*The painter ChatGPT “A tense poker game scene in a dimly lit casino where a player is struggling to decide whether to call or fold after facing a huge bet in Texas Hold’em.”
Turn Betting Strategy
Following on from the last post, let us consider post-flop (turn, river) betting strategy. Since one community card is added on the turn, it is easier to make stronger hands compared to the flop, so the evaluation of hands made at this point will need to be inflated compared to the flop. At this point, let us write down some points to note for each completed role.
1. Three of a Kind or More Hands
Depending on your opponent’s hand, you’re likely to be the winner, so bet aggressively. However, if you have three of a kind with community cards, it is not particularly strong, so you need to consider whether there is a possibility of getting a full house before making your decision. The things to be careful about when it comes to a flush or straight are the same as for the flop.
2. Two Pairs
If you have two pairs, one from your hand and one from the community card, you are likely to be the winner, so you can bet aggressively. If you have one pair made with community cards and another pair made up of one card from your hand and one community card, then it is essentially one pair (all players are dealt one pair), and it should be evaluated as a one pair according to the strength of the rank. In the case of a pocket pair and two common cards, the probability of winning will vary greatly depending on the rank of the pocket pair, so it is best to be careful if the rank is low. If you have a pair of community cards, there is a higher chance that there will be a player with three of a kind, so it may be best to take that into consideration.
3. One Pair (Top)
Although your chances of winning are lower than at the flop, if you still have the top pair of community cards, you are likely to be the winner, so it’s a good idea to bet aggressively. If the card revealed in turn is the highest ranking, you should be careful as there is a good chance that the cards have been reversed (or been reversed). For example, if the flop is Q, 8, 3 on QTo, it would be top pair, but if an A comes on the turn, it would no longer be top pair, so there is a possibility that the hand could be overturned by a player with an A.
4. One Pair (Otherwise)
The precautions for one pair are the same as for the flop. If there are many players remaining, one pair of middle or lower does not have a high chance of winning, but in heads-up (2 players remaining), you may be able to be aggressive depending on how your opponent plays.
5. High Card
If there are many players left, it is generally best to fold. In heads-up games, it depends on how your opponent plays, just like with a weak one pair.
Straight draws (15% chance of being made open-ended) and flush draws (less than 25% chance of being made) are unlikely to be made on the river, so unless your bet is low or it’s a check, you can probably give up on them.
River Betting Strategy
On the river, no additional cards are dealt, so betting action is decided with the hand already determined. By drawing two cards from the 47 cards excluding the five community cards, it is possible to think of \(\small {}_{47}C_2=1081\) possible hands, and by using a computer, it can be determined how strong the hand you have is within the range of possible hands. The higher the ranking, the higher the value of the hand, and the more aggressively you can bet on it. Of course, winning or losing is determined relative to the cards your opponent has, so even if you have the second strongest hand, you will lose if your opponent has the strongest hand. Since the cards each opponent will have in their hand are uncertain, in the end you have no choice but to gamble and bet.
I have actually created a program that calculates the ranking of hand strength when you are given two cards in your hand and five community cards, so if you are interested, I recommend you give it a try.
Post-flop Bluffing
If you are placing a value bet on the turn or river, you should simply evaluate the strength of your hand, but if you are bluffing on the flop, the question becomes whether to continue bluffing on the turn or river. This can also be broken down into patterns as follows:
| No Hand | With Hand | |
|---|---|---|
| Bet | Bluff Continues | Change to Value Bet |
| Check | Withdrawal | Fake |
There may be cases where a bluff on the flop can be changed to a value bet if a hand lands on the turn or river. On the other hand, there may be cases where value is lost on the turn (typically when your top pair is no longer top), and you need to decide whether to continue betting as a bluff or to withdraw.
If we draw a table showing the textbook progression when betting until the river, it can be represented as:
| Flop | Turn | River | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pattern 1 | Bluff | Bluff | Bluff |
| Pattern 2 | Bluff | Bluff | Value |
| Pattern 3 | Bluff | Value | Value |
| Pattern 4 | Value | Value | Value |
The question is what ratio of value to bluff should be for each pattern. It feels very difficult to strike a balance because if you bluff too much, you will suffer big losses when you are called upon. According to the recommendations in the book, a good balance would be to have Pattern 1:Pattern 2+3:Pattern 4 in a ratio of about 1:1:1. A good ratio is to convert about half of your bluffs into value, and if you find it difficult to get your opponent to fold with your bluffs in that amount, you should choose to fold moderately.
Finally, something I have often seen while playing is an aggressor who makes not-so-big CB on the flop and turn, but then suddenly makes a huge bet or goes all-in on the river. This is probably one of two patterns:
- A strong hand was completed from the beginning, but the other players played CB as usual so that they would not know. Or, a strong hand was completed with the river card.
- Although their preflop hands were strong, they had no hand between the flop and the river, so they made huge bets as bluffs to force other players to fold.
