In poker a “semi-bluff” is where you bet at a pot when you don’t have the best hand but have a hand that has a good chance of improving to the best hand before the end of the game.

Playing limit hold’em sitting in the SB am dealt:

Four players call the BB and I limp, the BB checks and we see a flop:

Giving me an open ended straight draw (the better card being an 8 here as a king would give anyone with an ace a higher straight) and a flush draw. I have to bet on this flop for two reasons:

1. For value, my hand has a high chance of improving to likely the best hand before the river.
2. To narrow the field a little, I’d like to see hands like a pair of jacks or tens fold here as well as anyone holding an ace.

So I bet, three players call and the button raises.

This raise intrigues me, I wasn’t expecting it and now I have to re-evaluate my hand. What could he have? AK is possible, but unlikely this player is aggressive preflop and would have raised. QJ is a definite contender as is QT or JT. It’s also possible that he’s on the same draw as me, problem is if this is the case he may have king of clubs and another club and might have me dominated.

With all these variables I decide I cannot call this bet and if I want to keep playing this hand I must raise to try and get a feeling of where I’m really at, so I raise.

Only one of the original stragglers calls and the button re-raises to cap the betting. There is no doubt in my mind that I am now behind in this hand, my only hope is that the button is on a straight draw without any clubs as if he has any made hand he is calling to the river. My other worry is the third player in the pot who is just smooth calling, he’s new at the table and I have no read on him. It’s possible that he could be trying something tricky with a flopped straight but it’s more likely he’s on a weak draw or has a pair of queens, I’m not too worried about him at this point.

So I call, the straggler calls and three of us see the turn:

It’s unlikely that this card improves anybodies hand and I decide it’s a good card for me to push a little harder on. The players left in this hand probably don’t put me on a draw, I played aggressively on the flop and they must think I have a made hand, possibly the straight. If I bet here I can see just how much they like their hands and possibly get a clue as to what they are holding. There’s also a small chance they might fold. So I bet and to my surprise both players just call.

Both of these players just gave away two important details about their hands:

1. Their hands are weak or they are drawing
2. They think my hand is beating them at this stage

So armed with this information we see the river:

You might be surprised but this is actually a great card for me, it completes no draws (OK, before NickG busts me for not thinking about every possibility technically it could give someone a full house but after the play on the turn I’d bet my right nut that no one had a set ).

So my choices are either check and lose this hand or bet and hope that these players were drawing and will fold.

I bet, they fold and give me a pot worth 13 big bets.

Now, this post wasn’t meant as a bragging post about how I played. Far from it, in fact at the time I put that bet in on the river I expected to be handing this pot over to one of the other players.

When my opponents folded on the river I decided this hand needed to be analysed to determine why I won and what better place to analyse it than out here in public?

The key to winning this hand was representing a big hand on the flop when I was semi-bluffing, had I simply called the button’s raise on the flop I’m sure I would have lost this hand. I would have shown weakness and given away the fact that I was drawing (just as my opponents did by calling on the turn). The lesson to be learnt here is to always play your strong draws in limit poker aggressively and always ask yourself why your opponents make the moves that they do. You’ll need to treat each situation differently (what if I had been raised on the turn, what if the turn was an ace?) and only rarely will you get a chance to take control of a hand like this from early position, but when you do decide to play that semi-bluff don’t play weakly. Raise or fold, that’s they key!

This past week has been one of my most successful limit poker weeks since I first started playing.

Over on Poker Stars I’ve played just under 3000 hands since last Thursday and I’m up around 280 BB.

Now, I realise some of this is due to variance and I will admit at times I’ve enjoyed some good luck with the cards. Heck, even my pocket jacks have been holding up to the river! For example:

I’m first to act and raise, the player to my left re-raises and gets four (!) callers. A little nervous about my prospects I call to finish the betting round. So the pot is now 18 SB and we haven’t even seen a flop:

Player to my right checks, I bet, the original raiser re-raises and all except one calls. I really don’t think the re-raiser has a three, in fact given previous reads I have to say he could have any over card so I re-raise him back. He calls… and so does EVERYONE else left in the hand!

So going to the turn the pot is 16.5 BB:

I get that nervous feeling and just check this card (weak play? perhaps, but the action has been quite fierce up until now). The original raiser checks another player who’d just called up until now bets and myself and two others call, so we have 22.5 BB in the middle and the river comes:

Now there’s a flush on the board as well. I check. The turn bettor bets and everyone left in the pot just calls.

The late aggressor shows:

Everyone else mucks (checking back later the second best hand was pocket 7′s) and I take down a big multiway pot on a scary(ish) board with pocket jacks that didn’t improve. Good times!

Anyway, I’m getting off topic my point was supposed to be that it’s not all been good luck (though you won’t believe me after that example). I’ve made a few changes to my game which look like they are helping, these include:

1. Not underestimating the bad players, I have made mistakes before where I’ve played against the odds due to thinking that my opponents are poor players. While it’s often true that they are poor, usually at the levels I’m playing at they have exactly the hand they are telling you they have with their bets. Also, just because no one raised preflop, doesn’t mean my ace rag is good. The number of players I see just calling with big hands like AK and AQ is crazy, got to watch what they do after the flop.
2. Raising for value when appropriate, especially preflop. I haven’t been doing enough raising preflop, this past week I’ve been following Miller’s recommendations to the letter and it’s been paying off.
3. In addition to the above, being able to check or fold post flop if I’ve raised preflop and haven’t hit anything. This depends on opponents/position and potential to improve but unlike in NL hold’em a post flop bet on a low board isn’t scaring anyone (no one ever believes you have a high pocket pair at the tables I play on, which is nice when you do).
4. Never drawing unless the odds are exactly right. I’ve been guilty too many times of saying “Well, I’m almost getting odds” … almost isn’t good enough!

