I was reviewing a number of my WCOOP hand histories when I came across this hand. I thought it did a great job of illustrating when to not believe an opponent’s flop raise.

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The blinds are 3,000 and 6,000. The buy-in is $215. It’s one of the medium stakes WCOOP Sunday majors. Play had begun to get tense as we got deeper. I took the opportunity to open up.

Under the gun, I raise to 12,025 from my starting stack of 248,000.I have the Ac and 9h. In a nine-handed game, this is overly ambitious. You’re not often going to be called by A-2 through A-8. When those few hands you do dominate come along for the ride, they are going to have a hard time calling down multiple streets. However, the plentiful combinations of A-9+ will have a much easier time calling you down. Your reverse implied odds are tremendous. Your blocker potential means little when you have to go through eight opponents.

I get called by UTG+2. He started the hand with 286,000 in chips. He seems a bit touchy. He’s been time-banking down for a long time when he has had to fold. He’s held on for multiple streets in hands versus other name players. In these hands, he’s showed up with some questionable holdings. We’re going to have to put up a fight if we play against him.

All other players fold. The flop comes 4s-Kc-6c. The board is missing a wider calling range. I believe this player is calling me with many suited connectors and two big card combinations that other players might fold to an UTG raise. This broader calling range leads me to believe he’ll just have air too often to not continuation bet. My hand also has little showdown value.

I bet 18,025. He instantly makes it 48,000. I had not seen him raise a flop continuation bet before. He’d been calling down very wide. He wasn’t raising.

Take a second to think about what you would do. I find I learn much more from hand history analysis when I compare my answers and methodology with that of my colleagues before they tell me their answers.

If you said, “Just fold,” I wouldn’t blame you. You have never seen him do this play and this was a pretty hopeless bluff to begin with. It’s never that bad in No Limit Hold’em to cut your losses when you have no idea what to do. I also applaud your honesty. Given the title of the article, you know what I’m going to suggest you do, but you’re admitting that’s not what you do.

What do you think he has when he raises here? This isn’t a rhetorical question. Start listing out the hands in his range.

If you 3bet here, start listing out all of the reasons why you’d do it. Don’t just smile and go, “Oh good, I like to 3bet here too sometimes.”

The fact you 3bet here on occasion doesn’t really mean much of anything. Maybe it’s the right answer. Maybe it’s not. How your play fares in one instance really doesn’t say much. What can help us quite a bit is if our plays are based on firm logic. Describe to yourself what logic you’d apply here.

Many guys say when they 3bet here, it’s a feel thing. In that case, you should be marking hands when you play, seeing if your feel usually leads you to a correct response. If it often does, that means your subconscious is likely latching on to something. Don’t be afraid to feel stumped for a minute while you try to break down what you do habitually.

Does your hand mean anything? What do you think of the sizing? What is your gut instinct picking up on? Once you start understanding your own reads more intimately, you will be more likely to apply them in thinner and thinner spots. Remember, Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

I seriously wanted to fold. I was playing too many tables and had been a little amped up. I usually don’t like opening this hand. I wanted to get out as soon as I hit the raise button pre-flop. This flop raise was only giving me more motivation to muck.

Then, I thought about it a bit more. His raise size was interesting. Normally when people are trying to get you to buy something for a price they know is unfair, they try to make it seem slightly smaller. When a used car salesman is trying to sell you a clunker, he will tell you, “Look, friend, it’s not $10,000! It’s $9,999.”

This bet sizing was firm: 48,000 on the nose. Imagine some shady car salesman has his friend coming in later that day and his friend really wants to pick up the Volvo you’re looking at. When he’s not trying to entice you, he’ll probably say, “Yes, it’s $10,000.”

Many poker players fall into this betting pattern. When they want a call, they make it 59,250 – they’re trying to get a sale. When they don’t want a call, they make it 60,000. Others do the exact opposite.