In short, a player who behaves like this either has a strong hand or, on the other hand, has a rubbish hand that doesn’t offer any hand at all. Taking the same action on such a polarized hand is apparently called polarizing. This makes it difficult to determine which other player it is, and if a huge bet comes on the river, it makes it difficult to decide whether to call or fold with a half-baked hand.
The good thing about this type of play is that it increases the number of cases where your opponent suspects a bluff and will call a big bet even if they only have a very weak hand (apparently calling a big bet on the river is called a hero call. Maybe a hero who challenges a bluff?). In other words, no matter how strong your hand is, if your opponent folds before the bet is large, you won’t be able to take away much in chips. If they are value betting only players, you will end up folding when they see an oversized bet and taking smaller losses. The purpose of this bluff is to mix in these bluff bets in order to get your value bets called as well. Since the ratio is pattern 2+3+4:pattern 1, it may be a good idea to set up a value:bluff ratio of about 2:1.
How to Play against Loose-Aggressive Players
In my last post I introduced the characteristics of a loose passive player, but this time I will show you the characteristics of a loose aggressive player. While we have speculated that loose-passive players employ strategies that make bluffing ineffective, loose-aggressive players can be characterized in contrast as players who are extremely fond of bluffing. The specific characteristics of the play style are as follows:
- Preflop, they come in with such a wide range of hands that it’s hard to tell which hands they’re folding with. They’re either coming in with all their hands, or they’re only folding hands that are half-way strong. Because they use weak hands such as 72o for bluffing, they may often have a polarized range of hands, either strong or weak. The bets are large, often with a 3-bet range (even with weak hands), and when there are multiple loose aggressive players, it often leads to a raising battle and all-in preflop.
- He has a strong tendency to want to be the aggressor (the last player to raise) preflop. After the flop, he tends to continue to play larger CBs regardless of the strength of his hand. In the end, he seems to win more often by folding other players with the strength of his bets rather than the hands he can make at showdown.
- They have little interest in playing hands that are close to winning or losing, so they fold relatively easily and tend to bet noticeably smaller amounts.
- Because they bet aggressively even with weak cards, the ratio of bluffs is inevitably high. They tend to become weak-willed when their bluffs are caught, and tend to leave the table when other players realize that they have a lot of bluffs in their hands.
- They use the polarized huge bet on the river described in the previous section quite frequently.
A textbook counter to this might be something like this:
- Enter with strong hands in the pre-flop. Loose-aggressive players often enter with weak hands, so you can increase your chances of winning. Only participate in a raising battle if you are willing to go all-in.
- Even if you don’t bet yourself, loose-aggressive players will bet on their own, so the basic strategy is to follow them by calling. However, if you already have a strong hand, you can raise in response to a bet, and they will likely reraise or go all-in even if it’s a bluff, so it’s a good idea to take advantage of this.
- In games where the odds are stacked against you, loose-aggressive players have no presence, so if you’re good at these games, take advantage of that.
- Try to observe the frequency of when they have value and when they are bluffing. If a player is bluffing a lot, you can take a lot of chips by calling and raising aggressively according to the frequency of the bluffing.
- Observe whether there are any patterns in value bets and bluff bets. Even if they seem to be betting in the same way, if you can find a certain trend, such as betting larger amounts only for bluffs, you may be able to distinguish between value bets and bluffs to some extent.
In summary, if you can effectively utilize his tight-passive playing style (although you do need to be aggressive when it’s necessary), he can be seen as an easy player to beat. This playing style could be said to take advantage of the fact that many players are more likely to fold to CB and large bets. It may be that the point is to call or raise without hesitation in response to CB or big bets, but I find this quite difficult.
It may seem paradoxical, but when playing against this player it may be ok to fold unless you are confident of winning the flop. You might think that a preflop bet would be a waste, but these players bet so large after the flop that their preflop bet looks small in comparison (some players also seem to want to lower their entry costs by being loose).
On the other hand, if you think you have a high chance of winning on the flop, you may want to go all-in in response to your opponent’s aggressive bet (which will invalidate their post-flop strategy). Even if their bet is value, the bet is still 50-50, but if they bluff, you can either take away the chips worth of their aggressive CB or have a high chance of winning. Since loose-aggressive players are willing to bet aggressively after the flop, I think there is a high possibility that they will go all-in. If you narrow down your hand well, you will have a higher chance of winning and will generally be able to take more chips. Since this is a strategy to exploit aggressive CBs, players who make money with aggressive CBs after the flop seem to be quite unhappy when their opponents adopt this approach.
Finally, inexperienced players may feel overwhelmed playing against a player of this style. To be honest, I myself am not good at this player type (I wrote that it is easy to win, but I don’t want to go all-in on the flop). If you find yourself struggling, it’s worth pointing out that one strategy is to just leave the table.
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