Often in ring games you’ll see players who limp more than they should. This process creates limped pots and it is these very types of situations that you should be looking to try and exploit. Winning one or two limped pots every hour or so can significantly add to your earn rate. Let us take a look at these “ownerless pots” to show you exactly what I have in mind.
Let us say that two players have limped and the small blind folds in a NL50 ring game. You have the 9 of spades and 4 of clubs in the big blind and decide to check with your piece of junk. The flop comes 3 of diamonds and 3 of clubs and 2 of spades and you decide to check. The first limper also checks but the player on the button makes a $1 bet into a $1.75 pot.
It is more than likely that this is done with a hand that has a polarized range. Either they have air or they have a huge hand. It is also possible of course that they could hold something like a low pocket pair such as a 5-5 and decide to bet for value and to also win the pot right then and there.
A raise here wouldn’t be a bad play at all. As the big blind in an un-raised pot then you could literally be sitting there with anything. You would have folded a 10-3 off-suit had someone raised but you got to play for free. A check-raise here signals a powerful hand but you don’t want to check-raise so much that you give yourself a very bad price.
If you raise to a little more than what’s in the pot at this current time, you will not only find out a lot of information at a very reasonable cost but it also looks to your opponent that you could be raising small for value and to get called. So raising to $3 is giving your opponent nearly 3/1 of pot odds and in addition to implied odds. If they fold then you have pulled off a good coup.
If they re-raise then you are obviously done with the hand and you fold. The tricky decision is made when they call. In this instance then I am taking them for a pocket pair higher than the board but not high enough to make them make a raise pre-flop. So fours through eights would be my guess with fours being less likely seeing as you have one in our own hand! If the turn card brings a Broadway card then I would see if my opponent really was serious about their hand.
If you want to elevate your game to another level then continuing the aggression past the points that you have previously stopped will be an important addition to your game. But like I said at the start, taking your finger off the automatic pilot button and starting to think about what your opponents likely have and what they are doing and then pushing that aggression factor yourself. This will have a serious impact on your bottom line.
good luck player…

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