It’s been a long while since I wrote down my first lesson learned at NL, but for various reasons I discontinued my NL career and stuck to limit for another six months. Now I’m back and playing both about as much.

As the title of this post implies, the lesson I’ve learned now is that folding the flop when you don’t have much of anything is a really good idea. Of course, this goes hand in hand with the first lesson; the fact that I have fold equity is because people (correctly, and sometimes not) fold on the flop. Now, I didn’t “struggle” with this concept. In fact, I immediately started happily folding flops at the no limit hold ‘em tables like a champ. What got me thinking was about all those hands I “peel one off” with at the limit tables.

Hmm.

A case can be made for peeling with many hands on the flop in limit hold ‘em. The strongest case is usually that the pot odds are so good, whereas in NL they’re usually somewhere along 2:1 or 3:1. But even with good pot odds, what am I hoping to catch when I take one off with KJ on a 8-high board against two other players? A pair, clearly. But are all six of my outs live? Often they won’t be.

So now I’m folding a lot more overcard hands than I used to. In fact, I’ve even successfully folded a few bottom pair hands! I’m folding left and right, and feeling good about it. Instead, to balance things out, I’ve started re-raising with nothing sometimes. Y’know, to keep them guessing. And to occasionally lose a really big pot because I’m not good enough to give up my bluffs when it’s obvious that I should, but that’s a problem I’ll work on too at some point.

Speaking of points, what was mine? Oh yeah: giving up A6 on a Q-9-3 flop when the guy in middle position bets and it’s folded back to you in the BB is not a bad play. Sure, he might be making a continuation bet with KJ, but does he have that specific hand (or A5, or whatever) often enough for you to take the out-of-position 7:1 that you’re being offered? The problem with a hand like this is that if your ace outs are good, the implied odds for when you hit your hand aren’t going to be high.

In short: Fold the flop. Lots. If there’s one mistake that sticks out more than others - at least at $5/$10 shorthanded - it’s the really loose flop calls.