How to Hold Back a Winning Hand
There’s nothing better than catching the flush on the river. It happens to the best of us – the flush, that is. Holding the flush can really make your life easier, or mostly it can make it harder, because it’s more likely no one else has it and you’re the only one with the flush. Either way, when you hold the flush, you want to make sure you maximize the pot. You don’t want to give away any unnecessary money, so there are a few things you should try to accomplish with your catching the flush on the river. We’ll cover those tactics next week.
If you just catch the flush on the turn, lumbung88 alternatif and you have someone betting into you, you should call them all in. The reason for this is you have the comfort level to call them all in, versus if you take the battle to the river and lose, you could be out a considerable sum of money. If you make the call all in after the flop, and my advice is to do so, more than likely no one else will, thereby protecting your investment in the pot.
This doesn’t work if there are a lot of drawing hands out there. Imagine you make a flush on the turn and someone has a clay chip in front of them, and they have an ace, and you don’t raise, they will most likely put in a good sized bet to protect their hand. In this scenario, you can turn the ace into a monga to keep the pressure on your opponent. A lot of people who love to chase cards will do this with an ace when their holding a weak ace, and when no one is really bidding in the pot, they will let it ride. If you are called, you still want to keep the pressure on, but you are not looking to make a mess. You are simply hoping the ace tips or your opponent folds. If they fold, you win the money. If they call, you no longer need the flush or a good read on your opponent to figure out what they had.
Folding should be your general rule of thumb in situations like these. Do not call all hands, simply fold or call with great hands or strong hands. When you play hands that need more chips, you need to be more selective and powerful hands should be played aggressively. When I say strong hands, I mean hands that can easily win the pot without a whole lot of chips, like AK, AQ, high pairs, etc.
There are a few other hands that I will include in this list. Obviously, straight and flush draws are the strongest hands, but other hands that may look stronger, but are really dangerous to leave up to chance, are suited connectors, like 76, or QT, or small pairs that may lead to a monster hand. These hands should also be avoided in most situations.
For example, last night I was in a Sit and Go Tournament on Full Tilt. In the very late stages, when there were less than 20 players left, I was in the upper half of the top 10 chip stacks. Then, I was in the top 5 chip stacks when the blinds went up. Not because I was waiting for AA or KK, but because I had set myself up to take down the blinds uncontested, then I would only have to battle other players, not the blinds. Also, other players seemed to realize that since I was so far ahead, they would basically have to call to see the flop, or else, a raise probably would not do any better than the blinds. In fact, at this point, if I had a hand lower than QQ, with no opponents in front of me, I would raised right there, and the small blind would likely fold. You probably saw this one a lot: players all-in, anyone with a chip, etc. etc.
The flop was all trash. Then, the #6 player pushed all-in, then called, then pushed all-in again, and was called. The Turn was a rag, and the River was a blank. The whole table went crazy. Everyone kept taking down big bets with garbage hands, and the #6 player just called, while the #8 player tried to steal the pot with a big raise, and was called. The #10 player called with a trash hand, while the #6 player bet everyone out on the flop, and they all-in with the #8 player’s garbage hand.
As you can see, sometimes simply making a big raise can result in the push all-in. Sometimes, the raise and the all-in are made only to scare people into folding, so that the pot size doesn’t get too big, after which the #8 player would probably re-raise, causing people to fold, and the #6 player to re-raise, etc.