Understanding Floating

A concept that has begun to pick up steam in the mainstream world of hold’em is the “float” or “semi-float,” which is defined as calling a bet with no hand or a marginal hand in hopes of taking the pot away from the bettor in a later part of the hand. Five years ago, when someone raised preflop and you flatted with 108s, when the flop came 229 rainbow, if they bet, you folded almost 100% of the time; you have ten high, and nothing more than a back door straight draw and an over card. In the modern, aggressive, continuation bet happy world of hold’em, however, players are now finding reasons to call a bet on a flop like this. Why?

Floating offers us a defense against the now standard continuation bet. A very aggressive player opens the pot on the cutoff, you call on the button, and the blinds fold. When the flops comes, you expect him to bet almost 100% of the time, no matter the texture. If you simply call or raise when you hit and fold when you miss, your opponent is going to quickly chink away at your stack. By mixing in floats and semi-floats, you can slow your opponent down in a multitude of ways. If you take the pot from him on the turn or river, he may be less inclined to fire continuation bets, knowing that your liberally calling his bets.

Before you attempt to add the float to your poker repertoire, however, there are some standard rules and situations that you need to be aware of. First, floating is most effective in heads-up pots, with position. The biggest weapon we have with the float is seeing what our opponent does on the next round of betting first; when he checks, we can attack, when he bets, we can safely release. Without the power of position, we’re forced to guess if our opponent has any part of the flop/turn and lead out blindly. So, when floating, make sure you’re in position and heads up; this is vital!

We’re looking for particular opponents when we go for the float, as well; loose, aggressive players are good for floating, especially ones that continuation bet frequently. A lot of these players like to lead out on the flop, then relinquish control of the pot if called on the flop. These are the type of players that are exploitable with the float, and we’ll look at a few examples of win floating has merit and when floating is simply foolish.

The Float in Action: A Sample Hand

We’re on the cutoff with the 910h in a $1/$2 game. The hijack, a wild, aggro player, opens for $7, and you call. The blinds fold, and the flop is Jh3c2s. The hijack leads out $8. This is a prime spot for a float. You have two backdoor draws (flush and straight) and two overs to middle pair. Also, your opponent led out $8 into $17, a less than half pot bet that reeks of a continuation bet or probe bet. You flat, and the turn is the 4c. Your opponent checks. Even though our hand didn’t improve, this is where you complete the float and fire out a bet. With $33 in the pot, a nice, 2/3rd pot bet of $20-$25 should be enough to get out opponent off of any junk hands that he may have fired the flop with. You bet $22 and your opponent insta-mucks, and you win the pot. This float worked perfectly; you opponent led weak on the flop, then checked an innocent looking card on the turn; two strong signals that our opponent isn’t particularly thrilled about the strength of his hand. This is a prime combination to follow through with the float.

Let’s look at that exact same scenario, except on the turn, an ace of spades hits, and your opponent checks. Again, our opponent appears weak, but this card is much more likely to scare us than scare him. Can we still follow up with a bet here? I would be much less inclined to follow through with the bet here. Our opponent is much more likely to have hit that ace than he would’ve the 4, and he could easily be deciding to check/call with a hand like A8o here. The ace also makes a lot of broadway gutshot hands, and our wild opponent may choose to peel a card off with KQ or QJ, rendering our float useless. Understanding board texture is essential in determining if a float is likely to work or not; you’re telling a story throughout the hand, and when you call the flop and bet the turn, your actions need to tell your opponent, “Hey, I liked that flop, and that turn was good for my hand, so I’m going to protect the best hand, here.”

Taking that a step further, some players will still continue the float if their opponent bets the turn. Hyper aggro players may be willing to fire two barrels, and that makes our original concept of the float very unprofitable; when they bet the turn, we’re generally folding. But, if you have a keen understanding of when your opponent is barreling wide, you can effectively float the flop and simply raise a weak looking turn bet. This is a lot trickier than simply betting when your opponent checks; you have to be almost certain that your opponent is capable of firing multiple barrels, and you have to be willing to make a strong raise on the turn, which, after a preflop raise, a flop bet, and a turn bet, could be a large chunk of change. Here’s an example.

The cutoff opens for $8, you elect to flat on the button with AJo, and the blinds fold. You flop air, 984 rainbow, and your opponent bets $12. You elect to flat as a float, and you see a 3 of clubs on the turn, butting a club flush draw on the board. Your opponent bets $20. If you think this is another probing bet, you can make raise it here and attempt to take the pot from your opponent. How much are we looking to bet here, though? If we’re trying to convince our opponent that we have the best hand, the raise needs to be stout; $60-$80 total. The danger of the turn raise shows itself here; when you’re wrong, it can be a 30+ BB error in judgment. This is why, at least when beginning to learn the mechanics of the float, floating to raise the turn isn’t recommended.

The Float: Final Thoughts

There’s a final facet to this concept that is also paramount in learning to utilize the float. When you semi-float, making a piece of the small draw or hitting your pair does NOT always mean you should happily check and take the free river if checked to. Take the first example hand, with the 109h or the Jh3c2s board. If the turn is the 8d, a lot of players will abort their plan from the float and check, hoping to hit their hand and win a big pot from their opponent, and check it down if they miss. There’s a huge flaw with their logic on the turn, though; the opponent has now played the hand like he doesn’t have anything major; but there’s a good chance he has 10 high beat. Betting now wins us the pot outright a significant percentage of the time and prevents our opponent from seeing the river for free, which may convince him that 55 or AQo is good enough to call a river bet if you do bet out on the river. If we do make our hand, we can’t expect to make much off of him, as most of the time, he’s going to have what our float was supposed to tell us he had; air. Betting the turn with the draw is a semi-bluff that forces our opponent to call two bets with the 55 or AQo, which is much less appealing. Even if you make a draw, don’t think that it’s always a good idea to take the card and try to hit a monster. Betting out is far and away the superior play.

