Pot Control
Marcus Bateman
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Marcus Bateman /
01 December 2008 /
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One of the most important things you need to learn to become successful at deep stacked, big bet poker, is to be able to exercise pot control on a regular basis.
The reason for this is actually relatively simple - big bets nearly always mean big hands in these forms of poker, and often when you hold a strong, but not super strong hand, you want to try and put yourself in a position where you don't have to call a monster bet late in the hand.
A classic example of this is playing a strong top pair in no limit hold'em. Although top pair is a powerful hand, often it is not the sort of hand you want to get all of your chips in with, and I recently played a hand that illustrates this well. I was playing £2/£5 live with a few regulars at a local card room. I raised ace king off suit on the button to £17, and a skilled player defended from the big blind. We both had over £500 in front of us.
This player is a good player, but one who still underrates certain hands and overrates others, as well as playing a bit too fancy at times. He frequently floats and check raise bluffs - so any hand against him is always going to be a tricky ordeal - especially with a hand like ace king that only usually turns into a pair at most.
The flop came out Ac9h5d and he check called a bet of £22 from me. The turn was the 10h and he checked. Many players continue to fire here - reasoning that they have top pair top kicker and should continue to build the pot. In this particular situation I think checking behind is a much better option, as it keeps the pot at a reasonable size if my opponent decides to make a large river bet.
The main problem is that this board actually hits my opponent's range very hard. He is good enough to nearly always re-raise ace jack or better pre flop, as well as fold any pair under aces (that is not a set obviously) on the flop. He is also solid enough to fold a very weak ace to my raise. This leaves exactly the hands that are beating me - ace nine, ace ten, maybe ace eight (ace eight is definitely the bottom of his calling range here from our history) and perhaps a set of fives as possible holdings. None of these are hands that I now want to be building a big pot against except ace eight - which is by far the least likely hand.
In the end I actually won this pot after he made a big pot bet on the river which I reluctantly called. He showed ace eight and I won a nice sized pot. My opponent later said he would have folded to a turn bet, but was convinced by my turn check that I was weak. This shows an extra advantage of pot control - it often puts your opponents off guard and wins you extra bets when they start value betting too thin. Keep the pot the size you want it to be - it will save you not only money but a lot of thinking late in big pots.
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