To the advanced players reading this, stay with me, because after I introduce what you think you already understand, I'm going to give you a new take on it.
To the beginners and the intermediates, put on your sunglasses, because once you get a firm grip on this one, not only are your eyes going to say a lot, your poker future's going to be so bright, you're gonna need shades.
The principle (which I'll call the Mighty Rule) is simple enough, although it's amazing how many players — even good players — forget about it from time to time. Suppose, for example, that you're playing limit hold'em (as the maxim indicates, it's even more important in no-limit, because the callers usually aren't getting the huge pot odds possible in limit poker, but because limit poker is so much more common than no-limit, let's use a limit example), and you're in the big blind. An early-position player raises, and gets two callers before the small blind folds and you decide to look at the flop, holding the J 10.
"Loose and Passive" Make for Exciting Teenage Dates and Good Poker Games
The board comes down J 4 2, and you take the aggressor's role, betting right out with your top pair-weak kicker, only to get three callers. The K hits the turn, but you decide to remain aggressive and bet out again. No one raises (don't you just love loose-passive games!), but everyone calls again.
The river brings the Q. If any of your opponents were dirty rotten four-flushers, they haven't gotten there, but there are now two overcards to your lowly jack, and your kicker is as weak as ever.
At first you breathe a small sigh of relief, because you've dodged the flush draw. Then, you look at that queen, and you wonder if it beat you, but then you think, "Why would someone be holding a queen here? I mean, who's going to raise or call two bets cold with a queen and a rotten kicker before the flop, and on this flop, who's going to stay in with Q-10 or K-Q? Maybe some optimist would hang in with A-Q, but I can't live in fear of every possible hand, can I?"
Your attempts to convince yourself you have a winner continue. "No one has Q-J or Q-Q, because he would have raised me," you think. "So, what about that king on the turn? If someone had a king, wouldn't he have raised me on the turn? Almost for sure he would have. The preflop raiser must have a medium pair, and the other guys must either have been on flush draws or something like A-4. I'm practically sure I have the best hand. If I have the best hand, I gotta bet if I have any balls, right?" (Pardon me, ladies, but I'm giving you credit for having more sense than our hypothetical male bettor.)
Having the Balls Isn't Nearly as Good as Having the Nuts
You fire out your bet, and you know what? Lots of times, no one will call, because this "analysis" (even though it's full of enough holes to strain hot pasta) will have been right, and you proudly take down the pot.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the river bet that won this pot, and that's the big problem.
You won this pot because no one could beat a pair of jacks, not because you bet. With nine small bets in before the flop, four small bets in on the flop, four big bets in on the turn, plus your bet on the river, there's a lot of money to be claimed by a call. Were this a $10-$20 game, the pot would contain $230. You don't think someone with a queen or a king in his hand wouldn't call that? You don't think someone who had planned to raise the turn with A-J but got scared into just calling by the king wouldn't call that?
To heck with the calls, maybe one of your opponents flopped a set of fours and had been trap-calling the whole way. Now, you might be losing two bets on the end, when a check and call would have lost only one, and if one of your opponents is creative enough, he might raise you with nothing and you might fold the winner.
Worse still, busted flush draws aren't always quite so busted. Suppose that an opponent held the K 9. You must have met one or two limit hold'em players who would call two bets cold preflop with a dog like that, and once the flop gave them a flush draw, they'd certainly call to look at the turn, where they picked up top pair-weak kicker.
Yeah, maybe they'd raise with that hand, but they could easily be afraid that someone had been holding on to A-K, or that you flopped a set of fours out of the big blind. Why not, Mr. K 9 thinks, just call and pop it on the river if the diamond comes, or just call if it doesn't?
Three Probabilities, and None of Them Good
I could go on and on with possible ways that our betting hero's analysis could be wrong, but you don't need to read all of them ("Thank God," you're probably thinking). All you need to realize is that when the bettor makes that bet on the river, none of the probable scenarios is good.
One is neutral: If the jack was the best hand and the bet goes uncalled, the bet didn't win a penny that wouldn't have been won anyway. The other two are bad: getting raised, whereby it might cost you yet another bet to learn that your J-10 isn't enough, or (probably the biggest danger) getting called … because who on Earth is going to call someone who has been leading at a pot on the flop, turn, and river, staring at a board of J 4 2 K Q, if he cannot beat J-10?
If you want to feel even worse about betting out, a check might have induced someone else who never could have called to bluff at the pot, and you might have won your extra bet that way.