There is one final note on the float concerning the frequency of your floats. Utilizing the float against a continuation bettor is a smart move, when used in moderation. But, beware making the move a frequent play. A smart aggro player will then begin checking his strong hands to you on the turn, allowing you to fire a bet that he can check-raise. Even if you think you see a spot you can float, if you’ve been doing it a few times in the past few orbits, it may be wise to simply let the spot go for now and let your opponents have a small pot or two. When your opponent becomes aware that you’re betting most turns that he checks, that is when he will begin defending against the float. By sparingly added the float or semi-float in your poker arsenal, however, you have a tricky, deceptive move that can make your opponents think twice about continuation betting you out of position, which can be an invaluable defense against aggressive players.

“Try to decide how good your hand is at a given moment. Nothing else matters. Nothing!” Doyle Brunson.

Often times, in the rush of poker, hands begin to meld together in value. When we get aces preflop, raise, get a caller, and flop a raggedy rainbow board, we expect to have the best hand. But, if we bet and our opponent makes a massive raise into us, how good our the aces in this moment? Stopping and realizing board texture, player tendencies, and hand ranges as much as possible during your play will help you to maintain that level of focus needed to understand the strength of your hand at particular moments in the hand. It’s the axiom that makes you protect your best hand on vulnerable boards, instead of allowing a player to peel for free. When we forget about relative strength, we miss opportunities to get value or protect and allow our opponents a chance to steal pots from us. Keep good track of your hand’s value from preflop to river, and you’ll make more accurate decisions throughout the entire hand.

“Sometimes you’ll miss a bet, sure, but it’s OK to miss a bet. Poker is an art form, of course, but sometimes you have to sacrifice art in favor of making a profit.” Mike Caro.

When we’re trying to play at our peak level, we start to see spots that we normally wouldn’t see; places we can extract thin value, preflop squeezes where players are opening light, and so on. Just because you see places where you think you can make a play or gain thin value doesn’t mean you have to take every single one of them.

By pointing your cone of focus at these highly marginal spots, you can detract from the obvious spots of profit; remember, when you’re making these plays, it’s altering your image. So, even though you might be able to make big squeeze plays and bluffs every time you see the spots, if you want to keep a tight image, it may be -EV if the pot isn’t worth very much. Don’t give yourself grief over a single missed bet or failed bluff. Just remember that it’s what you end your game with, in profit or in ranking, that matters in the end, not the hyper-sick-value bet you made with bottom pair.

“Whether he likes it or not, a man’s character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other poker players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in poker, as well as life.” Anthony Holden. (The Big Deal)

Self-perception is something that gets lost in translation at the poker table, especially in the heat of the moment. You lose a pot. Then another. Then you get rags for an hour. Then you get your aces cracked. The table is going to be watching you, trying to see if this run of bad luck is going to tilt you. Being aware of your own emotions, whether it be tilt, euphoria, boredom, and so on, is vital in ensuring you know what your opponents are thinking about your game. If you seem tilty, and your opponents are reacting to you as tilty, if you haven’t realized you’re playing angry poker, you become easily exploitable. If you think your mood or behavior in the game is shifting, make sure to take the time to catch yourself and either adjust it or become aware of it first, so that when the other players start to shift their play against you, you’ll be one step ahead of them.

“Put yourself in their shoes before you decide on the best way to take their shirts.” David Sklansky.

The optimum way to break one player in a hand may be to just attack attack attack. But, poker is not a static game with static players. When approaching each player, whether it’s online or live, understanding that each player is more than a name, a face, and maybe a “tight/loose” label can be a major asset in tailoring your play to that specific player. It’s not just about looseness or tightness. It’s about reactions. If you three bet them a lot,are they the type of player to get frustrated and four bet light? If you check the turn after betting the flop, are they likely to try to steal it from you there?

Every player that plays poker plays the game a certain way. The more accurate you can characterize their play, the more likely you can optimize your profitability against them. Online, note-taking is a vastly underrated tool for finding quirks in your opponents game that you can access with the click of a mouse. The button just 6 bet all-in with K5h? That seems like something to take a note of. Live, you may not have a notepad and pen on you at all times, but you can still do more than labeling a player with simple catch-all’s like loose or passive.

Look for tells, patterns, and styles that each player employs. Keep a mental note of tendencies that you can exploit; limping with marginal hands, always continuation betting, and look at your players from their shoes, as well. If you’ve opened preflop five out of the last six hands, whether or not you’ve had hands, if you haven’t shown any of them, your opponent will very likely think, “Wow, this guys a lunatic.” Perception is reality, even at the poker table, so use it!

“You cannot survive without that intangible quality we call heart.” Bobby Baldwin.

We can read all the books in the world on the game. Participate in forums every day. Play 16 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the rest of our lives. Do literally everything to absorb the game we love into our bloodstream. Even with all this work, all this study about proper play and right and wrong, the beautiful thing about poker is the blurring of those lines, “right and wrong” into something so majestic, we can barely comprehend it. Knowing when to five-bet bluff all-in preflop with five high, not because the book says it’s right or the guy has been hammering you all night, but just because you feel it’s the right play. Instinct, as trivial and bad as it may seem to rely upon, can sometimes be your saving grace at the poker table.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been sitting in a hand with a monster and just suddenly found myself sliding it in the muck, just because that sense picks up on something awry in the air. I’ve called 100 BB bets on the river with king high; snap-called them, and been completely, utterly right. Now, of course, I’ve also called those river bets with bottom pair and been shown top set, but, in my career, my instinct has led me to profit far more often than it has ruin. Learn to harness your instinct and utilize it when the time merits it, and you’ll find yourself reaching levels you didn’t know existed.

BONUS! “Poker is a lot like sex, everyone thinks they are the best, but most don’t have a clue what they are doing.” Dutch Boyd.

So true.

But, what about actually applying this information and utilizing it? It seems like an incredibly complex and difficult concept to undertake, and it is; a lot of these spots are feel based more than anything. But, by beginning to see spots such as these in tournaments and cash games, you can find incredibly profitable spots that are completely and utterly non-existent to most players.

