Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 19 June 2009 / Leave a comment

The term 'blocker bet' simply refers to a situation in poker where a player has a hand they want to call a bet with, but do not want to be faced with a big bet to call.

By leading out with a smaller blocking bet, often their opponent will just call this bet with a marginal hand, rather than making a larger bet if checked to.

This is particularly useful when playing against players who regularly over bet when checked to. Many players online habitually just bet pot any time they are looking to make even quite thin value bets, and against these players you can often save a lot making half pot blocker bets into them when you have a calling hand.

Blocker bets also help you save money when your opponent may have either a monster or a marginal hand by the river. Say you have a hand like ace ten against a tricky player who tends to overbet when checked too. Your opponent has called both flop and turn on a 10h7h2s4c board. The river is the Jh. Here is a great situation to lead out for a small bet if you are up against a habitual pot bettor. If they have a bad ten they will probably just call, giving you some extra value from your ten, but when they have rivered a flush they will certainly raise, meaning you only lose the half pot size bet.

If you check with the intention of calling though, most often you will be up against a pot bet from your opponent when they have a big hand, or just letting them check behind if they have a weak ten. In both situations you do worse than if you bet half pot, as when you are beat you lose a whole pot size bet, and when you are ahead you miss out on an extra half pot size bet from your opponent.

Being able to pick the right spots to make these sort of bets is crucial to success at the middle and higher limits. By thinking about what the best move is to both maximise value when ahead and minimise losses when behind, you put yourself in situations where you continually do better than your opponent when the shoe is on the other foot, and this is what makes poker profitable over the long run.

Setting Up Squeezes With Big Hands
Limping Big Pairs
Building Big Pots with Big Hands
Advertising Your Hands
The 'Float'

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