Each street in deep stacked no limit play is important but some streets are more important than others. For example your hand selection is important in no limit Texas hold’em but position is even more important.
So how you play pre-flop will have a huge impact on your bottom line. However if you play badly pre-flop then you are playing badly while the pot is still very small but post flop is where you can make the really big errors that totally blow away any chance you have of carving an earn rate.
It is these big mistakes or stupid mistakes that you have to eliminate from your game. Against solid but uncreative and unsophisticated opponents then you basically only need a few major factors working in your favour to defeat them. The first is the patience to withstand short term variance.
If you can do that when your opponents appear to be hitting flops and their betting frustrates you then you have a great chance of making money. The second key issue is not to make big mistakes. I am not talking about just losing a pot here but making a stupid mistake.
In fact “stupid” is a much better term for it because when you make a bad play in poker purely because you have not thought it through or in many instances not even thought at all then you have acted in a fashion that is identical to if you had acted stupidly…..there is no difference.
In fact not only is there no difference but your “knowledge” and hard work have all been for nothing because you are simply not replicating what you know within the heat of battle. You could in theory raise or re-raise with any two cards pre-flop in no limit hold’em as long as you don’t make stupid post flop errors in huge pots.
While I am not advocating that you do so, it underlines that we each have certain flaws that highlight the importance of certain streets. For example a player may make too many poor plays pre-flop and so it could be pre-flop where their biggest leak lay.
Somebody else for example could play near perfectly pre-flop but be prone to playing fit or fold on the flop. So the flop could be their biggest weakness. Another player may simply not back off when pots start to escalate and so the turn and river may be their biggest weaknesses.
There will be times in poker where things just don’t go for you. Your opponent is 2/1 against making a pair in Texas hold’em but quite often they just make these pairs time after time and you end up bluffing money off.
As an ex-croupier then I am fully aware of the fact that any bet on a dozen is 2/1 against winning but yet I have seen countless sequences where the same winning dozen came up spin after spin.
In no limit Texas hold’em then the odds are worse because your opponent could have picked up a draw that they can hit and also started with a high pair that doesn’t need any improvement to continue. There will be times when your opponents simply don’t have anything and your raises and 3/bets and c/bets simply meet no resistance.
Some sessions though really test you because these things even out and when you have an aggressive style of play then you will incur greater short term losses. Another key factor in how you reach the turn is the level of equity that you have on the flop.
For example if you 3/bet with the 10c-9c after a cut-off player raises with you on the button and they call then the flop becomes important. If the flop comes Ad-Kc-5s then there is nothing wrong in actually checking this hand back. We can simply leave our commitment pre-flop if we so wish because our hand equity is very low here.
Checking the flop back allows us to see what our opponent does on the turn. If they check then a turn delayed c-bet stands a far greater chance of success as our opponent only has one card left with which to improve. I have seen many players really struggle with turn play but quite often what you sow on the flop is what you reap on the turn.
For example if you c-bet a board of 10c-9c-7d with a hand like Ah-4h then you are probably asking for trouble. The board has smashed the range of a caller in all likelihood and so with very minimal pot equity and fold equity then a flop check is more prudent.
If your opponent checks the turn then you have more justification for betting. If your opponent has a draw then they only have one further card to complete their draw and two checks are more indicative of a weak hand than one check on the flop.
Carl Sampson is a professional poker player who plays online at www.888poker.com