One such example came a few days ago in a small field rebuy tournament I was playing in on PokerStars. We were down to 7 players at our table, and had been for a few orbits. I had been playing with the players at our table for a considerable time, and had recognized most of them to be pretty tight, but competent players. We were all M7+, so everyone had some play left in their stacks. A peculiar thing had been happening with the pot sizes though that piqued my interest. There would be about 4 or 5 raise and take it type hands, then a slightly bigger pot, a few more raise and take it hands, then a big confrontation for a lot of chips. Immediately after that, it went back to “first in wins” for a few hands. After recognizing the pattern and getting some chips to use, I decided to test out the theory after a small blind/big blind battle that ended in AK getting cracked by 1010.

The next hand, I was in the hi-jack with 26o, and I opened to 2.5x, and got 4 of the quickest folds you’ve ever seen in an online tournament. The next hand, UTG+1, I was dealt 56s, and again opened 2.5x, and again, the entire table quickly folded. Now UTG, I was dealt K5o, and opened for a third consecutive hand, again to 2.5x.

Again, everyone folded, and in three hands, I had picked up a nice chunk of chips to my stack with 3 hands that I would normally never open with. The patterns of the table and the tempo shift of the all-in confrontation, combined with the end of the tournament looming, made it a lot easier to be willing to open up and pounce on the table, especially given that the two players involved in the all-in pot were very likely to stay out of significant action for awhile. The cards that I held didn’t matter; the chips that were out there were meant to be stolen, given the tempo of the table.

You can use tempo against specific players, too. A lot of tempo has to do with staying one step ahead of the rest of the field when it comes to shifts in tempo. If someone has been opening light, you 3-bet light. If they recognize that and start 4-betting you light, you 5-bet light, and so on. A lot of people, however, will just continue to ramp up the aggression without rhyme or reason once the 4-betting light begins, without realizing that, a significant portion of the time, it’s the player that sees the big jump in the hand range of the opener and tightens back up that wins the monster pot when he gets A9s to 5 bet shove into his KK. You can off-balance a lot of players by simply keeping track of your aggression level towards that player and dialing it up and down before he can figure out what’s going on.

This is a wonderful concept live, as players are a lot more likely to show you, verbally or otherwise, their frustration with your constant aggression. At a $2/$5 game in Glasgow, KY, I was able to control the player on my right, a complete psycho and super aggro player, by leveling up and down to directly shift his own aggression. He liked opening to $25 (a 5x open) from almost any position. I waited until I had the button or cutoff on him, and when he opened the pot first, I 3 bet him big ($90-$120), with position, with a wider range than normal; any pair, suited connected, etc, and watched him generally fold to my big raise.

I pulled this off about 3 or 4 times before I attempted it again with 89h and got immediately 4-bet to $400, with a stern, frustrated look on his face. I hemmed and hawed for a few seconds, then said, “Man, I don’t know if I can lay down nines here, you gonna show?” He didn’t say anything, and I flashed a single nine before folding. He then quickly turned over his QJs and raked the pot, saying nothing. Th table got a few chuckles, but I knew he had ramped up his aggression level, and all I had to do now is pick up a premium hand, and expect to get all-in with him. I had shown I was willing to 3-bet/fold, which had to register in his mind as a tempo shift for me; he’s now expecting me to flat hands like that and just 3-bet with monster hands, since he had just squashed my aggression level.

Or so he thought.

The next time he opened, I again 3-bet, but I changed the amount down to $70, a raise of only $45 more. When it got back to him, he paused for a bit, then folded, and asked to see my hand. I flashed him an ace and mucked the suited 4 that went with it, letting him reaffirm himself that I’m only popping him with monsters while keeping my level of tempo the same. He now “has my tempo” in his head, while I’m really completely the opposite in where I’m going. A few hands later, I finally got to set the trap. It folded to him on the button, and he opened to $30. I flatted with QQ and a stack of about $600 behind, and the big blind folded. I flopped a safe board of 4h5c9d and quickly checked to Mr. Aggro, who bet $80. I continued with the trap, flatting the bet from him, and checking the 4d on the turn. Mr. Aggro studied me for a bit, then slid $200 into the pot in two towers. A lot of players would simply put their last $320 in the pot here, but I knew this guy wanted to make the last bet, and I knew he thought my raises were strong and my calls were weak, so I tank-called the $200. Another 4 peeled off on the river, and after a brief tank, I checked to Mr. Aggro again. He immediately flicked 4 black $100 chips in the pot, and I couldn’t have beat him in the pot any faster. He turned over a pair of sixes, and I had successfully taken 120 BB’s off of my opponent by allowing him to think the tempo of the game was set to his aggression, not my deception.

If I had shoved the turn, Mr. Aggro would’ve read that as strength (like earlier, when I 3-bet and showed the ace) and could’ve gotten away from the hand there. My tempo shift earned me an extra $320.

These are just two examples of tempo shifting in hold’em; just look for spots where the chips are stagnating or shifting wildly, or players that are particularly aggressive or tight, and use the tempo of the game to keep yourself one step ahead of them.

Being able to see where these spots can develop can help you avoid the difficult decision by forcing your opponent to make the difficult decision first. We’re going to look at a hand I recently played at a live $1/$2 game that illustrate how to avoid (and, in one instance, step into) the difficult decision making process.

A Simple Illustration

The first hand started innocently enough. I opened from the hijack with the 8h9d to $10, with about $500 behind. The button, a slightly erratic, aggressive gentleman, flatted, as did both blinds, and we took off four handed to the flop. It was all diamonds; 4d7d8d. The blinds checked to me, and I elected to lead out $25 into the pot. I had been a little tight the past few orbits, so I figured my continuation bet here looked a lot stronger than it would’ve if I had been playing fast, and could get better diamonds than mine (the 10 and jack, specifically) out of the hand, something that was content with the flop. The button quickly flatted, and both blinds folded. The turn was the jack of clubs, giving me a gutshot to go with my second pair and nine high flush draw. My opponent had about $200 left in his stack, and there was $80 out there already. I had a drawing hand that, aside from the non diamond tens, I wasn’t sure I wanted to make. My opponent’s speed that he called smelled like a diamond draw as well, though. He had position on me, so the question is, what do I want to do with a hand that I think is best but is vulnerable?

