Always Bet in These 5 Situations | Upswing Poker Level-Up #63

This article is a transcription of the Level-Up Podcast, hosted by Upswing VP Mike Brady and poker pro Gary Blackwood. You can watch or listen to the entire episode via the links above or read on if you prefer a written version.

Mike Brady (00:00):

Ready to level up your poker game? We’re about to run through five situations in which you should ramp up the aggression. I’m Mike Brady alongside Scottish Poker Pro and coach Gary Blackwood.

Gary Blackwood (00:10):

One of the biggest leaks that poker players have is that they’re not aggressive enough. We’re going to give you five very simple spots where you can just ramp up your aggression, bet your entire range all the time, and it’s going to help you plug that leak. Be sure to stick around to the end of this video because we’ll reveal when you should actually ignore all of the advice we’ve given you in this episode.

Mike Brady (00:28):

Jumping right into it. Situation number one is when you are in position on flops with no possible draws and one high card. We’re talking about flops like King Eight Two, all different suits, or Queen Seven Deuce. For example, suppose you’re playing a cash game, you raise it up from the button and the big blind calls. The flop is King Eight Deuce rainbow and your opponent checks to you.

Gary Blackwood (00:53):

As we can see, the solver is betting around ninety-seven percent of the time. We just want to bet this board always, it’s nice, it’s disconnected, we’ve got an equity advantage, the big blind has got a lot of air in their range and there are a lot less bad turn cards. We’re going to see in a second some more connected boards where we bet a little less often, but because it’s so dry, so disconnected, we just want to go ahead and bet everything.

Mike Brady (01:13):

Like Gary alluded to, if the board was a bit more connected or had a flush draw possible, you should generally c-bet less often and the reason for this is easy to understand. These extra possibilities of flush and straight draws make it more likely that you’re going to get raised or called. When that’s the case, when you are going to meet more resistance, that makes c-betting one hundred percent of the time less attractive. We can look at boards like Queen Nine Deuce where the checking frequency ticks all the way up to twenty-three percent. We can look at King Eight Deuce with a flush draw, so that’s the same three cards in rank, but there’s just now two hearts on the board. The checking frequency ticks all the way up to twenty-eight percent, a massive difference. And then Jack Six Deuce has a kind of lowly gutshot available. And even on that board, pretty dry, but still a checking frequency of twenty-five percent by the solver.

(02:07):

It just goes to show the more stuff that they can continue with, the less you should be firing. By the way, the Lucid Poker trainer is now free to play. Play. Win. Repeat. Head over to lucidpoker.com and upgrade your game for free. Our promise is that if you just take five minutes every day to play our daily cardle, you’re going to continue to improve your skills and win more money at the tables. Again, head over to lucidpoker.com. It’s the tool we’re using throughout this episode to demonstrate the solver strategies. I highly recommend going over, checking it out, signing up for free at lucidpoker.com. Situation number two is when you’ve got a tight range on flops with some draws and one high card. For example, you’re back in a one-hundred-big-blind-deep cash game and you raise it up from the hijack, so now you’re a couple positions earlier, and the big blind calls. The flop is Jack Six Deuce rainbow and they check it over to you.

Gary Blackwood (03:04):

We spoke a moment ago about those Jack Six Deuces and those King Eight Deuces and we saw the c-bet frequency tick down, but we were playing with a wide button range in those examples. Yes, we’re doing better than the big blind on these boards, but not by as much compared to when we’re in an earlier position. When our range gets tighter, it naturally gets a lot stronger, it’s going to miss less often, and as a result, our c-bet frequency is going to significantly increase to the point where you can c-bet these boards every time. In these situations you’re more likely to have a strong hand, you’ve got less air in your range and you can leverage that with an aggressive betting strategy and just bet your entire range.

