make an easy fold.

Hands become much tougher to read when aggressive players raise from late position, as their range contains many more hands than that of a tight early-position raiser. Suppose the cutoff, a loose but good player, raises and you call with J
-10
. The flop comes J
-5
-3
.

He will usually make a continuation bet with his entire range, as you are unlikely to connect with the flop. If you call and he bets again, his range will usually shrink to only total air, draws and good made hands, like a good jack or better, because most players will check hands like top pair, bad kicker for pot control. If you call on the turn, assuming you know your opponent to be overly aggressive, you should call on basically any river. If he checks the river, you should probably check behind because he will rarely call with a hand that you beat besides J-9, J-8, or maybe a middle pocket-pair.

In an earlier example in the expected value chapter, I mentioned that some hands could simply not be in your opponent’s range, even though every player would play a specific hand. Say there are a few limpers, you limp with A
-10
and the blinds check. If your opponent in the blind check-calls your bet on an A
-9
-8
board, there is little to no chance he has A-A, A-K or A-Q, as all but the most passive opponents would raise these hands over a bunch of limpers before the flop.