Reviewing the Options

There’s a few lines we can take here. The passive approach is to check/call the turn and check/call the safe rivers and check/fold to dangerous rivers (Aces and diamonds are the big trouble cards). This approach has the advantages of pot control and limiting loss, but if he has a hand like KhQd, a turn bet may be enough to convince him to give up on a draw that has 14 outs to beat us on the river. With us expecting to call a river bet from the erratic guy save for diamonds and aces, one of the 6 face cards can cost us $50 to see. So, we lose the ability to protect our hand by being passive.

The combo route is to bet the turn ($50-$75) and check the river to him if we’re called. This bet/evaluate line has become more prevalent in recent years, as players like to protect the hand on the turn then relinquish control on the river, once they’ve “protected” their hand on the turn. The problem with this line comes when perceptive players realize your river check signals a vulnerable hand, in which case, they may make a huge bluff, forcing you to call a huge chunk of your stack off with what they know is a marginal hand. Unless you have a good perception for when your opponent is making a move on the river, this can be the most difficult line to follow through on.

The aggro route is to bet the turn ($50-$75) and shove most rivers if we’re called on the turn. This keeps our opponent, who has position, from doing anything other than reacting to our river bet, and making him make a decision for a large pot. We’re not shoving the river when the diamond hits, but anything else hitting on the river, we’re putting our opponent to the test if they didn’t flop the flush. If they did…we’re spewing off a big chunk of change.

So What Happened?

In the hand, I chose to bet the turn, betting $45. My opponent called very quickly, leaving himself $155 in his stack. The river was the queen of hearts, and I tanked for a minute or so before checking.

As soon as I checked, my opponent immediately shoved all in for the remaining $155. I was getting a decent price to call if I was right and my opponent bricked the nut flush draw, which is the case here a lot, so after another short tank I pushed out 6 green chips and said, “I have a pair of eights.” My opponent looked at me quizzically, then asked, “What’s your kicker?” I showed my nine, and he shook his head in disbelief and flipped over 89o, the same hand without the flush draw. He turned a marginal hand into a bluff because of how I played the hand, and forced me to make a difficult call on the river.

Had I shoved the river, taking the aggro route, my opponent, based on his reaction to the river, would’ve quickly released and I would’ve won the pot. Checking the turn would’ve probably led to us checking the hand down and chopping. By picking the most difficult line to play, the bet/check line, I could only fold, a lose a good chunk of change, or make a hero call and chop. If I had chose to follow my logic of the drawy hand (which, 89o doesn’t quite fit the drawy range, but it was a hand he could turn into a bluff on the river) and just bet/bet, I would’ve won a nice sized pot with my river shove.

Look for ways to avoid the awkward river spots and difficult decisions in cash games; deep stacks can lead to awkward skirmishes that you don’t want to be the last person to decide on.

The question becomes, when do we want to make those thin value bets, and when do we want to simply check and call? We’ll look at a few hands I played in a $11 deep stacked tourney on Stars and see when the thin value is effective.

We’ll start with an early hand in the tournament. I had just doubled up two hands again, winning a big race with QQ against AK, when I was dealt QQ UTG. At t25/t50, I opened for a standard 3x, and was called by MP2 and the button, two straight-forward, loose players. The flop was the gross 7K8 rainbow, and I was first to act. I elected to check this flop and allow either of the two players to announce that they liked the flop and reevaluate, as opposed to leading out and being raised off of what could potentially be the best hand. Remember, this is a deep stack tourney, and my two opponents were still M60+, so there’s a lot of play with stacks of this size.

My two opponents checked, and we went to the turn, which was the 3d, putting a flush draw out. With the added information of the checked around flop, I decided to bet what I thought was the best hand at this point, and fired t250, about half the pot. MP2 quickly flatted, and the button folded. The river was the 6h, completing a possible straight. I now had a decision to make. There was t1,000 in the pot as this time, and even though I didn’t have top pair, I believed my hand had a greater than 50% chance of being the best hand on the river. If I check, I’m expecting to call any bet my opponent makes, as he may mistake a 7 or 8 as the best hand and bet out.

Should I bet? In this spot, I think the answer is no. Let’s look at the turn and put our villain on a range of hands that he could possibly hold, and what our bet (We’ll assume our bet is t500, here.) would accomplish.

Kx- We would’ve expected our straight-forward opponent to lead the flop with this, but he may have held a weaker suited K like K5h and elected to keep the pot small. If we bet the river, he will call 100% of the time, and we’ll lose t500. If we check, I’d expect him to fire a bet of 500-800, and we’d call 100% of the time and lose t500-t800.

xxd or busted straight draw- This makes a lot of sense, given the checked flop and the flat on the turn. If he had a pair with it, like J8d, we’re lucky he didn’t choose to raise us on the turn. If his flush draw didn’t have a pair with it (and for the sake of our analysis, we’ll assume he didn’t) he’s folding to our bet 100% of the time. If we check? I’d say there’s a 10-20% chance he may stab at the pot on the river with a bet between t400-t1,000, and we’re calling that bet 100% of the time.

8x- Another likely scenario, assuming the turn bet may be light from us and hoping his 2nd pair is good. A second bet on the river, however, may be enough for him to fold. We’ll say he calls 75% of the time and folds his 8 25% of the time. If we check, he checks 75% of the time and bets 25% of the time, a small amount (t300-t600) that we call and win.

7x or small pp’s- Now we’re getting to hands that he’s just folding if we bet again on the river, 25% calling, 75% folding with the 7, 100% folding anything aside from 66, which just set. He’s checking the river 100% with anything else.

