Pot Control -- actual meaning (longish)

[EverettKings]

A big step in the development of an NL player is the day that he learns that things like checking behind with AK on an AJ3,8 board after betting the flop might be a good idea (if that idea seems foreign to you, stop reading now). But I've gotten the feeling that A) some don't completely understand why/when this can be a good play, and B) some don't realize that this is only one of many types of examples of pot control. So, we start with a definition:

Pot control (paht cuhn-troll), n. -- the concept of underplaying or overplaying a hand in order to favorably adjust the size of the pot for later streets.

Applied to the above example:
When you check behind a vulnerable made hand like top pair, you are underplaying a hand in effort to reduce reverse implied odds, as on the river the pot is smaller and a big sneaky hand can't make you pay as much. It is also adding some implied odds by sometimes earning a river value bet from a hand that might fold the turn (like ATs) due to fear of a river bet (in other words, the small pot helped you earn a bet too). AK figures to be the best hand a lot, so betting is the natural choice, but in this case underplaying (checking) is often correct.

BUT also notice in the definition:
[ QUOTE ]
underplaying or overplaying

[/ QUOTE ]Many people overlook the second half.
Say you call a raise in position with 55 and the flop comes down A95, and the preflop raiser bets into you. If this guy has a weak Ace or JJ or some garbage, a raise almost always shoves him off his hand. A lot of players will smooth call in this spot to try to milk medium/good made hands, or try to induce another bluff on later streets. He may be more likely to make mistakes like this, but his bad bets/calls will usually be relatively small fractions of his stack.

If you raise, you instantly make the pot bigger. If he makes any more mistakes in this hand, they are going to be exceedingly expensive and likely cost him his stack by the river. If he doesn't muck his AK here, you can likely get all of your chips in over the next 2 streets. And if he decides to get fancy and bluff again, his error is now enormous and instead of him bluffing off 20% of his stack, he might now blow everything.

This is also part of why semibluffing is so profitable. If you raise with a draw in this spot, your payoff is likely to be big if you get there (as the pot is bigger and your hand is someone concealed), while you won't have to spend a cent if you miss (but may find another profitable bluff).
The idea is that you are in a much better spot to get paid off than pay him off, therefore you juice the pot.
The opposite is also true (as in the AK hand).

Finally, stack sizes often tip the scale one way or the other. In the 55 example, if the villain had only another 40 BBs, smooth calling is probably the way to go, since getting his chips in is pretty simple over the next streets. But if the players both have 400BBs? A smooth call probably saves AK a huge chunk of his chips, whereas a raise often annihilates a full 400BBs. Sick! This is a key to how good deepstacked LAGs make money. Along with hand reading, they build pots in the right spots and make their opponents' mistakes very, very expensive.



I don't want to get too technically into the details of any example I've thrown up (I came up with them on the fly, maybe they're not the best), but I thought some general discussion on what it means to exercise pot control would be useful to the forum. It's definitely among the most important concepts in NL poker, but (IMO) hasn't been properly addressed on the boards. More examples, hands that people are unsure about because of weird pot sizes, etc would be great to throw up here and discuss.



-Everett

[DJ Sensei]

good thoughts, although i'm not sure anything here is particularly new or exciting. most good msnl players know/think about pot control well enough.

ssnl could definitely benefit from a crosspost though.

[Big_Jim]

mmmmmmm semantics

[EverettKings]

[ QUOTE ]
good thoughts, although i'm not sure anything here is particularly new or exciting. most good msnl players know/think about pot control well enough.

ssnl could definitely benefit from a crosspost though.

[/ QUOTE ]


I wasn't trying to be groundbreaking. I feel like good players have an intuitive understanding of pot control that isn't often put into words. Kinda like if you have a good golf swing, it helps to talk about exactly why it's good, instead of just saying that it "feels right".


[ QUOTE ]
mmmmmmm semantics

[/ QUOTE ]

mmmmmmmm what?





I think I'll dig up some hands, that might be more useful.

[Big_Jim]

[ QUOTE ]
mmmmmmmm what?

[/ QUOTE ]
The fact of the matter is that when referring to pot control, people are always talking about keeping the pot small with a good/not great hand.

Coming out with a different definition of the word doesn't really change that.

Where did you get that definition, anyway?

[EverettKings]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
mmmmmmmm what?

[/ QUOTE ]
The fact of the matter is that when referring to pot control, people are always talking about keeping the pot small with a good/not great hand.


[/ QUOTE ]
I know that's how people use it, but I'm saying it SHOULD refer to more than that. I just feel like people don't use pot considerations explicitly very often. I hear "I want to play a big pot here" but it's often more complex than that.


[ QUOTE ]

Where did you get that definition, anyway?

[/ QUOTE ]

My head.

[Dan BRIGHT]

I frequently practice "paht-ex-plo-shawn"