Of course this differs greatly from a standard heads-up game. Although technically it’s a straightforward situation with one hand up against the other, psychologically it’s a very different situation.
For example, if you raise from a hijack position, or from a later position at the 9-max table, it’s less likely your opponent will call your raise than he would in a standard heads-up match. This is because in a standard heads-up match your opponent would take your raise personally against him, whereas here your betting might be against a large number of players. So your opponent will have to take this factor into account when deciding whether or not to play this hand with you.
But despite such differences, heads-up games in a full ring and a standard heads-up match still have many similarities. And you need to keep this in mind when building your game strategy.
The Pendulum Effect
Many years ago I wrote an article about the so-called “pendulum effect” in poker explaining how certain strategies and tactics come into vogue and even make a profit for a while, but sooner or later they collapse. Poker is a constantly evolving and changing environment where people are constantly learning new information which they carry over into their game.
I’ve long argued that “continuation bet” no longer means automatic play, as implied a few years ago in heads-up situations. A continuation bet is when you open the game with a rake on the preflop and then bet on the flop, regardless of the cards opened, or even if you didn’t hit the flop.
Plenty of players who are afraid to use this simple but effective gambling strategy are much less effective in many situations, and you only have to determine when those occasions arise. You can use a continuation bet on a large number of flops that don’t fit the spectrum of hands played by most of your opponents. But you need to be able to tell when a continuation bet is really justified.
Last week I played a €25-€50 NLHE 6-max, and I opened one hand with a 7d-6d katoff raid, and all in all except the big blind who called my bet. This player was pretty loose-aggressive in the post-flop, and the fact that he didn’t three-bet me in the pre-flop made me think he might have a strong hand, and decided to slow-play (calling the raises in the pre-flop was out of the ordinary for him).
On the flop I got Kd-9s-2c, and I was totally out of the flop, and my opponent checked. Now, even though my chances of winning were slim, still, if he caught a pair with a hand like A-K, I still had outs for a straight, flush, or two pair. I decided not to use the continuation bet here, and just entered this psychological confrontation with my opponent, also missing the bidding.
On the turn a Td opened, giving me a flush draw, and a hole-in-the-wall straight draw. My opponent bet about a third of a pot size, and I now had an opportunity to use a half-bluff. Even though he was loose-aggressive, he didn’t go crazy on the post-flop – in my opinion, he played as aggressively as he could, but only until someone used aggression against himself.
So, I bet a little more than I had in the pot, and saw him almost use up his entire pot of time before he hit the fold button, opening me up to A-K (a pair with the highest kicker). He obviously didn’t want to escalate the game with that hand, as we both had 100BB before this hand started.
For me, however, the sweat was very important, as I felt I won this hand by not making my usual continuation bet, but by making a somewhat original move. My check served as a good trick for my opponent, because after the flop I made the opposite move from what he expected. If I had just kept betting, two things could have happened: he could have made a check-raise, after which I would have folded and lost the pot, or he could have called my bet, and I would have been involved in a pretty dangerous game on the turn, where I would have made a pretty unreasonable raise.
So instead of making a blind continuation bet in an attempt to determine my opponent’s cards, a check might be preferable. Remember, it’s hardly good play to always do what your opponents expect you to do. Quite often, a simple continuation bet in a heads-up situation will cause weaker players to fold. But in poker, balance is important. It won’t hurt your game if you make your opponents think you’re trying to draw them into a pot with a strong hand, when in fact you have no match at all.