Never stop thinking by Phil Galfond

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Nade Note: A wordy but great article with a very important concept. Must read. By High Stakes cash player Phil Galfond So, you’ve reached a level where you can consistently beat online $3/6NL cash games. You’ve studied the game and put in plenty of hours to get there. Congratulations, that isn’t easy. You take a look up at the $25/50 games and you realize that most of those guys have read the same books and put in even more hours of practice than you have. They know what you’re thinking. They know why you bet that river. They know what range of hands you would re-raise pre-flop in that spot. They have a practiced, conditioned, calculated, and standard response to all of that. So how do you beat them? As you begin moving up in stakes and start to play against knowledgeable opponents, you have to open up your game. One way to beat the solid, standard, multi-tabling online pro is to make him think. He’s used to the same situations. You make a pot size open raise from the button. He calls in the BB. Flop is A-Q-5 rainbow. He checks; you bet $30 into $44. He’s seen that scenario (or one very similar) hundreds of times, and he knows how to handle it. But what if you bet $10 into a $44 pot? What if you bet $87 into it? He would have to stop and think. He’d be in an unfamiliar spot and probably wouldn’t feel comfortable. Why do we have to bet a particular amount to full pot? In no limit hold’ em you have so many options. Why would you take a move out of your arsenal? The reason you should make nonstandard plays (and almost any play really) is to encourage your opponents to make a mistake. Please be careful. The key to utilizing your options well is to know why you are making the play you are making. DO NOT just go around making strange bets for no reason at all. Mixing it up Let’s get into some examples. The simplest reason to make a strange play is for image purposes: to affect what your opponents think of you. My friend Craig once told me about a play he loves to make. Three players limp to him and he has Js 8s in late position. Instead of limping along or putting in a large raise, he min-raises. Why? Just so his opponents think he’s an idiot. It’s a very cheap way to deceive your opposition, and it will pay off later in the night when they make mistakes against you based on how they think you play. Sometimes you can make a play for image and receive the added bonus of gaining information. You’re playing $50/100NL Hold’em with $10k stacks. You raise to $300 on the button and the BB calls. Flop is 9- 7-2 with two diamonds, and your opponent checks to you. You bet $150 into the $600 pot. Your opponent calls. Now, you’ve done a couple of things. You’ve probably made your opponent think you’re dumb, and you’ve learned something about his hand. There’s almost no way that your opponent can have two pair or better. On a flop that draw heavy, he would never just call with a big hand. He would raise to protect and make money off his hand. Now you can use your information to either bluff him off his weak hand later, or to slow down and get the most value out of your strong hand. You’ve also given yourself the option of seeing a river for very cheap, as he will likely check the turn to you. Here’s a big hand I played recently against a very good, very aggressive high stakes pro. We’re playing $200/400NL four handed. He has $47k and I have him covered (have more money on the table than he does). He raises on the button and I call in the BB with Ad 8d. Flop is K-8-6 rainbow. I check; he bets the pot ($2600); I call. Turn is an offsuit 6. I check and he pots it again for $6800. He is very aggressive and he would definitely bet K-Q for value on all three streets. He checks behind on the turn with probably K-10. He would also fire the turn but sometimes give up on the river with hands like 9s 7s, 7d 5d, 10-9, and the occasional complete bluff. I decided to call the turn. River is a ten. I check. He thinks for a while and then bets $15,200 into $20,400. Now, to call this bet I have to think he’s bluffing about 30% of the time (based on pot odds). I have a pair of eights, so all I can beat is a bluff. So, call or fold? Pick one, right now. I figured that he wasn’t bluffing 30% of the time. Maybe like 15-20%, which wasn’t enough for me to call, so... I... raised! I went all in for $36,000, leaving him $21,000 more to call. So, I was risking $36k to win $35.6k. This play had to work half the time to break even. So, I still win the pot the 15-20% of the time he’s bluffing. If he isn’t bluffing, he usually has a hand like K-Q or AA, which we have to get him to fold almost half the time in order to show a profit. (Note that even if calling is profitable, a raise may be even more profitable.) Making someone fold an overpair seems like a tough task, but look at the hand from his perspective: I called a flop with almost no draws on it. The turn paired the bottom card and I called a full pot bet again. There’s no chance I would call a draw there for a full pot bet on two streets. I have to have a made hand (meaning a pair or better). Now when I raise the river, his A-A can only beat a bluff. I don’t raise the river for value with A-K. So, with what hand could I call two pot-sized bets that now has to bluff to win? He timed all the way down and folded what I assume was an A-K type hand, and I raked in a hard-earned $52,000 pot. Don't overbluff A warning before I go: Don’t go bluff-raising every river. Your opponent has to be capable of putting you on a hand and making a big fold. The same thing goes for making strange bets. Know what kind of reaction you are looking for and whether or not your opponent will comply. The examples I gave here are just to show you how to think outside the box. I could’ve listed hundreds of spots where nonstandard thinking can help. Consider every option you have. Before you make a call or fold, think for a second whether a raise might be better and why. Before betting 2/3 pot, consider what betting 1/4 pot might make your opponent do. Even if you decide that the “standard” play is better, at least now you’re thinking about why you are making it. Good luck exploring your many options.

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Re: Never stop thinking by Phil Galfond The reason i like this article is i've played absolutely tons of online cash poker and it's REALLY evident that ALL 'regs' know how to play. Like it says: "They know what range of hands you would re-raise pre-flop in that spot. They have a practiced, conditioned, calculated, and standard response to all of that." It gets to the point of boring, when you know that they know virtually what you have and they know you know virtually what they have - excluding some anomalies where people are getting fancy and this invariably ends badly. Instead, we can throw some spanners in the works. A random min-raise or min check-raise in a small pot like it says in the article can go a long way to establishing an image of a 'bad player without costing too much. Being unpredictable means people can't put you on a good range of hands, and if they can't do that they'll make a ton of mistakes against you. The balance comes in playing some hands bad on purpose, but playing well in 99% of other pots. That's when experience becomes key.

[Pens87]

Re: Never stop thinking by Phil Galfond Thank you for posting this. It was a good read, and I think Galfond is the best!