💰 Poker Strategy With Jonathan Little: The Wrong Way To Play Bottom Pair

This hand from a $1,000 buy-in poker tournament demonstrates an important concept you must master if you want to succeed at poker tournaments.

With blinds at 400-800 with an 800 big blind ante with 22,500 effective stacks, the button, an unknown player who seems to be a bit too splashy and aggressive, limped. Our Hero in the small blind raised to 2,000 with A 6.

Assuming Hero wants to raise, he should raise larger, perhaps to 3,600. When facing a raise of only 1,200 on top of his 800 limp, the button will call with his entire preflop limping range.

In general, when you are out of position, you want your opponents to fold. You certainly do not want to get action with a junky hand like A-6 offsuit. This should result in you using a raise size that gives your opponent a realistic opportunity to fold.

The big blind folded and the button called. The flop came Q 8 6, giving Hero bottom pair, top kicker plus a backdoor nut flush draw. Hero bet 2,300 into the 5,600 pot.

Both betting small and checking this flop are reasonable options. If the button will call with a wide range of hands and then apply pressure on lots of turns and rivers, Hero should check. If the button will play in a straightforward manner when facing a bet (raising with premium hands, calling with marginal hands and draws, and folding everything else), Hero should bet.

In general, hands with marginal amounts of showdown value should be checked because if you bet and get called or raised, you are usually in rough shape.

The button called. The turn was the 2. Hero bet 4,000 into the 10,200 pot.

When the turn fails to improve your marginal made hand, you should usually check because if you bet and get called, you will usually be way behind your opponent’s range of better made hands and draws. By checking, you can easily call a bet because the button may turn many of his draws into semi-bluffs.

Quite often though, the turn will check through, allowing Hero to check-call all non-heart rivers. Checking also takes away the button’s ability to raise the turn, which would force Hero to fold.

The button called. The river was the 3. Hero checked and the button bet 7,500 into the 18,200 pot.

This is a tough spot because Hero’s medium-sized turn bet did not do much to narrow the button’s range, meaning he should have lots of busted draws in his river range. The tricky part is knowing whether or not he will bluff in this manner with some portion of his missed draws.

Some players will play their value hands and bluffs the same way, betting 7,500 with both types of hands. Others will vary their bet sizes, making one bet size with their bluffs and a different bet size with their value hands.

If Hero thinks the button will use the same size with his entire range, and he will bet with all his bluffs, Hero has an easy call because he only needs to win 23% of the time to break even, based on the pot odds, 7,500/(7,500 + 7,500 + 18,200) = 23%.

If Hero thinks the button will only or mostly bet this size with his value hands, Hero should fold because he loses to all value hands.

Hero decided to fold and the button showed J 9 for a bluff (and a very optimistic turn call!)

If Hero elected to check either the flop or turn, he would have been able to see a somewhat cheap showdown a large portion of the time. Of course, the button could have run a sizable bluff, betting all three streets (and pushing all-in on the river), but most players are not willing to risk their tournament life on an all-in river bluff.

If Hero played this hand a bit more cautiously, he would have won a medium-sized pot. Instead, he lost a medium-sized pot and got exploited by his opponent.

If you want more resources to help you improve your game, I put together a course called Master the Fundamentals. This course covers the basics, preflop, post-flop, multiway, turn and river strategy, and much more. This course is completely free inside Card Player Poker School!

When you join the Card Player Poker School (it’s free to join), you’ll also get:

Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT winner and the 2024 PokerGO Cup champion with nearly $9 million million in live tournament earnings, best-selling author of 15 educational poker books, and 2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year. If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush the games, check out his training site at PokerCoaching.com/cardplayer.