Two pair/Straight- These are the hands we’re worried about with that river. 910s, 67, 68 all get there on the river, and are all consistent with our opponent’s play through the hand. If we bet t500, we’re getting raised by the straight 100% of the time and by the small two pair 80% of the time (you’d be suprised how many times they simply flat the river with the rivered bottom two) and we’re folding 100% of the time to the raise. If we check, they will bet, probably strong (t700-t1,000) and we’re calling that bet 100% of the time, we’ve decided, and losing that amount. Ironically, our t500 bet against this particular bet saves us money as a blocking bet of sorts.

We have a range of hands to look at when we make our thin value bet. We make value off of just two sets of hands though; the 8’s and the 7’s/worse, and not consistently enough to always expect to be called. We also know that against the high end of his range, our t500 bet works as a blocking bet that can save us a bit of money when he does have the big hands.

The problem is, I think too much of his likely range is centered on the busted draws and the bigger hands than the 8’s and 7’s. Do we have a hand that beats his range 50% of the time or better? Yes. But within this range, is our opponent likely to pay off with a hand that is worse often enough to make our bet more profitable than checking, over time? I think the answer is no. In the particular hand, I checked, and my opponent checked and flipped over J10s for a busted straight draw, awarding me the pot.

My bet would’ve resulted in a fold, so nothing really changed, but being able to see when a thin value bet has profitability is important to utilize in your game. For example, if our straight forward player was a calling station, we may be more inclined to bet that river, and expect him to happily call with 22, A10, and other stuff that has no business calling two streets against you.

Look for spots you can gain that thin edge over your opponents, and you’ll find yourself extracting chips from opponents with hands that you’d never think had so much value.

What is a HUD?

HUD is short for Heads-Up-Display. In the simplest terms, HUDs are a way to display data you have on a opponent right on (or near) that opponent as you play.

Here’s an example of a HUD in action. As you can see, it’s a little overlay that sits next to the opponent and contains a bunch of color-coded numbers. Don’t worry about the numbers or the color-coding – we’ll get to that later:

How does a HUD get data? From a database program such as Hold’em Manager (HEM). Programs such as HEM perform a simple, but critical task: they collect all of your hand histories and aggregate that data. Sifting through your database every time you want a stat on an opponent isn’t a very viable method for accessing data during game play, however, so someone came up with the idea of having a small, customizable snippet – a window into the deeper data, if you will – that would appear on the table as you played, and HUDs were born.

Why Should I Use a HUD?

Some people are anti-HUD, and it’s not hard to understand why. Bad HUDs can cram your screen, and can offer too much information, leading to distractions, irritations and poor decision-making.

To paraphrase an old NRA slogan, bad HUDs don’t cause poor decisions, people do. While a HUD can be overwhelming at first, when properly designed it gives you access to critical information that allows you to distinguish your opponents from one another, allows you to evaluate the chance of a move begin successful before you make it and, in a larger sense, makes you comfortable with your data to the point where it can inspire you to attempt new lines and play.

More to the point: your opponents are probably using a HUD when playing you, and giving up that edge without a fight is a sure path to a lower win rate than you’re capable of.

How Do I Use a HUD?

Almost all major database programs feature some sort of HUD. Rather than discussing the process for each (they’re pretty similar), we’re going to simplify things and just use Hold’em Manager’s HUD for illustrative purposes.

If you’re not using HEM, you really ought to consider it. The list price is $90, but we’ve got a special affiliate deal that you can use to get the program absolutely free.

With that sales pitch out of the way, let’s get into the mechanics of setting up and using your HUD.

HEM comes with a default HUD already installed. It’s probably best to use the default until you get a bit more familiar with the HUD as a tool; when you’re ready for something custom, we’ve got details on how to build your own later in the article.

To launch the HUD when you’re playing, you have two options. You can either set the HUD to automatically launch when you start importing hands during a session:

… or you can simply choose to Relaunch HUD from the same menu if you’re already involved in a session.

If you find that the HUD isn’t placing where it ought to (your stats are showing over another player, for example) you can either switch seats to correct the issue or tell HEM what seat you prefer to sit in. To do so, navigate to HUD Options > Seating Preferences and adjust the settings (you can set seats by game type and room) to your liking.

If you find that the HUD is showing in the correct area but is obscuring information on the table, you can adjust the position of each individual overlay by placing your mouse on it, right clicking and dragging the overlay to where you’d like it to be. To save this positioning, navigate to the Table Manager in the system tray, right-click and choose ‘Save Position’.

Because these tasks can be a little annoying, it’s best to perform them on a play money table or a low-stakes table. In fact, getting used to the HUD on a single table (if you play multiple tables) or on a play money table is a quality strategy that will help you ease into a different (most would argue superior) way of playing poker.

That about it for the basics – if you have HEM running while you play, the default HUD should pop up automatically, and you’ll have quick access to any stats you have on your opponents in your database.

How Do I Customize my HUD?

HEM’s default HUD is a solid one, but there’s just no such thing as a one-size-fits-all HUD. Sit and Go players need a much different HUD than full-ring cash players, and heads-up cash players need a much different still.

We’re not going to offer up our guide on what HUD should be used for what game – that’s well outside the scope of this article – but we will walk you through how to customize your HUD (and provide some general tips for how to determine what stats are useful to you later in the article).

To get started, navigate to HUD Options > Player Preferences. That will bring up a screen that looks, more or less, like this:

This is your HUD editor. From here you can make a completely custom HUD, containing whatever stats you like. The first tab – Stats – is where you’ll spend most of your time.

The editor is pretty simple. Choose a stat that you want on the left and click the ‘add’ button in the middle column to move it over to the right. Stats in the right column are the stats that will appear on the HUD. If you’re unsure how a finished HUD looks, simply draw on the Default configuration for an example until you get the hang of it. In fact, using the Default as a starting point isn’t a bad idea.

To do so, you don’t need to overwrite the Default – that would be a pain. Instead, with the Default HUD loaded, select ‘New Config’ from the top menu. This will make a new configuration that you can tool around with based on the Default, but any changes, edits, etc you make won’t reflect in the Default.

