The Bets Tell a Story

Usually you aren't blessed enough to hold the nuts. In the uncomfortable position where several possible card combinations would beat yours, it is important to concentrate on the bets of your opponents and the stories they tell. If the story doesn't make sense, you often either have the best hand or you can bluff your opponent off his hand.

NOTE: In low stakes ring games, some players are simply not bluffable. Be careful with this.


The hand I'll use to illustrate my point came up today at a .25/.50 NL HE table at Royal Vegas.com.

Royal Vegas doen't provide hand histories, so bear with me. I limp from UTG with ATs. This table is passive enough to get away with this. One MP player limps, and the SB folds. The flop comes down QT7 rainbow. I decide to play it aggressively and I bet $1.50. MP thinks for a bit and makes it $3. The BB calls and it's $1.50 for me to call with a $9ish pot. I'm not convinced that MP has the Q and I'm going to be very wary of the BB, but since the price is nice, I call. The turn bring another Q. Here I'll be able to find out what I'm up against, I figure. The BB checks and I check. It's on the MP player, and I figure that if he just caught this third Q he'll check to induce the bluff on the river. He thinks awhile and finally bets $5 into the $10ish pot. BB folds and I keep replaying the hand in my mind. I don't think it's adding up. He only has $5 left behind him which is another reason I don't think he has it. A short player is more likely to risk giving a free card with trips, because he'd like to double up. He doesn't want to scare everyone out when his hand just improved on 4th. So I raise him all in. He thinks awhile, and I know my read was right. Eventually he calls with KJo. The river is a blank and I take down a $27 pot with second pair.