Decent players usually have a good understanding about when to fold pre-flop. The decision you make pre-flop is a very important one. To put it simply, you want to play premium hands pre-flop. In terms of marginal hands, you want to play suited connectors and small pairs more when it is a multi-way pot and less when it is about three people seeing the flop. With big cards such as AJ or KT, the opposite is true. Be more willing to play these hands in a heads up or three way situation. Always fold your garbage hands.
These pre-flop decisions are important, but they are not the whole story. There are three rounds of betting post-flop, and the decisions you make are not automatic. Of course, pot odds will help you, especially if you are on a draw, but what to do if you have a made hand but are unsure of where you are in the hand?
Let’s say the pot was raised pre-flop, and you have pot odds to go ahead and call the flop. What to do on the turn? This is a real judgment call. If someone bets the turn and someone raises and another player calls, rest assured that your Jacks are not good and go ahead and fold. However, what if someone bets, everyone else folds and it is to you? What is the correct decision?
In limit Hold’em, the bets are but a small fraction of the pot. This encourages action because it’s much cheaper to see a showdown. This aspect of Limit appeals to fish and new players who prefer to ‘see cards.’
Most bad players lose money at limit hold’em over time and not one any one big hand. This is because they continually make small mistakes. They call when they do not have pot odds, or they continue to call when they are clearly beat. Every time you call when you shouldn’t, you are making a small mistake.
A big mistake at limit hold’em is folding when you shouldn’t have. I do not mean folding early and then later finding out you would have hit a miracle river. I mean folding when you have the best hand and late.
Let’s say that you raised the pot pre-flop and there were three callers (eight small bets). It becomes checked around to you. You bet, someone raises, two people call, you call. The 5 of hearts falls on the turn. The raiser bets, the other players fold.
Now, there are a total of eighteen small bets in the pot (eight pre-flop, eight flop, two turn; remember that a big bet is the same as two small bets). What should you do? You are probably beat. However, if you call on the turn and the river, you will invest a total of four small bets. If you call to the river, there will be a total of twenty-four small bets in the pot, so you must win this pot 16.7% or more of the time in order for a call down to fit. Assuming that you have five outs (which is not the case if he has KQ or AK, but let’s just assume), you have a 10.9% chance of drawing out. You’ll need to be about 6% confident (16.7% – 10.9%) that you’ve got him beat.
So you should probably go ahead and call down, even though you probably are beat. However, many weak-tight players will fold on this, which of course is a disaster if the other player is bluffing or is on a draw.
There are two major decisions to be made at limit hold’em.
The first happens pre-flop, and it is whether to play your hand or not, and the second decision is to be made on the turn. The flop decision is not that important because most of the time you will just be making or calling a small bet; this is a decision that can be made almost entirely based on pot odds.
The second major decision is on the turn. Assuming you call the turn, you should call the river for that it would be stupid to fold the winning hand on the river. Calling the turn and the river means investing two big bets, equivalent to four small bets. Assuming the pot is raised pre-flop and just one bet is made post-flop, you would have only invested three bets to see the turn. Therefore, you can fold at the turn and lose slightly less than half the money you would have lost had you called to a showdown.
The river is not the time to fold your hand. The only exceptions to this are when you missed a draw (like a small flush) or if there is so much betting and raising that you know you are beat.
