$1 and $2 NL Hold’em Hand History Analysis

Preflop: AQ. You’re at a loose $1/$2 NL Hold’em table. You have $250 in your stack. An early position player with $50 left makes it $6 to go. He’s a fairly aggressive player before the flop who could have a fairly wide range of hands. A tighter player in middle position ($150 in his stack) calls, and it’s up to you on the button. You decide to call, although a raise here certainly wouldn’t be a bad play. This is a good place to mix up your strategy, as neither a call nor a raise is clearly correct. The big blind also calls (he has $200) and it’s 4 players to the flop. The pot is $25.

Flop: 844. The big blind checks, the early position player checks, and so does the middle position caller. It’s up to you. You can take a free card, or try a bet. It would be a value bet, because it’s unlikely that anyone would fold a pair on such a dry board. So the question is, how likely is it that your hand is good? The initial preflop raiser would probably have made a continuation bet with a pocket pair, unless maybe he hit a full house or it was aces, and he’s trying to slowplay. It’s hard to put the big blind on a hand, and it’s very unlikely the middle position caller caught a piece of that flop, because we know he’s tight preflop. You decide to try a bet. Now you just have to decide how much to bet. You want to take down the pot, but you don’t want to risk too much, so I’d bet around ¾ of the pot, let’s say $20.

You bet the $20 and the big blind on the online poker table calls. You haven’t played many hands with him this session, and you’ve never played against him before. He could be slowplaying with a 4, he might have an 8, or he might just be playing weirdly. The other two players fold and it’s off to the turn. The pot is $65. You have $224 and your opponent has $174.

Turn: 9. That cards really complicates things, as you now have a flush draw. Your opponent checks. You could take a free card or make a pretty legit semi-bluff. If he has a four, you want to take the free card, because he’ll definitely check-raise your bet, probably all-in. If he has an 8 (probably the most likely holding), it’s probably better to check, unless you think he would fold. So you decide to check. Just to make it clear however, betting here would not be terrible. Poker is an art, not a science. The pot is still $65.

River: A. When the ace comes, your opponent comes out betting. He bets $50. There’s a few possibilities here. It’s unlikely, but not impossible, that he’s betting with an 8. More likely would be A8, though. He could definitely have a 4. Or, he could have called on the flop with a decent ace (AK, AQ, AJ, AT) and now be betting because he hit. Finally, he could be full of it, on a pure bluff. Yet another tough decision. The pot is now $115 and it will cost $50 to call. Your pot odds are 2.3 to 1, meaning you have to win just under one time in three for the call to be profitable. There are enough reasonable hands that he could have that we beat, plus the possibility that he’s bluffing, so we should call. We definitely won’t win half the time, but we should win around one third, which is enough. He shows 45s and takes the pot.