The far right area of this screen controls the appearance of each individual stat. Here’s a close-up:

Remember the color-coding from our first example? Here’s where you set and control that feature. Why would you color code? Again, it’s about efficiency. Having stats on your opponent is no good if you can’t make use of them quickly. By color-coding certain stats, you can get a quicker read on your opponent. For example, a core stat of any HUD is VPIP – Voluntarily Put Money in the Pot. This stat tells you what percentage of the time a player entered the pot when not in the blinds. A high VPIP generally means a player is loose, a low one indicates they’re tight. So, you might set your HUD to color code the VPIP stat as green when it’s above 25% to let you know, quickly, that you’re against a loose player, and red when the stat is 10% or below.

The color-coding really helps when used across multiple stats. Obviously it doesn’t take you any more time to see that your opponent’s VPIP is green than it does to read the number. However, when you have several stats coded green to indicate looseness, a quick glance at the HUD can easily provide you with a short and sweet summary on that player’s type (and therefore, probably holdings).

If you have poker-playing friends who already use HUDs, you can easily use their configurations. Have them send you their config file (should be in .xml format), save it in the Config file of your Holdem Manager folder and then you can import it using the ‘Import’ button in the top menu.

One last customization note: You can have as many different HUDs as you like, and you can easily set HEM to display certain HUDs for certain games and sites. To do so, navigate to the ‘Use for’ tab in the Player Preferences window. You’ll get this screen, where you can choose a HUD to display based on room, format and game type:

Remember to click ‘Apply’ or ‘OK’ at the top right corner of the window to save your changes. If you close the window or exit without doing so, your changes won’t be saved.

What Should I Put in My HUD?

Good question. Again, it’s beyond the scope of this humble article to outline proper HUDs for every situation, but there are some good general guidelines that should help your HUD evolve into an optimized tool.

Less is more: It’s tempting to put everything and the kitchen sink in the HUD, but the truth is you want to work to have the absolute bare minimum that you need. Poker moves fast online, and giving yourself a surplus of information is sure to leave you lagging behind, focused on deciphering your stats rather than applying precious time and energy to untangling the logic of the hand that you’re playing.

Choose stats that suit your moves: Everyone’s got parts of their games that are standard, and then everyone’s got parts of their games that are unique to them. You’ve probably found a few moves and lines that work pretty well against certain opponents – so why not customize your HUD to help you identify those opponents? If you have found success check-raising preflop raisers on rag boards, you want PFR and c-bet stats to be in your HUD. If you’re a fearless four-bettor, then you certainly want 3-bet stats and fold to 4-bet stats in your HUD.

Choose stats that have naturally large samples:
Data is only useful if it’s reliable, and reliability is a function of sample size. It might be tempting to have some really exotic stats in your HUD (how often an opponent folds to a turn cbet out of position after cold-calling a three bet preflop, for example) but the fact of the matter is that exotic stats tend to be situations that don’t come up very often, and therefore lack a sample size that allows you to rely on their accuracy. Instead, choose stats that you know will quickly grow a useful sample size (preflop raising, c-betting, etc), so that your HUD is packed only (or moreso, anyway) with data that you can rely on.

Hopefully this primer on HUDs has helped you understand a bit more about how they function as a tool, and also about how you can employ them in your game with minimal effort. Once you get over the short learning curve, you’ll find that using the HUD will open up options in your game that you might have never imagined otherwise.

Looking for a HUD? PartTimePoker recommends Hold’em Manager. We’ve partnered with HEM to offer you a fully functional copy absolutely free – get all the details here.

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If you’re not familiar, Rush Poker is a new poker variant rolled out by Full Tilt Poker earlier this year. The rules of the game aren’t any different – just the speed. Unlike turbo tables, which force the action by giving everyone less time to act, Rush Poker picks you up and drops you into a new hand the second you fold your first one.

For a more detailed explanation on how Rush Poker works, check out this article.

Anyhow, this isn’t an article about how Rush Poker works. It’s an article about the tools you can use to improve your win rate at Rush Poker. We’re going to talk about three tools – a heads-up display, TableNinja and the humble Notepad application – that, when used correctly, can give you a significant edge over the casual player.

Rush Poker Tool One: Heads Up Display

A heads-up-display (HUD) is a pretty standard tool for online poker players. A HUD takes data about your opponents drawn from hand histories out of a database program such as Holdem Manager or PokerTracker and displays it next to your opponents on the table window. A HUD updates in real time (assuming you have HEM or PT running), so as you collect more hands on your opponents, you get more data regarding their tendencies.

HUDs are great in regular games, but they are indispensable in Rush Poker. When you’re moving rapidly from one table to the next, it’s impossible to form reads on opponents and, even if you could, it’s difficult to remember opponents (a problem exaggerated by Full Tilt Poker’s stock avatar selection). The speed of the game makes it tough to take deep notes on your opponents, further compromising your ability to react in opponent-specific ways.

Both Holdem Manager and PokerTracker support Rush Poker, and do a great job of popping up your data for the opponents at your new table within seconds of your arrival – more than sufficient time for you to access your stored data and get a sense of whether the three-bet from the button is a premium hand or an aggressive player trying to abuse their position.

Below is a video that walks through some of the features of the PT HUD for Rush Poker; HEM’s HUD offers a very similar set of features.

Get more info about PokerTracker and Holdem Manager in our comparison report here.

Rush Poker Tool Two: TableNinja

We’re huge TableNinja fans. The program makes multi-tabling a breeze by allowing you to assign keyboard shortcuts to all of your on-screen actions (bet, raise, fold, sit out, switch tables, etc), saving you the hassle of dragging a mouse over multiple monitors and tables. As if Rush Poker wasn’t fast enough, TableNinja presses down on the accelerator a bit more, ramping the speed of the game into virtually super-sonic territory.

The single biggest asset: TableNinja allows you to assign a shortcut to the ‘quick fold’ action, the one that immediately moves you on to your next hand as soon as you can possibly fold. The difference between using the ‘quick fold’ and the traditional fold buttons hasn’t been quantified, to the best of our knowledge, but my rough guess would that it increases your hands per hour by at least 75%.