Mike Brady (03:41):

The differences are pretty stark. We look at that Jack-Six-Deuce board from before that had a twenty-five percent check frequency when you’re playing from the button. When you’re in the hijack, just two positions earlier, that check frequency ticks all the way down to two percent. King Eight Deuce with two hearts, remember, that one was about a twenty-eight percent check frequency when we were on the button. When we moved to the hijack, it goes down to sixteen percent. You’re not expected to memorize these percentages. Don’t waste your brain space memorizing this minor stuff. It’s more so just to demonstrate to you how big of a difference it makes to be in an earlier position and have that stronger range. I will note that this rule does have exceptions. If you’re watching the video, on your screen you’ll see Queen Nine Deuce actually has its checking frequency increase when we’re in earlier position in this particular case. That’s going to be because of just how the ranges are composed. Gary suspects it’s something around the Nine, the big blind connecting more with that Nine, but really the only way to learn about this stuff yourself is to dive into a tool like Lucid Poker and study these situations so you can better understand them. But we’re going to keep giving you general rules that will help you at the table right away. Situation number three is when there’s a big pair on the flop. Gary, what qualifies as a big pair?

Gary Blackwood (05:00):

Anything where the paired card is broadway. Ten Ten X, Jack Jack X, Queen Queen X, King King, and Ace Ace X as well, of course.

Mike Brady (05:06):

For example, we’re back in a cash game and the player in the hijack raises. You three bet from the small blind and your opponent calls. The flop is King King Five with two diamonds. This is a flop where you should just c-bet every single time.

Gary Blackwood (05:24):

This is an amazing board for your range and you should be c-betting every time and it’s very clear as to why. If we look at the left hand part of the solver here, we can clearly see that just so much of our range revolves around connecting with the King, having a big pair, having a lot of backdoor draws. We just have so few airball combos on this board. Everything has got a draw or a backdoor draw. There’s just so little air in our range compared to our opponent’s range that this is a great board for us. We just want to bet our entire range always.

Mike Brady (05:54):

Yeah, you’re going to throw in a small bet here and your opponent is just going to do a ton of folding. We can force the small bet from the small blind in Lucid and see that the in position player responds by folding a quarter of the time and the hands that they do continue with include a lot of pretty marginal ones. Pocket Sixes, pocket Sevens on this King King Five board. If you’re sitting there with Queen Jack in the small blind, you’re not hating your chances against that pocket Sixes. You can always hit a Queen or a Jack or you can make them fold on a later street. So they’re just in a really, really bad spot. And if you bet a third of the pot and they fold twenty-five percent of the time, your bet is basically auto profiting there. So this is just a really good situation for you to jam some chips into the pot.

(06:36):

The takeaway for this one is super simple. When you are the preflop aggressor and the flop includes a big pair, you can c-bet aggressively. That’s whether you’re in position, out of position, playing a single-raised pot or a three-bet pot. Situation number four is when you’ve three bet in position and the flop comes King high. For example, we’re back in that cash game and the player in the cutoff, one off the button, raises it up. You are on the button and you decide to three bet. The cutoff calls. The flop is King Queen Five with two diamonds and your opponent checks

Gary Blackwood (07:10):

King-high boards are amazing for you. One of the first things I learned when I started using solvers is that King high boards in three bet pots where you’re in position are just really, really good boards for your range and you want to c-bet them really aggressively. They’re just so good for you, you connect so well with them. You just want to be really aggressive and bet extremely often on these boards.

Mike Brady (07:30):

To demonstrate how great of a heuristic this is, I’m going to set up a little experiment using the Lucid poker trainer. I’m going to create a custom drill where we’re playing a three-bet pot in position in this exact button-versus-cutoff matchup. I’m going to make it so we only play one action, so we’re just going to get the decision point whether or not to bet or check on the flop, and I’m going to do a flop filter so we only get King-high flops. And here’s what I’m going to do. I’m just not even really going to look, I’m going to narrate what we’re seeing and I’m just going to hit bet every single time and we’ll see if we make any mistakes. So first, we get a King-Seven-Six all-club flop and we have pocket Eights. We bet. And it is not a mistake.

