Levels of Thought in Limit Hold'em

Sophisticated and unsophisticated thought processes during the play of a hold'em hand

Most people who populate poker tables try to play well. They throw away most bad starting hands, and they raise preflop with big pairs and A-K. Unfortunately for their results, they do not have a deep sense of how to play a hand with more advanced strategic analysis. They tend to play hands too passively, and do not take into account the hands their opponents are likely to hold. They may not appear to be playing badly, but they are playing at an unsophisticated level.

Recently, I observed a hand in which a player had several opportunities to make sophisticated plays and he did not make them, and it culminated with a major blunder on the river. In presenting the hand, I am making a gross oversimplification and pretending there are only two levels of thought: unsophisticated (U) and sophisticated (S). In addition, I of course have no idea what the player actually thought, so I am assuming some thoughts to justify his actions. My objective is to demonstrate what different thought tracks a sophisticated player and an unsophisticated player might take.

The hand: Playing in a $30-$60 hold'em game, the player, let's call him Josh, was in the cutoff seat with the K
J
. Everyone folded to the player on his right, who limped in. Now Josh had to think about what to do. Let's see what an unsophisticated player and a sophisticated player might think here:

• (U) I have two facecards and that makes an OK hand. It is too good to fold and not good enough to raise, so I call.

• (S) My opponent on the right limped in, and I am in late position. I clearly have too much of a hand to fold, so I must decide between calling and raising. The button and blinds are pretty tight, so if I raise, I have a good chance of getting heads up with the limper. I'm not sure whether I have the best hand or not, but raising will give me control of the hand and force him to make a hand to stay in. (For example, if he has A-9, he has the best hand, but will check and fold on most flops.) Plus, if I can get the blinds to fold, the dead money will add up to long-term profit for both of us. And finally, I may be able to force out the button and act last throughout the hand, which would give me a greater edge. Of course, raising may backfire in many ways. Perhaps the button or the blinds have great hands, or the limper could make something and beat me. But if I allow the blinds to play for free, I will have no idea what they have and won't know how to react to them. All indications are to raise, and that's what I should do.

Josh made the unsophisticated choice and called. In fact, we will see that Josh made the unsophisticated choice throughout the hand.

After Josh's call, the button folded, the small blind completed the bet to $30, and the big blind (a professional player) checked. The flop came A
J
10
. The small blind checked, and the big blind bet. The limper folded, and it was back to Josh. Again, we can look at the possible thoughts of an unsophisticated player and a sophisticated one:

• (U) Let's see. I have middle pair, decent kicker, and a gutshot-straight draw and backdoor-flush draw. There's no point in raising when I may not have the best hand. Certainly I can't fold a hand this good. I call.

• (S) The big blind is leading out into a crowd on a suited, connected, Broadway board that probably has hit at least one of us, and maybe more. This is not a flop he would think he could bluff into, so he must have a good hand, or a very good draw. He might have the nut straight, an ace of some kind, a hand like mine, or a big draw. But he is a professional player, so he is not betting out just because he has a hand. He would know the first limper, who entered the pot voluntarily, is more likely to have a piece of the flop than the small blind is, who simply threw in one chip.

Therefore, he typically would like to check-raise to put pressure on the first limper, which he would do with a mediocre hand like A-rag. [Note: Many players like to check-raise with very good hands, but most pros use the check-raise on the flop as a means of thinning the field when they have a decent but vulnerable hand. With an excellent hand, most times they encourage action.] But he is betting out, and therefore does not have a mediocre hand. He most likely has either a hand worth three-betting or a very big draw. I can find out a lot by raising. If he is on a draw, I have the best hand and can gain by putting in more money. If he three-bets, I know I am well behind and can play my hand as drawing and not as the best hand. In addition, I can increase the stake for the small blind, so that he does not call with a hand like Q-rag, hoping to hit a gutshot and beat my two pair if a king comes. Certainly, a call is possible, but a raise has lots of advantages.

In the actual hand, Josh called. The small blind folded, and the turn was the 4, putting a possible flush on the board. The big blind bet. The two possible lines of thought were:

• (U) Great. Now I have a flush draw as well as my straight draw and pair. I have lots of outs. I call.

• (S) I wish I had raised so that I would have a better feel for where I am. One of the primary draws got there, so my opponent might have made his hand if he was drawing. If I had raised, he would now be forced to bet out with the flush, giving me useful information, or check and risk missing a bet. This aggressive professional would never check here because he was afraid of a flush, so I have learned nothing and might be drawing dead. On the other hand, he still might have two pair, in which case I have flush and straight outs of my own, or he might have flopped a straight, in which case I have flush outs. I can raise to represent a made flush and still have outs if he calls, but that is unlikely to work if my original read was correct that he does not have the sort of mediocre hand I might get him to lay down.

Unfortunately, I am forced to call here and await the river.

Interestingly in this case, both the sophisticated and unsophisticated thought tracks lead to the conclusion that a call is the correct play. My students sometimes wonder why I will not read hand records to analyze their play; instead, I request that they write up or talk their way through the hands they have played. Here, the reason becomes clear. Both a sophisticated player and an unsophisticated one will call on the turn, but they reach this determination by using very different logic. What matters most in analysis is not the action taken, but the thinking that led to it.
So, Josh called, and the river was the Q, making the full board: A J 10 4 Q. The big blind bet again, and Josh had to decide what to do.

• (U) Great. I made my straight. I raise.

• (S) OK, I made a straight, but what is going on here? This is a very scary board, and everyone in the room can see the possible straight. What is the professional player doing betting into me on a board like this? Why isn't he worried about the one-card straight? In all likelihood, he has the same hand himself, or he made the flush on the turn. Of course, it is possible he is betting a hand like A-J, hoping to get a crying call from me if I have a hand like J-10. But in this case, he will recognize my raise for what it is, and simply fold. After all, I recently read a column by Barry Tanenbaum titled
Dangerous River Raises (available at CardPlayer.com) that discusses similar situations. I can't see any way that I can make any money by raising here against a pro, and I sure can think of ways to lose money. I call.

Josh raised, and eventually lost to the pro's flush.

Analysis: Josh's unsophisticated choices came back to haunt him. Had he raised preflop, there is a good chance the pro would not have been in the hand at all (he held the Q 9), but we will never know. Had Josh raised on the flop, the pro probably would have bet the turn when the flush card came, at least giving Josh considerable warning about raising on the river. And, of course, when Josh should have called on the river, he made a bad raise, looking at his own hand and not considering what his opponent might be thinking.

Conclusion: Most important in any situation is deciding how your opponent plays, and what types of hands he might have in order to take the actions he has taken. The more you can think about your opponents' hands and actions, and how they might be reacting to you, the greater your chances of success.

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