Post-Flop Play – Part 2

Things you will learn:

• How to play once the flop has been dealt
• What to consider when deciding whether to stay in the hand
  

By now you should know how likely certain hands are to win in the overall scheme of things, general tactics for playing and how the possibilities for post-flop hands multiply as the flop, turn and river are dealt. But now it's time to go deeper.

Playing post flop in No-Limit Hold'em is all about 'feel' and aggression.

Feel is your sixth sense. It tells you when you can steal a pot with no hand or get away cheaply by folding a good hand in the face of a better one. It takes a lot of experience to develop but can also be honed by listening to and watching better players. If you're aware of the fundamentals of the game as well as how your opponents play, then you're already part of the way there.

Aggression, however, is what wins most of the time in No-Limit Hold'em, though it needs to be combined with feel to produce a winning strategy (for instance, knowing when to push harder or let up, and when to change gears).

Just bear in mind that the odds of having a pair are 16/1 before the flop, and that an unpaired hand will only flop a pair one third of the time. Once you know this you'll soon realise that many pots are there for the taking, especially if you initiate the action by raising before the flop.

Here are a few rough guidelines for dragging those pots your way.

A-A is the indomitable hand, though you need to have protected it with a strong pre-flop raise relative to your stack. By doing this you will usually have only one or two callers and your aim now is to continue maximising profit and minimising risk.

If the flop seems innocuous (say 3♣ 6♥ 10♠) then you might bet small to gauge your opponents' interest and feign weakness in the hand, turning up the heat slowly on later streets. However, if the flop is dangerous (eg, 10♥ J♥ 8♦) or a scare card comes on the turn to a good flop then you might lead out with a full pot bet to make drawing prohibitive.

Folding to a raise or all-in with A-A is difficult to do, but sometimes necessary. For example, you'd probably call a raise or all-in on the flop from most players, expecting them to have top pair or a big draw most of the time, but if this happens on the turn or river it's much more likely that you've been trapped and will need to carefully evaluate just what hands you can beat at this stage that would've delayed escalating the action on the flop.

Pairs below A-A all suffer from the fatal overcard syndrome. As soon as a higher card comes, they are in danger of being behind. The high pairs can mostly be played like A-A, unless the overcard comes, but bear in mind that it's less advisable to underbet them on the flop in case an ace-high calls you and hits.

When a single overcard does come you need to make a bet to find out if you're ahead or not, but be prepared to give up in the face of action, and if there are multiple overcards or players in the hand then proceed very cautiously. To show the likelihood of this, Q-Q is only even money to see a flop of undercards and with J-J the chances drop to around 36%.

Smaller pairs should be played slowly, not least because if you hit a seemingly perfect flop of 2♣ 4♠ 6♥ with your 8♣ 8♠ the chances of someone having a bigger pair are greatly increased. If you see a flop that looks OK, not many players are in the hand, or everyone seems uninterested, then take a stab - but don't get married to the hand unless you hit that set.

A-K is generally regarded as a powerful hand before the flop and a reasonable hand to raise all-in with in most circumstances if there's been an initial raise and you're short on chips. This is partly because playing it that way you get to see all five cards, whereas if you call and miss you're left in a quandary. If you do hit a pair, though, and have raised plenty pre-flop to drive out the draws then you can mostly play it like A-A and hope to trap someone with an inferior hand into committing a lot of chips.

The flip side to this, however, is that with weak aces or picture hands like Q-J you can easily be the one getting into trouble against a bigger hand. As a result, it's necessary to proceed with caution. For example, A-Q, A-J and K-Q will rarely lose big pots to A-K on the flop and so can be played with some security in Sit & Gos, short-handed and weak games, but they're not hands to re-raise all-in with often, nor a signal to put in a lot of money in a deep-stacked cash game.

Needless to say, then, you should be playing even weaker hands like A-7, Q-J and K-10 with caution and position if you play them at all. Be prepared to bail out if the action heats up and you have only one pair.

These are hands like 7-8 suited or 9-J suited that have the potential to make both straights and flushes but which you're going to get away from easily if the flop doesn't connect with you. They're best played only in deep-stacked or passive games unless several players have called already, or you fancy raising with them late to add some deception to your game.

What you're looking to hit is a minimum of a two-way straight draw (eg, a flop of 5? 6? K? to the 7? 8?) or two more flush cards, in which instance you will complete your hand roughly 35% of the time by the river (slightly more for the flush and less for the straight). That said, if you also have overcards as outs then your chances will increase, eg, a flush draw with a live ace is almost even money to a high pair. Bear in mind, however, that card by card your odds are somewhat less and so you should only be calling small or medium-sized bets on the flop unless the stacks are deep and your implied odds are high.

Beyond this, you might hit a combination hand, like a pair and a flush-draw or a straight and flush-draw. With these hands you can call full pot bets and also raise aggressively or go all-in as a semi bluff if the stacks are short. Your chances of winning by the river are rarely much less than even money and by raising you can represent a made hand and increase your equity even further.