Using this shortcut on just one table is nice; using it on multiple tables of Rush Poker allows you to get some serious sick hands per hour totals, without diminishing the quality of your play by any significant amount. In fact, TableNinja arguably increases the quality of your play – with bet sizing shortcuts and single keystrokes for betting, raising and folding, your attention isn’t split between shipping the mouse to a particular button on a particular window and making a critical decision in another window. TN allows you to minimize the distractions and hassles, and maximize your focus on the decision-making process.

For more info on the program, read our review of Table Ninja here.

Download TN for FTP here.

Rush Poker Tool Three: Notepad

Poker players love Notepad. Rush Poker players should love it even more, as it’s the only reasonable way to take notes on opponents within the context of Rush Poker’s blazing speed. Here’s the problem: you generally take a note on a person as the hand ends. However, when playing Rush Poker, the end of one hands means the start of another, which means a move to a new table with a new set of opponents. So, how do you take notes?

Here, your HUD comes in handy yet again. While you may move tables instantly, your HUD takes a second or two to catch up. That means you’ll still be able to click on an opponent’s name and take a note on them that will be stored within PokerTracker or HEM and available the next time you face that player.

Second problem: The game moves so fast that even if you get the box up, you have precious little time to write. That’s where notepad comes into the picture. Rush Poker is a version of poker that lacks some of the meta-aspects of a typical poker game. I don’t want to say it’s a simpler game, but in some ways it is – specifically, you need to know (and can know) less about your opponents that you would if you played several hundred hands in a row against them. The upside: there are only so many notes you’re going to be making on opponents, so you can easily create a stock list of notes (‘will go broke with overpair on any flop’; ‘check-raises turn when strong’) and put those notes in a notepad file, one per line, organized however you like.

When you need to take a note, flip over to Notepad, quickly grab the relevant note, copy it and paste it into the box. Presto- what would have been a frustrating process that could potentially sap your focus or spark a tilt episode is now a 4-click affair that will pay serious dividends in future play.

Watch free strategy videos from PartTimePoker

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Every limit is different. The rules and the cards may be the same, but the proper path to optimal play rarely is. If you’re a player who frequents the $10-$50 buy in range at online NLHE tables, you’ll find plenty of limit-specific advice and insight in this full-length video from Verneer, one of CardRunners’ resident low-limit pros.

Did you know you can get a CardRunners membership for free if you play on Full Tilt? You can – it’s called Truly Free Poker Training and you can sign up here.

The video below is full-length and runs just under an hour. Click on the full screen icon in the right side of the video toolbar to expand the video to full screen.

Want to watch more videos? Get started on your free CardRunners membership here.

After Episode 5 (Season 6) of GSN’s excellent show High Stakes Poker, the one hand that everyone was talking about involved a monster bluff Tom Dwan pulled on Phil Ivey. With hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, viewers were treated to two rare sites: Tom Dwan looking nervous and Phil Ivey making the wrong decision.

We’ve embedded the hand below. If YouTube’s pulled the video for some reason, the hand essentially went down like this: Ivey called a small raise on the button with A6d after Phill Laak raised and Eli called. Dwan decided to go after the dead money from the BB and made it about 28k to go (over Laak’s original $3,800 raise). Everyone folded, and Ivey called. The two started the hand with effective stacks of about 750k.

Ivey flopped pretty big for his hand:

Kd Qc Td

Dwan bet, Ivey called. The turn bricked and Dwan bet again. Ivey called. The river made a pair of sixes for Ivey but nothing else, and Dwan fired $268k into the $400k + pot. Ivey tanked and finally folded.

Why did Ivey tank? How could he possibly think that a pair of sixes was good? Because he figured that Dwan’s range was what poker players refer to as “polarized”. A polarized range means (roughly) that a player has either one extreme set of hands or another in a given situation, and nothing in between. In this case, Dwan’s range was polarized to what’s often referred to as “nuts or bluff” – essentially, Ivey believed that Dwan would only bet the river with complete air or with a very strong hand, and would elect to check medium strength hands.

You’ve probably been in similar spots yourself, especially when the flop and turn offered a lot of drawing possibilities but the river missed everything. With your strong hands, you continue betting, knowing that your opponent is unlikely to bet if you check to him. With your mediocre hands, you often slow down and check, recognizing that there’s still a very good chance that you have the best hand, but that you’re unlikely to get called by a worse hand. You also check because you don’t want to give your opponent a chance to raise you off of your hand, and possibly to give them a chance to bluff at the pot with their missed draw or weak made hand. With your weak hands, you strongly consider betting again, knowing that it’s your only chance to win the pot.

This is a fundamentally sound strategy, and there’s nothing wrong with sticking to it. However, as with any fundamentally strong strategy, it’s also a very familiar one to any semi-competent opponent. When they can recognize that your river betting range is often polarized, it becomes much easier for them to play correctly against you on the river. They just have to be able to roughly estimate the chance of a very strong made hand vs the chance of a bluff and call or fold accordingly.

However, there’s an interesting counter-strategy you can adopt in situations where it should appear to your opponent that your river betting range is polarized (such as the HSP example). Notice how much thought Ivey gives to calling with fourth pair. He only does that because he figures Dwan’s range is basically either:

- A set of kings, queens, tens; KQ for two pair; AJ or J9 for the straight

or

- Missed connectors or small pairs

Ivey’s getting about 2.5-1 on the call, and he’s aware that the first set of hands is pretty hard for Dwan to be holding relative to the second set. So, if Ivey’s seriously considering calling (and never raising) with his pair of sixes here, how can Dwan make a call by Ivey a really awful play instead of a totally reasonable one?

The answer? Depolarize. If Dwan adds some other hands to his betting range here that beat sixes, the call by Ivey goes from hero to zero in a hurry. Hands like KJ, QJ, JT, T9, AT, 99 are all combos that Ivey has probably largely discounted at this point in the hand. Basically, by not allowing an opponent to nail you down to either holding the nuts or a bluff, you can extract additional value from hands that your opponent expects to be good as bluff-catchers.

