Floating Strategy in NLH Poker
As you become a better poker player and move up the stakes, you must continuously add new arsenals and moves to your game. Playing mid-stakes no limit holdem contains a lot more aggressive play than the micro-stakes. Players bluff, steal more pots and you'll be much more prone to 3betting and even 4betting pre-flop. That's why it becomes important to learn complex move such as float player which can help to defend your pots and blinds against aggressive play.
The term "float" is used to explain a situation where you call someone's bet with nothing in the hope of bluffing them or re-raising them in future streets to steal the pot from them.
The reason we need to start floating pots is because at high stakes NLH almost all the pots you enter post-flop will either be bluffed or semi-bluffed. You can expect most LAGs (loose aggressive players) to bet almost every pot in position. Most of the time they'll have missed, but by folding to their raises you could well be ahead but losing valuable chips to aggression.
To counter such play, we need to mix up our play and test our opponent by calling his raises on the flop and turn.Our call alone often gives us a stronger perceived hand range and significantly extra equity in the pot. Our opponent, sensing we have a strong hand by calling his raise, checks the next streets and allows us to bluff the pot with nothing. As an example, in a 1/2 6-max cash game our opponent raises from MP to 7BB with AJ and we flat his bet from the SB with 5s-6s. The flop comes 2s-8h-10d and our opponents leads our with a 10BB continuation be which we call.Sensing we might have something, our opponent checks and we raise 20BBs. Now, given our pre-flop calling range, there are a number of hands we could bluff withincluding J10+ and pocket pairs. Our opponent, recognising he is probably behind folds to our raise and we win the pot.
Notice however that we managed to bluff the pot with the worst hand. The reason float play worked here was because it is unlikely our opponent will have hit that board given his opening range of hands, yet our perceived hand range could easily have picked up equity.
Hence, by "floating" and aggressive post-flop player, we can extract maximum value and take advantage of his bluffs. Another advantage is that by floating with weak hands, we can balance our hand range for when we have a monster hand to get paid off bigger.
As you become a better poker player and move up the stakes, you must continuously add new arsenals and moves to your game. Playing mid-stakes no limit holdem contains a lot more aggressive play than the micro-stakes. Players bluff, steal more pots and you'll be much more prone to 3betting and even 4betting pre-flop. That's why it becomes important to learn complex move such as float player which can help to defend your pots and blinds against aggressive play.
The term "float" is used to explain a situation where you call someone's bet with nothing in the hope of bluffing them or re-raising them in future streets to steal the pot from them.
The reason we need to start floating pots is because at high stakes NLH almost all the pots you enter post-flop will either be bluffed or semi-bluffed. You can expect most LAGs (loose aggressive players) to bet almost every pot in position. Most of the time they'll have missed, but by folding to their raises you could well be ahead but losing valuable chips to aggression.
To counter such play, we need to mix up our play and test our opponent by calling his raises on the flop and turn.Our call alone often gives us a stronger perceived hand range and significantly extra equity in the pot. Our opponent, sensing we have a strong hand by calling his raise, checks the next streets and allows us to bluff the pot with nothing. As an example, in a 1/2 6-max cash game our opponent raises from MP to 7BB with AJ and we flat his bet from the SB with 5s-6s. The flop comes 2s-8h-10d and our opponents leads our with a 10BB continuation be which we call.Sensing we might have something, our opponent checks and we raise 20BBs. Now, given our pre-flop calling range, there are a number of hands we could bluff withincluding J10+ and pocket pairs. Our opponent, recognising he is probably behind folds to our raise and we win the pot.
Notice however that we managed to bluff the pot with the worst hand. The reason float play worked here was because it is unlikely our opponent will have hit that board given his opening range of hands, yet our perceived hand range could easily have picked up equity.
Hence, by "floating" and aggressive post-flop player, we can extract maximum value and take advantage of his bluffs. Another advantage is that by floating with weak hands, we can balance our hand range for when we have a monster hand to get paid off bigger.
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