Using the Weakest Move in Poker
They say that calling is one of the weakest things to do in poker. And while an aggressive style will usually want to use a more aggressive move as often as possible (raising), sometimes you’ll find yourself in situations where simply calling is the best move you can make.
We’ll start with an example. You’re in middle position at a 1/2 table with pocket 8s. You make the standard raise of 4 big blinds to 8 dollars. A loose player in the big blind reraises you 3x your bet to 24 dollars.
There are two courses of action you can take here when you play poker online. You could reraise, but if you get reraised then you’re probably not too happy with your pocket 8s at that point. On the other hand, you could just call and take a flop.
With marginal pocket pairs like 9s-5s I prefer to call to a reraise the majority of the time, simply because 1) your hand isn’t THAT strong to begin with, 2) those kinds of hands can’t stand a reraise, and 3) calling gives you more value in the even that you do flop a set.
So what happened this hand? Well you just called and the flop came A-3-8 rainbow. This is an excellent flop for you. If your opponent has a higher pocket pair he didn’t hit a higher set on you and if he’s holding pocket aces, well there’s just not much you can do other than try to get to showdown as cheaply as possible.
However, the majority of the time you’re opponent will be sitting on a high A-x hand such as AK, AQs or AJs. And this is great for you. But how do you extract the most money from your set?
Well if you can put your poker online opponent on a high pocket pair, then you simply check and call. He’ll keep trying to bet you off the pot especially if you’re showing “weakness” by calling. As long as the board doesn’t coordinate on the turn or river you should be golden.
There are only two things you should really be worried about the majority of the time. The board paring two aces and another card pairing. That would give your opponent a higher full house. But if the board isn’t paired and is fairly low and two aces happen to pop up, then get ready to ride the train right to value town.