(08:13):

Now we have Ten Nine of clubs on King Nine Seven with two diamonds. We’re going to go for another small bet. What do you know? We should have bet every single time. Now we got King-Queen-Eight flop and we’re holding Ace Jack. We’re going to bet again. Oh, what do you know? That’s a lot of the betting color. We’re betting every time. King Ten Seven with two clubs. We’ve got Ace Jack, again, we bet and we were correct to bet. I’m just going to keep clicking this bet button and over and over again we’re seeing that we are not making a mistake by betting and we should probably be betting with our entire range every single time. So that’s an easy one to take away. When you three bet in position, the flop comes King high, don’t worry about your hand too much, just think about the right bet size for your range and fire it in.

Gary Blackwood (08:57):

Now Mike, let me ask you this. Isn’t this an easy strategy to follow?

Mike Brady (09:00):

It sure is Gary Poker sure can be an easy game sometimes. I should note setting up custom drills like this is one of the premium features inside of Lucid Poker, but if you sign up for free, there are plenty of other amazing features that you could enjoy as well that will upgrade your game perhaps just as much. By the way, if you are enjoying this episode, if you’re getting value from it, help us out. Hit some sort of positive indicator. Like the video, subscribe if you want to see more. Rate the podcast five stars if you are listening on an audio platform. All of it really helps us out, makes our hearts warm even. Is that reasonable to say, Gary? Makes us feel warm and happy?

Gary Blackwood (09:38):

Warmer. The warmest of hearts.

Mike Brady (09:41):

Cozy, even. It’s getting cold out here in Washington. I need that warmth from you all. So please hit those positive things and let’s move on to our fifth and final situation, which is when you’ve three bet out of position and the flop is disconnected with one high card. Examples include Ace Eight Deuce, King Six Deuce, Queen Seven Deuce. These are boards where you can fire in a c-bet at a high frequency. One last example. Back in a cash game, the cutoff raises, we three bet from the small blind, the cutoff calls and the flop comes Ace Eight Deuce. We should be fire good in here every single time.

Gary Blackwood (10:18):

So this is a board where we three bet preflop and we’ve got some hands that just don’t connect at all. We’ve got some Queen Jack suited, we’ve got some King Queen offsuit, we’ve got some pocket Fives at a low frequency, but we’re still just betting our entire range. Again, this is a disconnected board, it’s good for our range. Our opponent is going to miss a lot more than we are and therefore we’re allowed to just go ahead and bet our entire range on this board.

Mike Brady (10:42):

The preferred bet size for this board is very small. When given the options to bet a quarter of the pot, half pot, or three quarter pot, the Lucid solver elects to go for that smallest size. So just betting a quarter of the pot with basically the entire range, ninety-five percent of the time. And of course we suggest just simplifying and betting every single time. And if we make a quick addendum to this board using Lucid, which just takes a moment, I’m going to change it from Ace Eight Deuce rainbow to Ace Eight Seven with two diamonds. So now there’s some solid connectivity between those two bottom cards, there’s a flush draw possible… And we see the check frequency tick all the way up to thirty-four percent of the time. The solver likes betting a lot less on this board because, once again, this is the common thread throughout the episode, we are more likely to face resistance and when you’re more likely to face resistance, you should be less apt to put in money, particularly with your whole range.

Gary Blackwood (11:42):

So we’ve looked at a really disconnected board, we’ve looked at a really quite connected board. The boards that are somewhat in between, the semi-connected boards like Queen Six Deuce rainbow for example, or even Queen Six Deuce flush draw, we want to keep our strategy as simple as possible, because it’s hard to remember, “okay, Ace Eight Deuce, I’m range betting. Ace Eight Seven flush draw, I’m betting X percent. Queen Six Deuce, I’m betting eighty-four percent.” If there’s ever a scenario where we can keep it simple and just bet our entire range, we should absolutely go ahead and choose that strategy because simplicity is much easier to follow, gives ourselves less to think about. So when the board is semi connected, like we can see here this Queen Six Deuce flush draw, I’m just simplifying, I’m just betting my entire range because the simplified strategy is easier to follow and we’ll make less mistakes.

