River Rafting

I start the no-limit hold'em hand in late position with A-8 and face a raise from a middle-position bettor. Since I know this player to be capable of raising with all premium hands and some sub-premium holdings like K-J offsuit or Q-J suited, I decide to call and see the flop in position.

The flop comes A-9-7. My foe bets half the pot. The only holdings I fear here are good aces, and this player could be on many other hands, such as big pocket pairs, medium pocket pairs, or the aforementioned K-J or Q-J. So, I call, and see the turn. Ideally, I'll hit my kicker; absent that, any low card presents me with an opportunity to win right there if my foe isn't on a good ace and has no stomach for a fight.

A deuce comes on the turn. He checks. I bet half the pot, expecting him to lay it down, but he surprises me by calling. My first thought is that either he's trapping with a great ace or he thinks I'm trying to steal the pot. My second thought is, What a weird little call. Something just doesn't sit right. Before I have a chance to form a third thought, the river card comes down. It's another deuce -- and now my foe leads into me with a pot-size bet. This bet is troublesome for me, for it fits either possibility that I contemplated on the turn: He could be on a good ace; he could be on a resteal. Yikes! I don't want to call a better hand, but I don't want to fold to a worse one. What should I do?

Here's what: Travel backward through time. Replay the hand in my mind, and look for a theory, as it were, that fits the facts. I need to find a holding that's consistent not only with the river bet, but also with the action on prior streets. Quick review, then. He raised preflop from middle position, which suggests some strength. Then he bet the flop, which could be strength or just obligation. Then came that odd check-call on the turn. I could understand a check-raise on the turn -- as that's how a good ace milks maximum return. But to just call … he can't expect me to bet again on the river if I'm not sure that I have the best hand, nor can he expect me to call on the river if he bets for value. Thus, it seems like the check-call on the turn sets up a lead-bluff on the river. So he's stealing, right?

I'm still not sure, so I seek my next source of information. I look at myself through his eyes. He can easily peg me as frisky, and rate me as capable of calling his preflop raise with any ol' junk, because, hey, that's the way I play. But he also knows, if he's paying attention, that I don't draw without proper odds, nor certainly would I decline a free shot at my draw on the turn.

So, notwithstanding how frisky he knows me to be, he can't put me on a failed draw here.

What to do, what to do? I'm still looking for a story that fits the facts. I am certain that there's enough information out there to make a reasonable stab at my foe's holding, if I can just put the pieces together. The piece that's still out of place is that check-call on the turn. If he thought he had me beat there, why didn't he raise? If he didn't think he had me beat, why did he call? Because he was on a legitimate draw? That would be 10-8 or 8-6, but he doesn't raise with those hands preflop. I need the story … I need the story … No! I need the history! And suddenly I remember that about an hour ago, I saw him bet aggressively on the flop and the turn, only to check-call, and lose, when an ace fell on the river. I recall that he flashed pocket queens in disgust, and complained about always getting drawn out on.

Snap! He's got pocket queens, or maybe jacks or kings. His check-call on the turn was a compromise of conflict. He wanted his queens to be good, but feared they were not, and the toxic combination of a big pocket pair and a sense of entitlement got him stuck on the hand. When he checked on the turn, he no doubt hoped that I would check behind him and give him a free ride to the river. Well, that didn't happen, so then he went ahead and made a bad, loose call.



The river comes, and he's lost in the hand. He knows he's beaten, doesn't want to be beaten, convinces himself that I'm a big lying liar on a busted draw, and decides to fire away. Tying all of these threads of consideration together, I decide that he's on a big pocket pair, and call. He turns over pocket jacks and surrenders the pot.

Should I have raised on the river? After all, if I'm so certain that he's got a big pocket pair, why not try to extract more value? I'll tell you why: Because I'm certain, but not sure. Even though my analysis leads to a firm conclusion, my analysis easily could be wrong. So, I measure risk versus reward. If I call wrong, I lose the pot. If I raise wrong, I lose more, and reopen the action and expose myself to being reraised and put to a decision for all of my chips. After all, his J-J is an iffy hand with an ace on the flop -- but A-J and A-10 are iffy hands there, too, and are hands that can beat me.

This is the fundamental problem of poker, distilled down to a single moment of decision in a single typical hand. You need to do a deep and thorough analysis of the hand when there's not enough time to do a deep and thorough analysis. You need to reach a conclusion based on available information when available information is both incomplete and inconclusive. And you need to be willing to call and be wrong, lest you inspire your foes to fire mortars at your river raft and sink it time and time again.

Ha! No one said the game is easy, right? But the more practiced we become at making these evaluations, the faster and more reliable our analyses become. We can't always be right, but we can always be getting better. So, the next time you find yourself in a dicey river situation, take some time and think things through. Even if you get it wrong this time, you'll improve your ability to get it right overall, and that will pay dividends, big-time, in the long run.

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series. He resides in cyberspace at vorza.com, and in the blogosphere at somnifer.typepad.com. John Vorhaus' photo: Gerard Brewer.