Exploiting A Winning Image

Last issue I talked about how other players form opinions of you and how they will adjust their play based on those opinions. Most live no-limit players don’t think of you as being loose or tight, passive or aggressive. Instead they react most strongly to whether you’ve been winning or losing in the past few hours.

When you’ve been winning, your opponents tend to avoid playing pots with you, and they’re less likely to try to run a bluff on you. For most people, these adjustments mean they’re playing worse against you than they normally do. Here’s how you can adjust your play to take advantage of this image.

Fire The Turn

Your opponents are going to defer to you by folding marginal hands and playing strong hands straightforwardly. If they flop a strong hand, they will tend to fastplay it more than they normally would to try to “end the hand” rather than risk letting you catch up. Conversely, if they flop a so-so hand, they are less likely than usual to call multiple bets with it.

This means that if you bet the flop and get called, you can expect your opponents to fold to a turn bet more often than usual. Because they’re fastplaying the flop more often, when they just call, their overall range is a little weaker than normal.

It’s a $2-$5 game. Your opponent in the hand has a $600 stack, and you have over $2,000 since you’ve been winning. Two opponents limp in, and you raise to $30 on the button with K 10 (you can also raise the button more liberally when you’re winning, since opponents are giving up more easily than usual). One player folds, and your main opponent calls. There’s $72 in the pot, and you’re $570 behind.

The flop comes Q 9 5. You have a gutshot and an overcard. Your opponent checks, and you bet $50. He calls. The pot is $172 and you have $520 behind.

The turn is the 7. Normally this would be a mediocre card to barrel. It improves any hands he might have called with around the 9 and 5 (for example, 9-8, 8-7, 8-6, 7-6, 8-8, 7-7, 6-6, and so forth). It’s also not a threatening card if your opponent has a queen. With a winning image, however, I would go ahead and fire. I’d bet maybe $125 into the $172 pot.

Why? Because I’d expect my opponent to fold marginal hands like Q-T, sixes, and 7-6 a lot more often when I have a winning image than when I have a losing image. Instead of thinking, “I might be able to scoop a big pot,” with these hands, your opponent will more likely be thinking, “man I’m going to feel stupid if I lose another big pot to this guy with a bad hand.”

The turn is where pots become “big,” and your opponents will more often than usual be tempted to let it go.

Make Smaller Value Bets

People fold marginal hands to you more often when you have a winning image. This is great when you have a gutshot on the turn. But when you have a medium-strength top pair that you’d like to squeeze value from, it’s bad. You have to make your value bets smaller if you want to get called by worse.

Again, your opponents will avoid playing “big” pots against you. When you want to keep them around, it behooves you to keep the pot from getting too big, because you’ll spook them. Say you open raise to $20 with K Q and get two callers. The pot is $67.

The flop comes Q 3 3. You bet $30 and get called. The pot is now $127.

What does your opponent have? He likely has either a queen, a trey, or a pocket pair. You beat most of these hands, but when you have a winning image the only ones you’re getting big action from are the ones that beat you.

The turn is the 7. If you bet $90 you’re getting folds from nearly every worse hand. So bet $30 again. Then fire small again on the river. Live players are happy to call down three small bets on a board like this one with Q-9, chalking it up to kicker problems when they inevitably lose.

Just realize that when you have a winning image, very few of your opponents are going to hero call you for $200.

Reraise More Preflop In Position

Live players are bad at playing reraised pots. Too often they auto-call the reraise and then check-fold the flop when they miss.

When you have a winning image, your opponents will do this even more against you. They’ll either fold to your reraise (usually a good thing), or they’ll call and play very meekly post-flop (also a good thing). Thus, you can reraise more hands profitably.
Stacks are $1,000 or more. A relatively loose regular opens for $20 and gets a call. You’re in the cutoff with K Q. You can make it $80. If you get reraised, you can be sure you’re up against a huge hand. Most likely you’ll get either two folds or a fold and a call. If you get called, plan to bet most flops (between a third and half of the pot is plenty) and win $100 plus in dead money.

K Q is actually a strong hand to do this with. You can do it with weaker hands also. How weakly and how frequently you can try this play depends on exactly how deferential the players at your table are playing. But if you’ve been winning, definitely try this play and see how it works. If you win and get the sense that your opponents are really steering clear of you, try it again.

Final Thoughts

A few things aren’t going to work as well when you have a winning image. You’re less likely to be able to limp a weak hand, catch a miracle flop, and win a big pot. When you get called on the turn, you may not be able to bluff the river as profitably as usual. Once a pot enters “big pot” land, your opponents will be stronger than normal. They may show up with some hands you wouldn’t usually expect like a weakly played overpair of kings (players will fastplay strong hands against you, but they’ll also become more conservative about the hands they are willing to consider “strong” so they may play meekly with medium-strong hands like pocket kings as an overpair). So use caution if you try to push someone off a hand on the river in a big pot.

Overall, a winning image can be very profitable. It induces your opponents to more often make the bad plays they already tend to make. If you exploit a winning image well, it will lead to you booking some absolutely monster sessions. ♠

Ed’s brand new book, Reading Hands At No-Limit Hold’em, is available immediately for purchase at notedpokerauthority.com. Find him on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor and on Twitter @EdMillerPoker.