Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 07 January 2009 / 1 Comments

This seems one of the most obvious concepts in poker, yet is one that you see ignored time and time again by weak players.

If you sit in any low stakes cash game and watch a few hands, you will very quickly see a player - or players - checking a monster hand, trying to be sneaky so that they can win a big pot through deception. Although this play works occasionally (mainly when it is made against overly loose, bluffing players), mostly you actually do yourself a disservice.

This is because although you have flopped a big hand, by checking and trying to trap someone, you can often just end up not only giving them free cards, but also simply not building a very big pot. Due to the fact that in 'big bet' poker (either pot limit or no limit - due to the size of bets possible), bets have to be made in relation to the size of the pot, to win those big deep stacked pots, you have to build the pot on nearly all streets to be able to reasonably get it all in by the river.

Although traps form a crucial part of poker, in nearly all situations when you flop big hands you should be betting out and trying to build a big pot. This strategy not only has the advantage of building a pot, it also deprives your opponent of free cards, and crucially, enables you to bluff much more easily. If your opponents consistently see you betting big hands against them, it makes it much harder for them to defend against your bets.

This concept is a classic example of how many people out think themselves in poker. It is a natural human reaction to think 'Oh I flopped a set, better check and try trick my opponents into thinking I have nothing'. The problem is that to win a large pot you will have to put in a big bet at some point - and that will immediately make your holding obvious. By betting out you leave your opponents mind much more confused - are you doing this as a bluff? Have you hit the board again? Surely you can't always have something when you bet?

It is under these sort of pressures that players start to make bad choices, and it is bad choices that eventually add up to profit in poker.

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