All pretty basic stuff really and stuff that I thought I was doing until I sat down and analysed some big losing hands, it’s amazing how plugging a few leaks (and getting some good cards) can make you feel a whole lot better about your game.

Good luck at the tables!

So, I’m playing limit hold’em over on Poker Stars and I’m feeling pretty good, working my way out of the downswing (still got a little bit to make up, but that’s neither here nor there).

In the BB I’m dealt the following:

Crap cards right? Well, the action is limped to me and I check to see a flop:

I hit an extremely unlikely straight, a “big blind special” and decide to push. No one is going to put me on these cards. I bet and a player who I have a note for saying simply “clueless” raises, I re-raise and he caps. I immediately put him on a set and begin rubbing my hands together. We see a turn:

A nice safe card for me, if he does have his set I’m a 77% chance at this point to take the pot. The betting is capped again and we see the river card:

ARGH! I’m sure he’s made his full house, but I check-call anyway and he shows me:

to scoop the pot of around 13 BB, what’s worse is this actually put me on tilt for the next orbit or so which while it didn’t cost me any money it did cause me to miss a few extra bets here and there when I was ahead.

To make matters worse, a few hands later in the SB I’m dealt:

The same player as the previous hand raises and I flat call (he’s been raising with anything so it’s hard to put him on a hand here), one other player also calls. The flop comes:

I hit my set on a scary kind of flop but bet out anyway, he raises, I re-raise and he calls, turn comes:

I think to myself “Uh oh, he’s done it to me again” but bet anyway to see where I am, he again raises and this time I call. We see the river:

Putting a straight on the board, meaning at best we’re splitting this thing. I check, he bets and I make a crying call for half the pot. What did he have?

A king high flush (and a better straight, for what it’s worth). By no means was this a bad beat, he had odds to raise that flop with his flush and straight draws (though by the way he had been playing I doubt he knew it).

In hindsight, perhaps I should have been a little more conservative here and folded to the turn raise. Truth is I couldn’t, there was no way I could put a player who sees over 60% of the flops and caps the betting with almost anything on the hand that he had.

When you get beaten, repeatedly, like this by a maniac player you’ve just got to keep calm, take the hit and smile knowing that next time you’re heads up with him you’re likely going to have the cards and experience to take his money.

As I’ve shared before I’m currently working hard on improving my limit poker game and so far I’ve been having quite a bit of success with it.

One concept I haven’t quite got sorted yet though is the use of a continuation bet when playing limit, for those of you who don’t know a continuation bet is one made when you have raised preflop with a strong hand but then missed the flop completely. In no-limit poker you can often make a bet large enough that it will scare everyone else away and you’ll take the already large enough pot. In limit, however, your continuation bet is only one SB which is hardly a scary proposition to anyone who even slightly hit the board and often your opponents will have odds to correctly call this bet anyway.

In an effort to improve my knowledge of this topic I went googling (strange, that word isn’t in the Google spell checker!) and came across the following excellent post on “Sounds of a Suckout” by ScurvyDog:

Continuation Bets With Overcards in Limit Hold’em

I’d highly recommend anyone interested in learning more about continuation bets in limit poker check this out, it’s a great read.

A couple of days ago I was playing at a micro no-limit table on Poker Champs and while sitting in the BB I was dealt:

2 callers around the table and I check to see a free flop:

I’ve flopped a gut shot straight flush draw and a high flush draw and figure it’s worth a bet, the pot is small (3 big bets) so I bet the pot. The opponent directly to my left raises and everyone else folds. At this point I put him on the jack and decide it’s worth a call (you could argue to re-raise at this point, but he had me out-stacked and I didn’t want to risk him coming back over the top) to see the turn:

If my read that he’d hit his jack on the flop was correct I really didn’t see him having the ace also (why limp preflop?) so I decide to push him a little more here and bet the pot again.

He folds.

This is where I make my only mistake of this hand, I flip over my cards to show him my semi-bluff and I immediately regret it.

In the heat of the moment with that “Show Cards” button in your face it can be so easy to click, but what does it achieve really? In this instance it achieved nothing for me, but revealed a great deal to ALL of the players at my table. They now knew I would possibly raise UTG on a draw, they knew I was likely to cold call a re-raise and they knew that I may try and push out of position without a made hand.

I’d let them have all of this information for nothing. If I had just mucked my cards they all would have been guessing and hopefully guessing wrong.

Truth is by showing my cards and then realising the amount of information I’d given away my game play actually suffered because of it, I stopped betting my solid draws/strong hands hand started waiting for monsters. My table image had gone from tight to loose and I was struggling to get respect from my opponents. In the end I had to leave an otherwise profitable table due to the games I played on my own mind!

Upon reflection of this little mistake I’ve come up with the following guidelines for showing your cards on-line:

• In general don’t show your cards after a bluff unless you are 100% sure it will put your opponent on tilt. Don’t forget you are showing the whole table your cards and the people that didn’t play the hand won’t care that you bluffed someone out of a pot. On the flip side this can be a good way to setup your table image as a loose player, which can work to your advantage in some circumstances. Use your best judgement.
• Don’t show your cards when you win with a made hand, keep them guessing… you want them to think you’re bluffing here.
• Don’t show your cards on a semi-bluff, as I wrote above you are just giving away too much information.
• You may show your cards when you make your monster hand (straight flush or quads), the awe factor alone is enough to make these worth showing.
• If in doubt, check the “Muck all losing/uncalled” button and simply never show. That will keep ‘em guessing!

In summary keep ‘em guessing and they’ll never know what you’ll be up to next and you’ll never be giving away more information than you intended.