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.
Practice Matters
In the above example from a 6-max cash game
In the above example from a 6-max cash game (but this also applies to full ring), both players start with effective stacks of 120 BBs. A noted SVB opponent open raises to 3 BBs in the hijack and you call on the button with 9h8h. Everyone else folds and the flop comes: 6d7hQs. The SVB player continuation bets 5 BBs and you call. The turn is the 8d, giving you a pair and a draw. The SVB player bets 12 BBs into a pot of 17.5 BBs, and you call. The river brings the Kc, and the SVB player bets 25 BBs into a pot of 41.5 BBs.
At this point your pair of eights could be
At this point your pair of eights could be a reasonable bluff catcher against some opponents. Obviously some flush and straight draws missed, as well as some turned draws. Knowing your opponent can value bet light, he can easily have Qx, 66+, Kx, 78, 67, 68, 9T, 45 as well as the previously mentioned flush and straight draw misses and complete air. If you are going to choose between a raise or a call, then you have to do a quick mental run through of the number of combinations of straight and flush draws your opponent can have versus better value betting hands. Meaning, are there enough bluffs in his range, versus better hands he'd value bet that you can fold out?