Large and tiny pots require quite different mindsets. When the pot is little and you are in a hazardous situation, you need use caution and control to prevent things from getting out of hand.
When the pot is large, the payoff is significant, and you should take additional risks to win it. Making enormous pots for your massive hands is an important no-limit talent.
Big hands may only appear once a night, but that one hand can make all the difference. If you average a $200 win with your huge hands, you may be a large no-limit winner, but if you barely average
With $50, you could really get along. Always remember that big hands deserve huge pots.
Swing For The Fences (Europeans: Shoot For The Goal)
Many individuals flop a set and think, “I should make sure I win something with this hand.” That is incorrect. Sets do not want to win a small prize. They want to win massive pots that require ten minutes to stack. Sometimes you’ll scare your opponents away and end up losing. So, what? Play for the big prize anyhow. After all, what’s better: winning three $40 pots or two $10 pots and one $200 pot? (For the arithmetically handicapped, the second option is much better.) No-limit math typically encourages swinging for the fences with your huge hands, so get into that mindset.
Chunk It Up
Okay, you flopped a set and want to collect all the money. What is the first step?
Chop it up. Look at the remaining stacks and mentally divide them into bet-sized parts. For example, suppose the pot on the flop is $15 and you have $200 remaining. One bet would be around the size of a pot, around $15. Following that stake, the pot would be $45 (the initial $15 plus the $15 bet and call). So perhaps bet another $40 chunk. After that, the pot will be $125. There’s $145 left, so that may be the ultimate bet. In this scenario, you came up with three amounts: $15, $40, and $145.
You may want to reduce your bets from time to time. So, perhaps start with a $10 chunk. That stake (and call) increases the pot to $35, so perhaps the following bet should be for $25. That bet increases the pot to $85, so perhaps the next bet will be $50. That bet brings the pot to $185 with $115 remaining, so that’s the final chunk. This procedure results in four chunks: $10, $25, $50, and $115.
As you can see, you can chunk a stack in a variety of ways. Typically, you’ll have two major options: three (give or take) large portions or four (give or take) smaller chunks. Keep these possibilities in mind for the following stage.
Plan Your Attack
This is the tough part. You must consider the exact flip, what hands your opponent may have, and how he might play them. After that, you must choose which chunking method and betting line will be most likely to produce the monster pot you seek.
You are in the big blind with 6♥ 6♠. You’re playing for $1-2. Someone opens up to $7 from a few spots off the button, and you call. The pot is $15, and the stacks are around $200 (as in our chunking exercise).
The flop shows Q♣ 6♣ 5♥. You flopped a set, and there are flush and straight draws on the board. Let us briefly discuss several various opponent types.
First, assume your opponent is loose and too aggressive, particularly early in the hand. However, he does not make many big-money bluffs and will fold if his hand is bad. If you check the flop, he’ll probably bet on practically anything. You can take advantage of this, as well as the fact that he is a little loose but not insane, by dividing it into four smaller parts. Your strategy is to check and let him gamble. Then you’ll raise, but not significantly: depending on how much he bets, it might be a minimum raise or a half-pot to two-thirds pot raise. You want to make sure he calls with one of his weaker hands, such as AK or 88.
That puts two chunks into the pot. If he calls, you will wager chunk #3 on the turn and #4 on the river.
Assume your opponent is really loose and crazy, nearly a maniac. If you bet the flip, you expect him to raise with a wide range of hands, including some weaker ones. Here, the three-chunk option is ideal. You bet, let him raise, and then go all in for chunk #3. You’re going all in early on this one. Alternatively, you can simply call the flop raise, check the turn, and checkraise all-in. Which one you go with depends on how likely he is to call your flop all-in and how likely he is to bet the turn if checked to. However, you should take the betting to him early with a substantial lead.
Let’s imagine your opponent is weak and passive. He folds often, he rarely bluffs, and he almost never raises without a big hand. If you check the flop, he may check behind, even if he has a good hand. You do not want that to happen.
Furthermore, you’re unlikely to get more than three chunks in because he’s not likely to rise. So I like the three-chunk option with the bet-bet-bet approach. If he folds, so be it. This guy folds frequently, so it’s bound to happen. But bet-bet-bet is your best chance to win a big pot from him.
No Slowplaying Allowed
Slowplay has its place. But it’s almost always a bad idea to flop a set. Big hands deserve big pots, and you don’t get a big pot from checks and callers. Come out strong, particularly on the flop. Letting the flop go through can mean the difference between winning a $120 stake and losing a $50 bet. In the preceding examples, we played the hand three different ways against three distinct opponents. However, on each flop, we either bet out or checkraised. Checking and calling are not appropriate in this case.
Playing huge hands effectively is an essential no-limit talent. Remember these three key principles:
- Swing for it.
- Mentally divide the stacks into bet-size
- Consider how your opponent plays and select the betting line that is most likely to generate a large pot.
