Play enough poker and you’ll see just about everything. And, of course, if you play online, then “enough poker” happens a whole lot sooner. So I guess I shouldn’t have been particularly surprised when the following one-two punch happened to me in a recent PLO session.

Hand #1

Sitting on the button with Ad-Qd-Qc-8h in a $.10-$.25 game, I call an opening pot-size raise from the cutoff. He’s been pretty active and I’m happy to call with position and a hand that can hit in a few ways. Everybody else folds and the flop comes Qs-Td-9d. Wow – I’ve flopped top set and the nut flush draw. The villain bets $1.25 into a $2.05 pot.

Hand #2

Literally nine minutes later… I am on the big blind with Ah-Qh-Qd-8c (look familiar?). The button opens with a full pot raise ($.85). The small blind (the villain from the previous hand) calls, as do I. The flop comes 9h-8s-3h. The SB and I both check, as does the button. The turn is a semi-miracle for me – the Qc. The SB bets $2.55 into a $2.55 pot.

Analysis

It might be tempting to say, “Wow – the situations are virtually identical; surely the correct play in each must be the same.” But in fact, there are some crucial differences to which you must pay close attention.

Let’s first review the situations and consider the similarities:

– I’ve got a top set of queens.
– I’ve got the nut flush draw.
– There is exactly one card combination that’s beating me right now (JTxx for the Q-high straight).
– The villain doing the betting is the same guy and is on my immediate right.

Now let’s consider the differences:

– In Hand #1, we’re on the flop and we’re heads-up.
– Hand #2, we’re on the turn and we still have the button behind us.

How should we play Hand #1? Well, there’s a key point to understand: if the villain has the straight (and doesn’t have any of my outs tied up) then I am a whopping 7:4 favorite with two cards to come. I would be delighted to get all-in against a hand such as JTT7. So I should give the villain the opportunity to make a big mistake and put in a lot of money.

My friend and mentor, StellarWind, said, “I suggest a minimum raise.” He noted that the villain bet only about 60% of the pot, “strongly suggesting he doesn’t have the nuts.” And in fact, he said this with no knowledge of the second hand (which you will later see is crucial). StellarWind then concluded that if the villain didn’t have the nuts, then he might well have a “drawing” hand which I was crushing – a non-nut flush draw, two pair, or a smaller set.

My friend’s logic seems unassailable. A minimum raise would encourage the villain to continue in the hand, thinking (catastrophically, for him) that he was getting the right price to see a turn card. If he made a flush or a smaller full house, I’d stand a good chance of stacking him. And if he had made the bet with the straight, then he might well come over the top of my raise and I could happily shove over his three-bet.

Sadly, we’ll never know. I put in a large (3/4 pot) raise, the villain thought briefly, and folded.

As I said to StellarWind, my one concern about a minimum raise is that it would look awfully suspicious to a thinking player. If I were holding JT, wouldn’t I want to raise as much as possible to protect my had against various draws? But that may be giving the villain too much credit. On balance, I think my friend was correct.

Now let’s move onto the second hand. This time, the flop had checked around and I hit my set on the turn. The same villain from the first hand bets the full pot. Well, as StellarWind said, “This time it looks like he’s serious.” While I am a 7:4 favorite heads-up on the flop, I am a 4:3 underdog to the straight on the turn. I am not interested in a nuclear confrontation here. Unless I can bring in the button. Because if we get into a three-way all-in confrontation on the turn and the two villains both have the straight, then I have 47% equity. That’s serious +EV right there.

So it’s clear that the correct strategy here is to call and hope that the button calls, or (better) raises.

I did, indeed, call and the button, alas, folded. What happened after that was less interesting. The river was a brick, the villain bet about 2/3 of the pot, and I elected to call; he had JT for the straight. I had some angst about the call but StellarWind said, and I quote, “You made your bed, now lie in it.” His point was that my call on the turn looked weak – perhaps like I was on a draw myself. From a game theory perspective, the villain should be betting air once for every two times he has the straight. And with my apparent weakness he might be bluffing more often than that. Heck, he might be bluffing more often than that because he likes to bluff. And he might actually think he was value betting a smaller set or top two pair. In short, the call was pretty straightforward. I was getting almost 3:1 on my call – which means that it’s correct to call even though well over the half the time I get shown the straight.

These two hands provide a wonderful example of how apparently subtle differences in a hand situation can make the correct strategy totally different.

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Lee Joneshas been an online poker executive since 2003 and is the author of Winning Low Limit Hold’em, which is still in print over 15 years after its initial publication.