One of the key areas that leads to many players having problems with their poker game is when they take advice from higher level players and then try to use that advice at lower levels. Let us look at an example here to highlight what I mean. A higher level player may play a hand like this at NL600. It is folded around to a very aggressive player on the button with a stack of $761 who makes it $18 to go. The pro in the big blind calls with the Kc-10c and we see the flop with $39 in the middle.
The flop comes down Ac-Ad-5s and the pro with an $813 stack checks. The pre-flop aggressor bets $26 and now the pro understands the weakness of their range. The chances of villain holding an ace are massively reduced and if they are aggressive then they will be firing with a lot of hands that have missed. The pro is actively looking to exploit a weak range by trying to get their opponent to place the maximum amount of money into the pot and then fold. So they could check-call the flop and go to the turn and then possibly look to check-raise the turn.
However their opponent will be perceptive enough at this level to suspect that their opponent will have a polarised range when they do this. It often works in your favour for your opponent to suspect that you may be polarised because it can entice them to bluff raise. So our hero goes for a flop check-raise line and when they bet $26 he makes it $72 to go. Their opponent takes the bait and 3/bets to $240 and our hero shoves all-in. If the villain really did have an ace and suspected that his opponent was bluffing then why would they 3/bet the flop?
However in say the NL25 stake levels then this line is going to get you into a world of hurt. It is fine to call the pre-flop raise because your hand fares well against the range of an aggressive button player that could be raising with around 45% of their range. In fact our hand is doing well with around 54% equity against that range. Also once the flop comes then our equity hardly moves at all against their entire range and is still around the 52% mark.
Our opponent will also suspect that our range is wide but when we check-raise the flop will simply fold their air and even medium pocket pairs. One play that they will not make is to 3/bet with air and so this makes our flop check-raise profitable (as long as we get the bet sizing right) but not the shove. These are the types of differences that middle stakes strategy have with regards to comparing it with low stakes strategy. It is also why taking advice from top players that are playing and discussing higher middle stakes games can be a mistake.
Forcing your opponent to have a hand when the big money goes in is successful in middle stakes games because your opponent’s aggression levels are so much higher. So they have wider ranges when the pot expands because they expect aggression. However as soon as our opponent 3/bets the flop at say NL50 then they are doing so for value unlike at say NL600 where bluffs represent a large part of their range.One of the key phases of transition with regards to playing and making money in online poker is to understand when your opponent is betting or raising for value or as a bluff or in some cases combining the two. For example if the aggressive button had say the Kd-Qd then they are not essentially bluffing when they open raise on the button. Although they do not have a hand that can take massive amounts of heat, they are still going to get called by many weaker hands in the blinds.
Carl Sampson is an online poker pro and 888poker ambassador
