Hello readers of Bartcop. I'm Mike the Dealer, a few of you may have met me at the Vegas get together where I dealt a poker tournament. When Bart posted the job opening for a poker blog writer I jumped at the chance, cause I'd love to have a chance to write about this game that I have played, dealt, and supervised over the years.
Now what to expect from my blog will be a bit of everything, I will discuss the game as it's seen on TV, be it in WSOP episodes or WPT events. If I can get an upgrade to my cable package I'll even cover the next season of High Stakes poker. I will also be giving general advice on how to play the game, discussions of interesting hands I've seen played, played myself, or a friend played and talked to me about it afterwards. I will also talk about various poker publications that are handed out in Vegas poker rooms, most of which are unworthy of wrapping fish with, and talking about the generally madness that happens in Vegas. If any or all of that seems interesting to you, feel free to read on.
Now that you've clicked on the link and are here, I'll talk about a situation that comes up a lot in low limit cash No-Limit games. This is the shrinking bet. This is a bet that is made by a player who has given up on the hand but still feels compelled to bet the hand anyhow. Here's a typical example. We have a 1-2 blind (The bets to the left of the dealer that are forced before the cards are dealt are 1 dollar and 2 dollars) no limit game, everyone has roughly 50 to 300 dollars in front of them. A player raises to 10, gets called by 3 opponents. The flop comes out and that player now bets 20, he gets called by 2 of his opponents. Now the turn comes out and he bets 10.
Notice that I didn't mention what the flop was or what the turn was, the cards don't matter one bit in this situation, what matters is that this person raised before the flop, then felt the need to bet the flop, once he got called, suddenly he didn't like his hand so much, and now on the turn, he makes a very, very small bet. Now you might be saying that it's not that small, it's half the size of the bet on the flop, but the reality is that all bets are measured in their size relative to the pot. If I bet 1,000 dollars into a pot of 50 bucks, I'm betting far to much. If I'm betting 1,000 into a pot of 1,000,000, I'm betting way to little. After the flop there was 40 in the pot, our hero bet 20, which was half the pot, he got called by 2 players, so now the total pot is 100. Now he bets 10, so he just went from betting half the pot on the flop, to 1/10th the pot on the turn. That's just an amazingly weak bet.
I remember the British Open golf coverage from this past event and Tiger was quoted as saying one of his shots was horrible because "The commitment wasn't there." This bet is the same thing, it's basically screaming out "I don't really want to bet, but feel that I have to." kind of bet.
The sad thing about this kind of bet is that it is very often not punished at all in these games. A player who makes this bet is very routinely only called by his opponents. Then on the river, all three of them give up on the hand totally (Unless one of them hits the straight or flush they had been chasing) and some junky hand like 2nd or 3rd pair on the board wins a sweet 130 odd dollar pot.
It is these situations that you must attack, you must be aggressive and take control of the hand. Let's say that we're at the turn and the player who's been leading out makes that shrinking bet, and the next person calls, it doesn't matter what your cards are you must blast them with a raise, and a big raise at that. They are betting pennies into a giant pot, they are doing this because they don't really like their hands, but one felt compelled to bet, and the other, thinking it would be cheap to stay in, felt compelled to call. You must now make them fold, you must take this pot. A healthy raise of 80 to 100 dollars will win the pot.
Now you may be saying this tactic won't work every time, and this is true, but it will work the vast majority of the time. The one time I would not attempt this is if one of the players left in the hand has very little chips left in front of them and you have nothing at all in your hand. People down to their last 20 bucks often just give up and say things like "Oh I have to go to bed anyhow" and just gleefully give away their last few dollars, only to find themselves accidentally the winners of a big pot. So be wary of such an event happening, but on the whole, when you see such overwhelming weakness as this, you must attack it!
Next Time: the Jamie Gold non-question.
