Maximising bets

What should you think about when betting a strong hand?

There’s a big difference between having a good starting hand and having a made hand after the flop. I’m a strong believer that if you slow-play good starting hands you get what you deserve, because you’re going to get your big pairs busted so many times. So the problem you face is working out how much to raise pre-flop with your big starting hands so you entice some action without getting multiple callers.

It’s difficult and something that you have to gauge more and more as you go into a tournament. You’ll find out how much action you get when you flat (minimum) raise. If there are people that take that as a sign of weakness then that’s how you can play your good hands as they’ll come back at you. What you’re trying to do is play your hands out of character so people don’t know where you’re coming from.

Do you always bet a standard amount with Aces?

Early in the competition I’ll put in massive raises with big hands. I don’t care if I don’t get any action – the blinds are 25/50 and it’s early days. I’ll either put in 50 so everyone can play and be looking to hit another Ace for top set or I’ll put in a big raise and hope someone wants to gamble with A-K, K-K or Q-Q.

If I see a flop and play out a hand I’ll be very wary of my hand and not like it unless it develops into a monster. Otherwise I’ll want to get all my chips in pre-flop and this is why: I’ve busted Aces and been busted when I’ve had Aces so many times in early stages of tournaments.When you pick them up in the first level and the blinds are tiny, you can raise four times the big blind and easily get three or four callers. When the flop comes 4-5-8 you’re probably not ahead anymore, but it’s difficult to lay Aces down on a flop like that.

How can you tell if someone is willing to get it all-in on the river?

You have to work out each bet as it comes, but keep an eye on both your stack and the other players’. If a player bets 400 and you make it 1200 to go on the flop and get called, and then you bet half the pot on the turn, which is again called, you should pretty much know that you can get it all on the river.

If those kinds of raises and bets have been called they’re usually saying that they’ll call a big bet on the river, too. How do you get paid off when you flop a monster? I play all my big hands strong because you can check a hand to death. If the flop is K-K-Q and you have K-Q, what are the chances of the other guy having a hand? Not good.

So what are you waiting for? Check and check and check? If you’re playing in a raised pot, which you always should be – it’s one of my rules – and that K-K-Q flop comes down and you make a big bet after an opponent’s checked, several things are going to go through his head. The first is that he’s immediately going to think you haven’t hit that flop hard, because why would you be betting it?

The next thing he’s going to think about is whether he has a hand which he can take you on with. He might go for it with 9-9 or 10-10 and would certainly take you on with A-Q or A-K, and then you’re going to get paid off big. By betting you’re also giving your opponent the chance to bluff, because realistically it’s out of character to come out and bet if you’ve flopped a full house.

How should you plan your betting down the streets when you might need to bluff at some point?

You’ve got to work on stealing a hand with smart betting. Ask yourself, ‘If I raise my opponent back here and they call, have I got any space for manoeuvring left? They’ve only got x amount left so will they have to call with pretty much whatever they’ve got?’

If you put someone on the nut flush draw and their Ace-high is beating you, even if they miss their draw on the turn, you don’t want to build the pot up on the flop to the extent that you can’t knock them out of the hand because they’re so short-stacked that they have to call. If someone bets the pot and you’re putting them on, say, a club flush draw you can just flat-call them on the flop. Then, if the turn isn’t a club and they, as first to speak, bet the pot again, that’s the point at which you want to raise them back, enough to take them off their hand.

They’re not going to stick in the rest of their money just in the hope of hitting a club on the end. But you can’t afford them to see the last card because they’re winning anyway. So you have to work out if you have enough chips that a raise will get them to lay their hand down and if they’ve got enough chips back to feel that they don’t have to go all-in.

Should you mix up your bets when you just want to steal the blinds?

I like to make a flat-raise early on [rather than the standard three to four times the big blind] to see what reaction that gets around the table. In other words, does everyone call, or does it scare people? If the blinds are 25/50 I make it 100, just to find out how people react. Then what you do is keep raising, to a greater amount up until a point whereby you find a level people pass at.

Once everyone sits down most people make a standard raise, but when you’re trying to take the blinds with a button raise you don’t necessarily have to risk those amounts because you can get as much of a reaction – getting people to pass – with a lot less. Always probe to find the amount that will let you get your hand through so when you want to steal the blinds at a later stage in the tournament, when the blinds are 500/1000, you know you don’t have to bet 3000 to take it. You might be able to get it through with just a 1000 raise.

Betting and calling is often talked about in terms of positive EV (expected value). Could you explain the concept of ‘positive expectation’ in simple English?

What you’re doing in many situations is making a bet to hit a hand based on the fact of how many chips you’ve got and how many chips your opponent’s got.

If you’re an 8/1 shot but only getting 4/1 on your money, you’d think that it’s a definite fold. But if you’re convinced that when you hit that hand you’re going to get a big chunk of your opponent’s stack, if not all of it, it now gives you a lot of equity in the hand. EV is what you’re expecting to win if you hit your hand as opposed to what the ‘express’ odds are offering to hit your next card.