Q&A #96: A No-Limit Hold’em Postflop and Preflop Twofer (With Hand Reading)

December 18, 2007

Am I a donkey?

That’s today’s question from zoomraker. My answer is a definite no, but I would have played the hands he submitted a bit differently.

The first hand is a fairly common top pair postflop situation from a $0.50 buy-in no-limit tournament:

Instead of quoting the hand history directly, I’ll summarize for ease of reading.

It’s the near the very beginning of the tournament. The starting stacks were $1,500, and the blinds are $10-$20 with no antes. Nearly everyone still has around their starting stack, except for the initial limper in the hand who clearly doubled through someone already.

Three players limp to our hero on the button who has A K . Hero min-raises to $40 and gets called by the big blind and two of the three limpers. So there’s four to the flop for $40 each, and the effective stacks are still around $1,500.

Flop comes A 7 4 . Checked to the player on hero’s right who bets $120 (3/4 pot). Hero raises to $310 and gets called only by the bettor. (Pot now $790.) The turn is the 2 . Check, and Hero pushes for his remaining approximately $1,000 and gets called.

Are you a donkey? Certainly not. But I do have a few thoughts. First, I would definitely have raised more preflop. You’ve got the button and a terrific hand. Take advantage of the situation by putting some real money out there. It’s not really that minraising is bad, it’s just that a bigger raise is even better. There’s already $90 in the pot when the action gets to you, and since you’re obviously at least calling let’s say the pot is $110. That’s already fairly sizable when compared to your $1,500 stack.

As the pot gets large compared to the stack sizes, it makes more sense to “protect your hand” with raises designed to force your opponents to pay up or fold. With position I don’t think there’s any downside to following that principle. I would have made it around a pot-sized raise or perhaps even a bit more… maybe a raise to $150 or so. Minraising doesn’t press your advantage as much as you perhaps should have.

This is an excellent flop for your hand. You have top pair/top kicker, and your preflop minraise certainly doesn’t scream out, “I have ace-king!” So your hand is better than your opponents could suspect here, and there’s a decent chance they’ll have weaker aces. Once the flop comes out, I would be prepared to stick out a nice-sized bet to try to build a pot for myself.

But someone bets into you. That could mean trouble, especially since there aren’t any draws available. Betting into the preflop raiser on an ace-high board is a bit unnatural, and it often indicates a hand somewhat different from a “normal” betting hand. In other words, absent the preflop raise I think a flop bet here tends to indicate an ace with a kicker of variable strength most often. But given that you’ve raised preflop, I think an ace/no kicker hand is less likely. I would be concerned about a set or aces up. Just concerned, though, not convinced my any means.

As a result, I would react to the bet by flat calling. I do that for several reasons. First, I keep the pot smaller to reduce the chance that I get stacked by a flopped set or aces up. I may still get stacked, but I’m going to make my opponent work for it.

Second, I deprive my opponent of information. Say my opponent does have ace/no kicker, which is exactly what I hope he has (and presumably what you hoped he had when you raised him). If you were he and you bet ace/no kicker into a preflop raiser, what would be on your mind? You probably would be trying to “see where you’re at.” You’d be trying to figure out if your ace was good. You’d take a flat call as a cautiously encouraging sign, and you’d take a raise as an excuse to bail, no?

So I’d go ahead and encourage my opponent with a flat call. Two more betting rounds are available to get his money, and you have position. There’s no rush. If he has the hand you hope he has, you’ll get more chances to milk him. Why tip your strength so quickly?

Given that you raised the flop and got called, I can hardly fault your turn push on what looks like a total brick. That bet is fine, as far as I’m concerned, and it’s consistent with your flop raise.

So I would have raised more preflop. And given that you didn’t raise more preflop, I would have flat called the flop bet to see what my opponent did on the turn. If he followed up with an enormous bet, I’d consider folding. If he checked, I’d bet against a weak player and possibly check against a tricky one.

A final point about the hand-reading here. Your preflop minraise to some extent invalidates what I said above about betting into raisers versus checking to raisers. Your opponents won’t treat your minraise the way they would treat a “standard” raise. Preflop minraising can make postflop hand-reading somewhat more difficult.

Now for the second hand. The same structure tournament, except you’re short-stacked this time out with just $235 in chips. The blinds are $25-$50 with no ante. The table is eight-handed, and you’re under the gun with A9s. You pushed.

This push is a little loose with seven players to act. One of your seven opponents will have you dominated quite frequently, and you can expect to be called if you are dominated. With fewer players remaining – my intuition says around four or so – the push is fine. Your play isn’t terrible, but overall I think you’re better off passing.

One final point. The fact that these hands come from a tournament rather than from a cash game doesn’t change my analysis much at all. Since you’re relatively far from the money in each of these hands, the strategic differences between cash and tournament at these stages are minor.