The difference between amateur poker players and professionals is the professional truly understands the art of betting. They know how to maximize there wins and minimize their losses. To truly be a good poker player one must understand and recognize the betting patterns and strategies that professional poker players already mastered. So I have set off to write several articles on betting strategies and patterns that poker players need to understand. I by no means consider myself a poker pro, but merely a student of the game. I friend of mine once said, that in order to truly master something you must be able to teach it to others. In my articles I will attempt to teach these betting patterns as well as some of the strategies behind them. My ultimate goal is to start a dialog with other poker players who read my articles an offer comments about them. I am writing these articles with the assumption they are being played in a NLH tournament. The first article I have chosen to write about is protection.
In poker, one of the motives for betting or raising is to give your hand protection, which means to encourage opponents to fold a drawing hand that might otherwise improve to beat yours. This is usually done with made hands. Let's examine the possible situations where someone would bet for protection. You have a high pocket pair in early position. You have a high pocket pair in late position with multiple people limping into the pot in front of you. You hit your set on the flop and there is a flush or straight possibility on the board. These are some of the situations where you would be for protection. So now we understand the situations, how much do we need to bet?
Earlier I stated poker professionals know how to maximize their wins and minimize there losses. The betting amount is directly proportional to this. So let's analyze the following pre-flop scenario. You have been dealt AA in late position. Four people have limped in and the small and big blinds have yet to act. In the pot right now there is 5.5BB (Big blinds). Pocket Aces is the best starting hand and surely worth more than 5.5BB. If you were to limp in you would have four and the potential for six people to play against you. Against each person you are at least a 5 to 1 favorite. However, they are actually a favorite to beat you. This means 1 of the 6 are a favorite, so you have no choice to bet to eliminate some of the competition but you also want to win more than the 5.5BB that's in the pot.
So we have established you can't limp in, how about going all in. If you go all in you would certainly push some of the limpers out. Going all in is risky; it just might win you the pot right there which means you only won 5.5BB hardly worth the effort. So this begs the question how much do you bet?
My recommendation is about a half the pot bet. The reasons for this amount are:
· You have a good chance to eliminate some of your competition.
· The blinds could reasonable fold to that bet.
· You also look like you might be just trying to steal the pot and one of the limpers would certainly call.
· One of the blinds could call that bet.
· Betting half the pot will also conceal your hand.
This is by no means complete. There are other aspects of the game you must be aware of. In order to keep this article short I will just mention these. Before you bet you must be aware of the play of the table and others at the table. For example a tight table you might want to only bet 30% of the pot and against a loose table bet 75% of the pot. If you know a player will call an all-in bet then that is certainly an option too.
So let's examine the post flop possibilities. Let's assume your half pot bet resulted in heads up action. What do we do now? Well the first thing we have to do is examine the flop. There are three scenarios we must look at, a non-threatening flop, a threatening flop and a favorable flop. First, the non threatening flop we are pretty sure we have the best hand at this point but we still need to make a bet here. Some might argue to check and bet on the turn to allow the player a chance to catch up, but I think this is the wrong move. AA with no help on the flop is certainly worth the 10.5 BB that's in the pot. I would recommend a bet of 60% of the pot here. You are giving your opponent less than 3 to 1 on his money which if he is on a draw is not the correct odds and if he is a weaker player he would call this bet hoping to draw out on the turn or river. As long as the board is non-threatening I would keep betting 60% of the pot all the way.
Now let's examine a threatening flop. Let's assume there is a straight or flush possibility on the board. Let's also assume you have the best hand right now. You need to protect your hand in this situation. I would recommend a pot bet or better here. A pot bet indicates you have a strong hand. You are also only giving 2 to 1 on your opponent's money to call this bet. You still might get a call, but it's going to hurt the caller if he does not hit. Assuming the turn is favorable to your opponent I would be done with this pot, however if the turn misses I recommend betting the pot again, I would do the same on the river.
You just hit the flop. You now have a set of Aces with no flush or straight possibilities. This hand is certainly worth more than 10.5BB that are in the pot. The problem is the Ace is going to scare your opponent. So what do we do here? Many people recommend slow playing this hand to allow your opponent to catch up. Others recommend you bet. I am a firm believer that you should bet. I don't recommend slow playing this hand. There are two bets you can make here. The first is a 3BB bet. You will appear to be weak; your opponent might believe you had pocket pair less than an Ace and will think you are scared and try to come over the top of you. You could also bet the pot here. Your opponent might sense you are trying to push him out of the pot because of the Ace and he might call, he might also come over the top. In all cases you either increase the size of the pot or win out right. Let's assume your opponent called either bet. I would keep the same betting pattern all the way to the end of the hand.
So now we understand what protection is and have played a hand I would like to hear any comments about my article. Please PM me or participate in the discussion in the forums . In my next article I will be talking about Probe and Continuation bets and there uses.
