Jesus Lederer
Rock Star
Silver Level
A common situation on texas hold´em is that you don´t know where you´re at in hand, specially after the flop. That happens too often when you hold middle pair or something like that. Now, what should you do when you´re on a situation like this? The answer is quite simple: bet. If you just keep checking and calling, then you will be dominated by the other players and you will never become a goo player. So by betting, you´re creating an image of what´s going on. Generally, if you bet there the players who hold weak hands will fold, also the player who hold medium hand will fold, because you´re representing that the flop helped you. And in the last case, the players who hold strong hand will either call or raise. So in that way, you can either steal a pot or make an easy fold, preventing traps.
This strategie makes you a more aggressive player, and it has its benefits, because if you start representing too much flops, then the players will start calling you knowing that you don´t have the best hand every time, so when you hit the monster, you´re probably gonna get called.
It sounds like i´m telling a perfect strategie, but you can say: "If you bet and get raised then you will fold, so if you keep doing this and too often you get raised, you´re gonna lose a lot of money". The answer is this: the key on this bet is to bet an amount of money that is not so low to be call by low pot odds, but not so high that if you get raised you feel that you´re pot committed and lose more money. It´s a medium bet. And obviously you don´t have to use this strategie on every single flop you play (but it´s highly recommended to represent the flop every time you raised preflop, because if you don´t do it, you are telling to the other players that you didn´t hit anything). Another profit of this strategie is that, for example, if you bet an X amount of money to represent the flop and you get caught by a player that raises you, then you will fold. If you keep doing this more times and the same thing happens, it´s good for you, because then when you hit the nuts the only thing you have to do is to bet that X amount, so the other players will say: "he´s trying to buy the pot again" and they will raise you. There you can either raise or call, hoping the player will try to buy the pot on the turn.
Betting the same amount is a part of representig the flop, but also you can take this in your advantage changing your betting patterns to steal more pots and become more unpredictable. With the same example as before, where you bet X to represent the flop and all players know that, now here is another situation: if you have a low pocket pair, the flop comes all overcards and your opponent has medium pair and checks, you have now to bet 3X, because if you bet X your opponent will call you even with medium pair, but if you bet 3X your opponent will asume that you really have to top pair or better.
Well, that´s all. If you wanna be more aggressive, at least try to incorpore this to your game and please tell me if it worked for you.
This strategie makes you a more aggressive player, and it has its benefits, because if you start representing too much flops, then the players will start calling you knowing that you don´t have the best hand every time, so when you hit the monster, you´re probably gonna get called.
It sounds like i´m telling a perfect strategie, but you can say: "If you bet and get raised then you will fold, so if you keep doing this and too often you get raised, you´re gonna lose a lot of money". The answer is this: the key on this bet is to bet an amount of money that is not so low to be call by low pot odds, but not so high that if you get raised you feel that you´re pot committed and lose more money. It´s a medium bet. And obviously you don´t have to use this strategie on every single flop you play (but it´s highly recommended to represent the flop every time you raised preflop, because if you don´t do it, you are telling to the other players that you didn´t hit anything). Another profit of this strategie is that, for example, if you bet an X amount of money to represent the flop and you get caught by a player that raises you, then you will fold. If you keep doing this more times and the same thing happens, it´s good for you, because then when you hit the nuts the only thing you have to do is to bet that X amount, so the other players will say: "he´s trying to buy the pot again" and they will raise you. There you can either raise or call, hoping the player will try to buy the pot on the turn.
Betting the same amount is a part of representig the flop, but also you can take this in your advantage changing your betting patterns to steal more pots and become more unpredictable. With the same example as before, where you bet X to represent the flop and all players know that, now here is another situation: if you have a low pocket pair, the flop comes all overcards and your opponent has medium pair and checks, you have now to bet 3X, because if you bet X your opponent will call you even with medium pair, but if you bet 3X your opponent will asume that you really have to top pair or better.
Well, that´s all. If you wanna be more aggressive, at least try to incorpore this to your game and please tell me if it worked for you.