Looking Closer at Fold Equity in Poker Games

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Looking Closer at Fold Equity in Poker Games

I see players all the time (myself included) make multi-barrel bluffs against opponents that call them down with a mediocre pair. Why have their opponents done this? Are they calling stations or have they read their opponents soul or got some read? Whatever the reason your opponent has then the bottom line is that they are capable of calling you down with bluff catching hands.

The lesson here is perfectly clear and it is that you should be paying very close attention to what lines your opponents take. At the lower levels of play then your opponents will not balance their play anywhere near as well. This means that any lines that they take will likely be repeated in the future. So if you see your opponent call someone down with J-J on a Q-10-4-4-2 board after they bet large on all three streets then here is an opponent that is capable of calling down with marginal hands.

So bluffing this opponent on several streets could turn out to be a very risky and costly strategy. However change that to a player that calls a raise pre-flop and calls the flop c-bet only to then fold to a turn barrel then this indicates a player that can be forced away from pots.

When you know how your opponents play then this is when you can start to build certain lines to fit certain situations. If an opponent has called a pre-flop raise on three occasions and then a flop c-bet but folded to a turn barrel then this is an opponent that you should be barrelling against.

However as in the previous example if you have seen a particular opponent exhibit certain lines that lead to you taking a counter line then this is where you can be creative. If a player has a history of taking certain lines then there is very strong evidence to suggest that your opponent will take the same lines again.

Only against sophisticated opponents will you encounter players that adjust their play very accurately. Most of your opponents will slip into enough patterns that allow you to be able to adjust your play accordingly. Many players say that flop texture and the number of opponents are important factors when it comes to your level of fold equity and they are right.

However these reasons pale into insignificance when it comes to comparing them to opponent types. What type of opponent you are facing will have the biggest impact on your level of fold equity. You simply need to know how often your opponent will call you down and with which types of hands. Knowing this will allow you to see which types of hands your opponents are capable of folding. If your opponent in deep stacked situations is very risk adverse and will fold hands as strong as two pair then this highlights the types of “best” hand that they will fold.

Finding out what hand strength your opponent will fold is vitally important because it shows you which opponents you can barrel against and who to value bet thinly against. For example if you see someone call down with a hand like 10-10 on a J-9-7-3-3 board then you can value bet Q-J on all three streets against such an opponent on a J-7-6-4-4 board because you know that your opponent would call with weaker queens, pocket tens down through eights and even a hand like A-7s. However if you held a bluff then this is certainly a player that you cannot barrel against.

It is vital that you keep checking on your opponents play even when you are not involved in the hands yourself. Collecting as much data as you possibly can, will improve your bottom line and this is where break even poker players can suddenly become strong winners. Remember that your notes will be one of your biggest earners in online poker. Most of the players that I know and play with that are either professional or semi-professional all rely heavily on their player notes.

It is for this very reason why changing sites is a big deal in the modern online poker climate. If you are forever bouncing yourself around online poker sites then you will never build up strong notes that combine to dramatically increase your earn rate. It is wrong to expect that you can simply log on and start earning big bucks straight away. Earn rates are something that have to be built over time.

This means taking as many notes as you possibly can. Even if this means that you will be recycling money for a few weeks or perhaps making a meagre earn rate. Trust me when I say that the larger earn rates will arrive but only if you take good notes and keep them.

Carl Sampson is a professional poker player who plays online at 888poker.