TOP #21 - Heads-Up On The End

[wallenborn]

In the last round, after all the cards are out, you must sometimes apply concepts totally different from those in earlier betting rounds.

Bluffing On The End

You should consider bluffing if you think your opponent will fold the winning hand often enough to make it profitable. If you bet half the pot, your opponent has to fold one third of the time or more to make your bluff pay off.


Last Position Play

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] After your opponent has checked: You can either check behind or bet. You should bet if you are a favourite to win if you are called. You should not carry this principle to such an extreme that you bet only when you have a lock. You should bet if you think your opponent will call with a worse hand than yours often enough.

[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] After your opponent has bet: You can fold, call, or raise. And you can raise for value or as a bluff. If you think your chances of having the best hand are worse than the pot odds, you should fold or, if you think your opponent will fold a better hand often enough, bluff-raise. If your chances or having the best hand are better than your pot odds, your should either call or raise for value. The same principles as before should guide the decision between calling and raising: raise if you think you are the favourite to win when you get called.


First Position Play

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] When you have a strong hand: Your goal is to maximize your expectation. If you think your opponent is likely to bet and call your raise if you check to him, you should consider a checkraise. If your opponent is more likely to call a bet than to bet if you check, you should bet the largest amount you think he will call. Also, if he has a second-best hand and is likely to raise your bet, you should bet, planning to reraise.

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] When you have a good hand that's probably a favourite: You have two options: bet or check, planning to call. You bet if your opponent will call with more hands than he'll bet with, and you check and call if he'll bet with more hands than he'll call with.

[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] When you have a good hand that's probably an underdog: You have three options: bet, check and call, or check and fold (a bluff check-raise is a remote possibility against players who are capable of very tough folds). You should check and call if your opponent will bet more hands than he will call with, including some hands you can beat. You should also check and call if your opponent will check many hands that will beat you, but bluff with some hands you beat. You should bet out if your opponent will call with more hands than he will bet. Finally, if your have virtually no chance of winning if you check and your opponent bets and you are an underdog if you bet and he calls, then the proper play is to check and fold if he bets.




Older threads:

TOP #1 - Beyond Beginning Poker
TOP #2 - Mathematical Expectation and Hourly Rate
TOP #3 - The Fundamental Theorem of Poker
TOP #4 - The Ante Structure
TOP #5 - Pot Odds
TOP #6 - Effective Odds
TOP #7 - Implied Odds and Reverse Implied Odds
TOP #8 - The Value of Deception
TOP #9 - Win the Big Pots Right Away
TOP #10 - The Free Card
TOP #11 - The Semi-Bluff
TOP #12 - Defense Against the Semi-Bluff
TOP #13 - Raising
TOP #14 - Check-Raising
TOP #15 - Slowplaying
TOP #16 - Loose and Tight Play
TOP #17 - Position
TOP #18 - Bluffing
TOP #19 - Game Theory And Bluffing
TOP #20 - Inducing and Stopping Bluffs

[wallenborn]

This chapter is written in a very limit-centric way, theory becomes simpler with fixed bet sizes. I tried to summarize with a little more emphasis on no-limit play.