Once in a blue moon (not the sort of success frequency you want on your bets) you might get a call from someone who holds the A 4 and talks himself into thinking you're pushing a busted flush, because he just can't bear to think you might bluff him out (this kind of call is why the Mighty Rule is mightier in no-limit). On all other color moons, the only calls you're going to get here are from players who have you beaten. The Force isn't with you, and neither is the spectrum.
So, the standard thinking goes, you just don't bet mediocre-strength hands in such situations. The number of times they buy you a pot that you wouldn't have won in a showdown is far, far smaller than the number of times you collect a bet from an optimist.
The Pot is Probably Already Won or Lost, but the Last Bet Isn't
Remember, all those hands you take down unchallenged don't count. We're not worried about those earlier bets. They're already in the center of the table, and if your mediocre-looking hand is the best one in the game, your final bet doesn't win you that pot. You've already won it. Remembering again that the Mighty Rule is mightier in no-limit than in limit, we're only worried about:
1. A change in the "ground rules," that is, your mediocre hand really is mediocre and is in fact not the best still remaining. Under those conditions, how many times will your bet buy a pot from someone who has a stronger hand than you, but who won't call a bet on the end with that stronger hand?
2. How many times you will get called by a hand even weaker than your own?
3. How many times you get called by a stronger hand, and lose a bet you didn't need to lose?
In case No. 1, your J-10 might as well be the nut low, 5-3. You're hoping to win the pot with your bet, not your cards. You're probably better off saving your chips to bet with that busted open-end straight draw of 5-3 (although how you got involved preflop with 5-3, I don't want to know).
And You Think You Have a Bad-Beat Story!
Getting involved with such a hand can happen, though. Barbara Enright, the only woman ever to make the final table at the World Series of Poker, is still trying to figure out how Brent Carter was able to call her all-in preflop bet (she had 8-8) with 6-3. Carter flopped both a 6 and a 3 to knock Enright out of the tournament. Since her love bunny Max Shapiro is obviously biased, maybe I can get Barbara to tell me the full tale for a column sometime.
Returning to our hypothetical scenario, the odds of favorable outcomes in cases No. 2 and No. 3 are, on any one given hand, very bad. Blue moons just don't come along often enough.
OK, so now you know one of poker's Mighty Rules. Where's that new take I promised the advanced players about 50 paragraphs ago?
The secret lies in the phrase "on any one given hand." Playing poker against folks who haven't played with you for very long (and perhaps even more important, against whom you won't be playing for very long, such as when you know you'll be leaving a town or a money game shortly, or your tournament table is about to break) means for the most part that you are making snapshot plays, not full-length movies: You make the right play for the situation right now, because you don't have an image and don't have the time to develop one (in case you're playing against people good enough to notice).
If you adhere very strictly to this Mighty Rule, and bet on the end only when you either have a powerhouse or are trying to steal it, long-term opponents are eventually going to notice this, and that will make it easier for them not only to snap off your bluffs, but also to evade paying you off when you have a powerhouse. They only have to figure out if you have one or the other, after all.
A Third Variable Makes You Tougher to Read
If you introduce a third variable into the equation, though — the chance that you might be betting a mediocre hand — you've now made it tougher for opponents to decide where you are. Picking from three possible alternatives is tougher than picking from two.
So, here's your new take. You have to be playing against good players for it to work, and they need to have played against you long enough to have a read on your game. It's no fun to play against good players when they have a read on your game … so every once in a while, a little more often than once in a blue moon, you sabotage that nice read they have on you, and you bet that mediocre hand on the end.
You'll lose more of those bets than you'll win, but you'll have set up those good opponents for a tougher choice the next time you bet out on the end. Your stone-cold bluffs will work a little more often, because your opponents will have to consider giving you credit for holding not merely a powerhouse, but also a mediocre hand, so they won't call with something that can beat only a bluff. Your powerhouses will get paid off a little more often, because opponents with mediocre holdings of their own might figure their weak hand is better than your weak hand.
Consider violating the Mighty Rule a long-term advertising expense, and make no mistake, it will be an expense. The Mighty Rule didn't become Mighty for nothing. But if the sharks you swim with start to read you too well, you either need to get out of that particular body of water (discretion frequently being the better part of valor) or confuse the sharks so that they aren't sure where you are on the river.
Given that sharks prefer oceans to rivers anyway, confusing them seems like a good idea. Unless you know the precise nature of the trap you're setting, though, you're better off sticking to the basics, and not betting when you'll be called only when you're beaten.
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Have patience and don't let yourself go on tilt.