Mike Brady (12:25):

Yeah, the solver would check sixteen percent of the time here. But to Gary’s point, memorizing all these exact percentages and all these exact frequencies, it’s a fool’s errand, frankly. Maybe the very, very top players playing super high roller tournaments do get in the weeds like that. But for ninety-nine point nine, I reckon, percent of poker players, you’re just wasting your time by doing that. The way you should study with tools like Lucid Poker is to look for trends and general shapes of strategies and then find a way to execute that at the table and that’s what our feature of the daily Cardle is so amazing for. This is a daily quiz. It’s totally free to play on lucidpoker.com and it’s a pro-written quiz that gives you five spots per day, you take your action and then the coach explains directly to you, did you make the right play? And why is that the right play?

(13:16):

Using this feature inside of Lucid is great because it allows you to learn the whys behind the strategies, which really helps you actually take things to the table and then you’re not wasting all this time learning billions of different numbers that are just totally unrealistic for you to keep in your mind. As promised, we’re now going to cover three situations where you should actually ignore all of the advice in this video. Number one is when you think your opponent will overfold, you can check back some strong hands and always c-bet your bluff. So if you look across the table, you’re seeing a very weak player who’s just very likely to fold unless they’ve smashed the flop, this is the type of player where maybe you don’t waste your strong hands and instead you check them back, keep them on the hook. But of course, if you have a potential bluffing hand, you should fire in that c-bet and expect to get it through very often.

Gary Blackwood (14:09):

Another good scenario to ignore our advice today is when you think your opponent will play back at you too often and you can check back some of those bluffs and mainly c-bet your strong hands. Don’t let them get to you. We all know the type of player that’s really aggressive, they’re constantly check-raising. Let’s go ahead and check back some bluffs versus that player, some sort of marginal-backdoor-equity hands and mainly c-bet our strong hands because it’s more likely our opponent’s going to check-raise and that’s great when we’ve got a strong hand.

Mike Brady (14:35):

So those are two sides of the same coin. When you think your opponent’s going to fold a lot, lean a little bit more towards bluffing and slow-play with your strong hands. When you think your opponent’s going to play back at you with an aggressive check-raising strategy, maybe check back some of those hands you would’ve bluffed with so they don’t blow you off them and mainly bet when you have a strong hand, so you welcome their check-raise. And finally, when stacks are shorter and your opponent may check-raise all-in, you should check back hands that don’t want to face an all-in. You only want to bet with hands where you’re either going to be happy to call their all-in or you don’t mind having to fold. It really sucks when you c-bet a hand like a gutshot straight draw and then your opponent shoves all-in, so now you’re either forced to fold your hand that has equity to win or you have to call off with a gutshot. Neither one feels particularly great, so you should change your decision point earlier on and instead elect not to c-bet with that particular hand.

Gary Blackwood (15:31):

As a WSOP six-hundred-dollars-Deep-Stack final tableist, I can confirm this is a scenario that comes up a lot more often in tournaments as opposed to cash games because obviously stacks get a little shorter and therefore you’re less inclined to c-bet these marginal hands which could get jammed on when you’ve got ten to fifteen big blind stacks.

Mike Brady (15:48):

Ramping up the aggression is fun, but sometimes you have to play more defensively. I made a video for the Lucid Poker YouTube channel breaking down five situations in which you should never c-bet. If you’re betting in any of these spots, you’re basically flushing money down the toilet. Go give it a watch. I’ll drop the link in the description or you can head over to YouTube and search for Lucid Poker stop c-betting. You should be able to find it that way. See you in the next one.