As with any strategy, it should be deployed cautiously. Obviously, if you start betting all of your mediocre hands on the river, you’re going to end up giving your opponent value in a lot of spots where the hand otherwise just would have been checked down and you would have saved significant money. Keen opponents will also catch on quickly to your loose-betting river ways and start liberally raising you with inferior hands, costing you even more profit. The key is to look for spots where your opponent seems likely to make a hero call based on the board and preceding action, and dramatically expand your betting range when those spots arise.

You can watch Ivey and Dwan battle it out on Full Tilt Poker. Read this first before signing up at Full Tilt Poker.

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I hate the flat. With stacks this deep, you want to protect your aces, and you have a tight player opening, meaning he may have one of the more premium hands that you want to play a big pot with preflop, like KK or QQ. I usually will make a standard raise here, something in the neighborhood of $45-$60. You’re decreasing variance by forcing your deep, tight opponent to play more straightfoward poker with you preflop, and by tightening his range against you, your post-flop decisions are easier. Remember; he has position on you from this point on. Make him pay for it. In this hand, however, Clarence chose to min-bet to $30. He was trying to be cute and build a small pot with his aces, but Chris can’t fold any hand he opened with for a min-bet, and he quickly flicked the $15 in the pot.

With $57 (less rake) in the pot, the flop was 2d 5d 10d. A player with black aces here has a real dilemma against a very tight player; he’s not likely to make any more money off of any hand that doesn’t contain at least one large (Q+) diamond in it! His situation has deteriorated quite a bit, so what’s the proper play here? Given Clarence’s action and the player he’s up against, I think a fair continuation bet of around $40 will defend us against hands like 8×8d or 9×9d without putting too much money in the pot if he does happen to have AdXd or KQd, two hands that are completely in our opponents range. Facing a $40 bet, our opponent is probably only calling with QQd+ or a flush, or top set (and he’s likely raising us with top set) and folding JJd or less, and maybe even hands like QQ no diamond. It keeps the pot under control and lets us reevaluate if he calls and we have to play the turn.

In this particular hand, however, Clarence chose to make a massive overbet of the pot, and fired $100 very quickly into the piot. Chris paused for about ten seconds before sliding a tower of red into the pot. Clarence has now put himself into a terribly awkward position by inflating a pot with a hand that has very little chance for improvement. Our incredibly tight opponent called our oversized bet into this pot with only a small amount of consideration. What’s his range here?

* Flopped flush: Fits the hand perfectly; AJd+ and KJd+ fit the hand. He may raise with the king high flush, to protect against the naked ace (Clarence’s hand could read for AxAd or AdKx) and he would certainly raise to protect with the QJd, so his flat looks very strongly of a flopped flush.

* Set of 10’s: Not as likely, but possible. He may be waiting to see if a diamond peels before protecting, but it’s not a good idea. Even a tight player could recognize the danger of this board, and would be inclined to make a good sized raise to protect their hand. However, the large initial bet Clarence made may actually hinder his ability to make a protective raise.

* JJ-KK with a diamond: Possible. I think our tight opponent may have the discipline to lay the JJ down, but I’m not so sure about QQ, and I don’t think you can lay KK with a diamond down on this type of flop for a bet, even as big as this is, given that Clarence’s range is bigger than simply AA. It’s clearly a calling hand, not a raising hand.

Those are about all of the hands that make sense to flat $100 with, and we’re crushed by two of the three, and only a favorite against the smaller pocket pairs, who still have a clean 11 outs to beat us. Our hand is pretty face up, but our opponents is now too, and the turn play in this now inflated pot is going to be hard to manuever. The turn was the 4 of clubs, giving us a board of 2d 5d 10d 4c. With $257 in the pot, and $550 left in each player’s stack, what are we going to do now? By inflating the pot to a point that we aren’t comfortable with, we’ve turned our hand into a bluff catcher and little else, and we’re up against a player that isn’t likely to be bluffing. I’m content to check and let our opponent tell us whether or not he has a big hand; a bet here is going to likely commit us to the hand.

In the actual hand, however, Clarence continued firing with a bet of $200, committing half of his stack to the hand with the bet. Clarence was intending to protect his “monster” hand with the big bet, but what can Chris call with on the turn now that he’s bet so much? He’s only getting called (or raised) by the set or the flush, and the range of hands that he beats will fold. The problem, however, is the range that beats him actually exceeds the range he beats! The inflated pot made him feel he had to protect his hand, and he made a bet in accordance with the size of the pot. Chris, after a thirty second tank, announced all-in for another $250, and Clarence quickly called, announcing himself as “pot-committed” as Chris happily turned over AQd for the nuts, having Clarence drawing completely dead.

Why did Clarence lose $600? Was this simply a bad beat, as he later lamented? Absolutely not! If Clarence makes it $50 preflop, Chris actually could’ve folded AQd (he’s tight enough to let hands of that caliber go to a 3-bet from another tight player) and we take the pot there. If not? Let’s look at the hand played with careful calculation after the $50 3-bet, if called.

On the flop, we’re continuation betting, but a number more like $60-$70, a number that defends against the bare diamond while keeping us non-committed to the hand. Chris would very likely just call, as he did in our example. The turn, with about $240 in the pot, allows us to check and evaluate, as even though a very similar amount of money is in the pot, the larger preflop raise isolated his range, and we can see that we’re clearly either ahead and vulnerable or drawing completely dead, so there’s little need to defend. Chris would fire a bet here, in the neighborhood of $100-$150. I think this is where we give Chris some respect and simply let it go here, but even if we call, we can fold if a diamond peels on the river, or if he shows us strength again (which he would) and instead of losing the full $600, we lose a number in the range of $120-150 most of the time. (or even win $17 a small amount of the time)

By controlling and manipulating pot sizes, you allow yourself the ability to price people in and out of pots, but you also give yourself that “escape hatch” to get out of a particularly nasty situation without being handcuffed to it yourself. Be cautious of your bet sizing throughout the hand, and you just might thank yourself when that “should’ve been a thousand dollar pot” that your opponent wins is actually only two hundred.