I’m pretty lazy about note-taking too, but when I’m deep in a tournament now, I note the bet sizes on every hand I don’t play. Other than it being a great way to tame my pitiful attention span, it can give you some deadly reads. I’ve seen some guys who 100% of the time use the same kind of bet sizes for a bluff or made hand.

The fact he made it that size, and not something like 47,257, is not enough to make me want to 3bet. Let’s look at how large this bet was. Most MTTers, when they bluff raise, make it around 40,000. This was larger than that.

This actually hurts my case for 3betting. More often, I find smaller raises to be bluffs. When they make it this big, they often have a hand they want to get it in with.

That being said, people who play fast on flops also tend to overvalue top pair or raise more with weaker semi-bluffing hands. I hadn’t seen him do anything with an ace-high flush draw yet, but I had seen him with weak top pairs and medium flush draws. He called with all of them.

Furthermore, if a guy has been getting barreled into all night, isn’t he a little more likely to float with a set here? His default play with mediocre hands is to call down. He might feel the need to blend in his larger hands with that.

Since we’ve never seen him raise a medium draw or a one pair combination, his range has become polarized to sets, a slow-played overpair, the ace-high flush draw, and maybe A-K (although I doubt it).

Think about how our hand affects his value range. He’s going to have a much harder time making A-A and A-K because we have an ace in our hand, but that also disrupts some A-X combinations that he’s turning into a bluff, so the ranking of our card doesn’t change much.

The suit of the ace we have does change things. We have the ace of clubs. The only flush draw he could have been credibly representing with this raise size is the ace-high flush draw. Most players now do not raise a medium flush draw with no overcard and get in 40+ big blinds. We’ve also seen him call with those hands before.

Having the ace of the flush draw’s suit changes things more dramatically than most people realize. It is very difficult to make a set. There are six ways to make a pair combination, and that’s if you start with all four cards available of that rank. With one being on the board, it becomes less likely someone has two in their hand.

There are 16 ways to make an unpaired hand in No Limit Hold’em, and there were a ton of these 16-combination type hands possible if the ace-high flush draw is in his range. A-2, A-3, A-4, A-5, A-7, A-8, A-9, A-10, A-J, and A-Q – there were so many more nut flush combinations possible than set combinations. By removing them, it’s hard for him to have anything on this board.

The instant timing of the raise said a lot to me. It would have made perfect sense if he had A-A and was ready to spring the trap, but I have one of those aces. It would have made sense if he had A-K and was thinking, “Okay, time to get it in,” but he had been a calling-type opponent post-flop.

An ace-high flush draw would have made the most sense with the timing. Many people know an ace-high flush draw is a good hand that has a lot of value on the flop, but is really hurt by a blank turn card. They know the hand is vulnerable, but feel the need to play it fast on the flop anyway. They don’t want to brick the turn and cry folding or calling to your double barrel. They know raising will remove all of the turn guess work. So, the adrenaline kicks up, and they snap raise.

Some people do the same instant raise with a set, but they are fewer. Most people take their time to either feign weakness or to ponder slow-playing until the next street.

With all of this on my mind, I couldn’t see a way to fold anymore. I made it only 32,000 more, making it 80,000 in total. I didn’t think it would take more than that. I perceived his range to be absolute garbage or the nuts. There were no medium strength hands to price out. His stack size wasn’t comfortable for 4bet folding.

He folded the second I hit the raise button, but that means little. I’ve botched this play more times than I can count. All I can really focus is on is that same question: How strong were my reasons for 3bet bluffing?

Alex AssassinatoFitzgerald has amassed $3,000,000+ in tournament earnings alone. Alex is an instructor at PocketFives Trainingand can be reached for private lessons at Assassinatocoaching@gmail.com. You can also reach him on Twitter @TheAssassinato and on Facebook at Facebook.com/Assassinato. He currently resides in his suburban home in Costa Rica with his fiancé and poodle.