Poker Strategy With Ed Miller: Four Plays I Make Frequently

Last issue I wrote about some plays that other players make that I never make. This time I flip it around. These are plays that I make frequently that I see other players use less often.

Preflop Reraises From The Blinds

Ok, I DO KNOW I’m not the one one available in the market reraising from the blinds. But few players in my games do it quite as often as I do.

In fact, I check with numerous players who rarely reraise after they are within the small or big blind. Most frequently, these players say they don’t need to build a large pot out of position. They’d rather just call and spot a flop.

In my opinion, this thinking is backwards. Reraising is among the strongest plays you can also make to give protection to your blinds and negate your opponent’s positional advantage.
I use this play most often (by far) against an opponent who has raised from late position in a blind-stealing or limper-punishing situation. Let’s say it’s a $5-$10 no limit hold’em game, and everybody has folded to the cutoff or button, who opens for $30. Or let’s say that two players limp in after which the button (an aggressive player) raises to $50.

In either of those situations, I’ll likely reraise approximately 15-to-20 percent of my hands. That suggests I’m reraising the most obvious hands like Q-Q and A-K. But I’m also reraising a variety of other hands — stuff like 4-4, A-4 suited, K-7 suited, and so on. For essentially the most part, my “junk” reraise hands may be either small pocket pairs or suited hands — hands like J-3 offsuit are a fold regardless of what.

These reraises are critical, because without them, good players can profitably attack your blinds with 100% of hands. When you don’t reraise very much, then your choice is either to fold an excessive amount of preflop and just let the button have your blind equity or to name with most hands after which be too weak on most flops.

Reraising roughly 20 percent of the time permits you to fold more of the junk preflop while still protecting your blind interest.

Mini Bets At the Turn

I make mini-turn bets at all times in position, but I rarely see other players do the similar. Here’s the location. Your opponent bets the flop, and also you call. Then the turn comes a blank, and she or he checks. Very frequently I make a mini-bet here.

The logic is discreet. When my opponent bets the flop and checks a blank turn, as a rule she’s planning to simply surrender against a raffle. Rarely, she could also be lining up a check-raise. It might be uncommon on many boards for an opponent to take this line with a hand like a powerful top pair or two pair.

The main idea, however, is that I expect my opponent to play with a high fold percentage on this situation. Thus, I WOULD LIKE to bet as many hands as I WILL break out with to force all of the folds. Any time I WOULD LIKE to bet a large number of hands, I’d love to shade my bet size small to offer protection to myself.

So here’s how I’d frequently play this situation.

Someone opens for $30 from two off the button, and that i call at the button. The massive blind calls also. There’s $95 within the pot.

The flop comes Q 9 3. The large blind checks, the preflop raiser bets $80. I call, and the blind folds. There’s $255 within the pot.

The turn is the 4. The preflop raiser checks. This can be a situation I'D bet as low as $60 and do it with most of my hands. (I WOULD also bet a small subset of my hands for a bigger amount — say $200.)

My opponent might do a double-take on the small bet size, but typically I AM GETTING over 50 percent folds in contrast bet. At this folding frequency, it’s clearly profitable to make this bet holding any two cards.

River Overbets

These are another of my favorites. The time to think about this kind of is any time an opponent has capped the strength of his hand range by failing to bet or raise at the activate. certain board types, a failure to bet or raise at the turn nearly rules out hands better than a undeniable strength (typically top pair). If the river doesn’t complete too many draws, it’s quite likely that your opponent has only one pair. An overbet at the river turns your opponent’s entire range into bluff-catchers. Typical live no-limit players react to those bets by folding too often. Against many players, you'll be able to bluff in these situations with near impunity.

For example, say you are making it $30 preflop, and a player calls from the large blind. There’s $65 within the pot.

The flop comes Q 8 2. Your opponent checks, and also you check.

The turn is the 9. Your opponent checks, you bet $60, and he calls. There’s $185 within the pot.

The river is the 3. Your opponent checks. It’s a fair situation to think about betting $300, $400, or possibly even more.

The turn card puts a flush draw on board and in addition creates the opportunity of a four-card straight arriving with a jack or ten. Most players with a powerful hand would either bet or check-raise the turn. The road of checking the flop after which check/calling the turn serves to cap your opponent’s range to hands no stronger than perhaps Q-J.

When the river bricks, nearly all of the time your opponent can be stuck with a weak pair. At the other hand, you might have J-10, you'll have 9-9, you'll have Q-Q, you may have Q-9, or maybe even another strong hands.

If you bluff in situations like these, you'll likely find that your opponents fold too frequently.

Flop Calls

If we’re heads-up to the flop, it’s hard to get me to fold to a continuation bet. Most players still continuation bet too frequently. When someone bets at almost every opportunity, it implies that and so they have junk. Many players also frequently bet half-pot, which offers me 3-to-1 on a decision. It’s hard to search out many hands I NEED to fold getting 3-to-1 when my opponent likely has junk.

I call so much. Some people give the calls with marginal hands special names like “floating” or “reverse floating.” I used to think about my flop calls this fashion too, but I don’t anymore, because these names imply that I’m creating a “play” once I call. Instead, I’m usually calling simply because the cost is affordable and that i still have a great opportunity to win the hand.

I call flops so much. I raise continuation bets frequently also. What I don’t do very often, however, is fold. ♠

Ed’s up to date book, Poker’s 1%: The only Big Secret That Keeps Elite Players On Top, is on sale now at notedpokerauthority.com. Find Ed on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.

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