Learning To Make Solid Folds
A penny saved is a penny earned just as a
river bet saved is a river bet earned. One thing
that Mike Matusow said about online poker was
very true, "The online players never fold." Now
Mike may be a bit of a nut case sometimes but he
was spot on with this assessment. The money
doesn't seem as "real" online and everything
happens so much faster that players often make
calls that they really shouldn't.
Usually players will realize that they should
have folded afterwards, but to really make a
difference in you results you need to be able to
make the correct decisions while you are
playing. Hindsight is 20/20, but you need to
make your awareness close to that in the moment
as well.
The toughest decisions are often the ones
that matter the least
In life this may not always be true, but in
poker it often is. Think about it for a second.
Is it harder to decide whether to call an all in
pre-flop with AA or harder to call an all in
pre-flop with QQ? QQ is much harder, but in the
end the decision is difficult because it is so
close to a break even play.
Break even moves will neither hurt nor
benefit you much. Calling with AA, however, is
extremely easy but also a very profitable move.
If you are folding AA pre-flop you are just
wasting a ton of potential profits, where if you
fold as opposed to call with QQ all in pre-flop
you are not losing any significant edge. These
tough choices will eventually help determine
your win rate.
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One big fold could be your entire profit
for a session
Have you ever played a long session and ended
up break even? Did you keep on replaying the
hand in your head where you should have folded
to a $50 river bet? You knew that you were beat,
but you had to see his hand just to make sure.
These are the exact spots that you need to learn
how to make a solid fold. Good folds come from
the ability to properly dissect a hand, and this
can be done by simply using a little bit of
common sense. I will use an example to
illustrate my point.
You are playing .50/1 and are dealt QQ. You
are UTG and raise to $4. A player in LP
re-raises to $12. You call.
The pot is $25.50 as the flop is dealt, Ah Js
Td. You check and the villain checks back.
The turn is a 6d. You check again and the
villain bets $18. You think for a second and
decide that you may be ahead, and if not you
have a few outs.
The pot is now $61.50 as the river is dealt,
6s.
You check again and he bets $38.
Now what do you do? Lets look back all the
way to the pre-flop action. You opened UTG and
he still re-raised you from LP. He checked back
on a flop with an ace, an ace that likely hit
him. His check is indicative of weakness or
strength.
The turn comes and you check, but he now
decides to bet. You call hoping for him to check
back on the river or to make your hand.
You miss on the river as the board pairs. You
check and he makes what looks like a value bet.
What looks like a value bet is often times a
value bet. However the value bet is designed to
get a call. This is where you are trapped, it is
small enough that you want to call hoping that
he is bluffing.
Now take a step back, he 3-bet your UTG raise
pre-flop. This tells us that he likely had a
strong pocket pair or AQ+ pre-flop. The ace hit
in addition to two cards that could have given
him a set.
His flop check can very well mean that he
didn’t want to scare you away, and the turn and
river bets are sized to draw you in. Understand
what he has done and analyze his bet sizes. It
should be obvious that you will be crushed here
more times than not. The only time you are good
is if he 3-bet with a random suited connector or
smaller pocket pair.
Summary
After analyzing this hand it becomes obvious
that you should fold, but in real time it is
easy to give into temptation and make the crying
call. If you always replay the hand step by step
before you make a big decision you will realize
that making a good fold is not as tough as it
may seem.
