Free Poker Online Lesson On How Stopping Bads Calls With Dodgy Hands

No matter what sort of of poker you play, free online poker or money games you’ll get times when a good strong hand becomes more marginal. When this happens the decisions which you’d have thought well justified earlier on may now be the wrong ones.

For instance, your Straight may be powerful now, but may become marginal if you continue and, say, the Board pairs or there are three of the same suit and your opponent bets heftily. Bad calls are more linked to bad hands, however. Here’s an example.

BLINDS: 40k/80k

PREFLOP:

A has Ad-Jc, raises to 250k
B has 2h-2d calls 250k
C has Ks-Qs, is on big blind, calls 140k (pot 880k)

FLOP: Ah-2c-10c

Pay attention to A and B. Now A raises with A-J from early position and B calls with a pocket pair which has evolved into a Set. B has position over A, plus A may make the very bad decision to bet the high pair but QUESTIONABLE kicker at this step. The kicker is questionable since there are 2 other players involved who might have better kickers (or even 2-Pair with A,10).

C checks

Be aware that there is also a Straight draw (which C has) and a Flush draw (which everyone thinks the competition may potentially have). So now A will attempt to shield his strong (but questionable) made hand with an overbet:

A bets 1m
B raises to 2.67m
C folds
A to call all in 1.67m (Pot 4.55m)

First, A staked 250,000 on the hand, now 1 million that is approx. 40% of his total stack, and now he might be on the edge. Is a call his best move? Now he should think that B’s reraise all-in will hardly imply that B is on a draw (B cannot call an overbet with a draw), but it may imply a stronger hand like A-K or A-10. Nor is it an attempt to banish A from the hand, because A will be getting 3-1 on a call, but calling will give him the knock-out.

Is 3-1 a good proposition, however? He has 3 outs to pair his kicker and a small percentage for running outs for a Straight or a Flush. His chance of winning is just about 14%, and the fair proposition for a 14% should be about 7-to-1. (He is only getting about 2.7-to-1.) And, when it comes to unlikely Set, he is almost drawing dead, because he needs cards for a running Full House. At this time his A-J has already been a bad hand. So he has all the ingredients for a bad call all-in, which he makes.

A calls all-in (pot 6.22m)

The turn and the river of 5s and 8s, respectively, won B the pot. A’s call is a good call had it been A-K (you decide if A-Q will be just as good). He is able to put B on an Ace with a lower kicker and then make progress with an overbet in which B’s decision will be an all-in (then A can call as a big favorite) or a fold (then A wins the pot). But no; he made a decision to overplay a marginal hand and that cost him heavily. At the very least, he chose to call all-in when calling all-in could be too dangerous.

Getting your brain to think like this is not something you can learn overnight. For best results practice and play poker online for free on free poker games sites at first and when, only when, you are confident, move up to low stakes cash games.