Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
This is where balanced deception comes in and normally in most situations you'd bet this flop. We're trying to make it look like a botched squeeze play, or whiffed AQ, AK giving up. The plan is to make all of the money by the river against a range that on average couldn't handle more than one street of value. It can also be used as a pot control line against hands like 99, JJ, where you can call the turn and river if your opponent bets, or induce weaker hands to bet on the turn like TT, Jx. Neither of those hands will typically call more than a street for value in a 3-bet pot unless there's some history.
There's 31 BBs in the pot and the turn brings the 4c. Your opponent bets 15.5 BBs, and you just call. Lots of draws on the board now, and your opponent’s range won't contain very many draws having flat called from the small blind against an UTG raise, and calling a squeeze out of position. His hand is going to contain mostly middle and big pairs and a couple of big broadway hands like AQs. Your hand however can very well look like a turned draw, top pair, or botched squeeze that has middle pair.