In my first PLO book, a significant portion of my advice dealt with how to play my own hand. Especially in my shortstack approach, the only real exploitation of weaknesses in my opponents was taking advantage of some of their (too) loose-aggressive tendencies. For the rest, most of my edge was gained by the short stack that I had, the dead money in the pot, the possibility of protection, and the most basic thing of all, the quality of my starting hand.
Of course, in deep-money play and especially in shorthanded deep-money play, the key to success is recognizing patterns in the opposition, and taking advantage of specific weaknesses that they may have. In the last section of the previous chapter, I analyzed a few common betting patterns your opponents may exhibit, and that could give away whether they are strong or not — and as a result, whether they can be bluffed, whether one can make a successful value bet against them, and so on.
The key to analyzing weaknesses is to take a close look at the specific characteristics of every individual player. For instance, in the eight or nine months that I played exclusively at T-6, one of the regular players had some clear giveaways that I could exploit. Every time he would bet the pot at an all-suited flop (say, a flop with three hearts), he would be in there with the bare ace. Yet with an ace-high flush in that same spot, he would bet significantly smaller to not lose his market, and with a non-nut flush he had a tendency to just check in order to induce a bluff or to get value out of the hand on the later streets. But with the bare ace, he would come out swinging with pot-sized bets and raises — a betting pattern that he maintained until the very last day of the site’s existence. This was a tell “as pure as the driven snow”, as T.J. Cloutier would call it, and playing a big stack it was one that could pay huge dividends.
While most players who find out a giveaway like this want to exploit it at every opportunity, when it’s one of my regular opponents whom I face daily, I tend to take advantage of tells this blatant only in the very big pots. Especially if I had a non-nut flush in an unraised pot with people still to act after me, I would often fold against his pot bet — sometimes after some deliberation or using the “Time” button, so I could give my opponent the feeling that he had fooled me. Also with other tells that I had witnessed in some players, I sometimes let them get away with it in pots that were small, where the tell was not 100% clear-cut, or where there were players behind me still to act. By letting my opponents feel that their giveaway had gone unnoticed, I might give them the positive reinforcement — at least against me — to continue to use their obvious pattern of play. Heck, in small pots I would even make a small payoff occasionally with what I knew was probably the worse hand, and even by folding a what looked probable winner in a small heads-up pot, in order to:
♠ Continue to make them play in highly predictable patterns. ♠ Use my advantage in the most crucial pots.
Yet, because I still would be wrong on occasions, my opponents would not get suspicious and/or start plugging their leak.
As I was playing at the site every day, a site with a small core base of regular players, it was imperative that I would not use all my reads on them to the full. Especially in the heads-up games, I knew I had to take my foot of the gas at times. After all, in heads up you rarely find a player who will willingly play you daily if he is clearly lacking in ability. So, especially after a big pot or a very good read, it was important for me not to push things too far — better to lose back a little money in what seems like an almost even game, than to outplay someone so clearly that he will never return. This was especially important for me, as there were at least two and possibly three better heads-up players than me who also played day in, day out — and I needed to make sure that I would not lose the customers that I had an edge over. Because then, I would have needed to fulfill the obligations from my contract playing heads up against better opponents — and this didn’t exactly look like the prospect I had in mind.
In this chapter, I will describe the overall playing patterns of a few opponents that I faced every day at the site. Assuming that you have never played there (and most readers won’t, as the site didn’t allow any Americans), the actual names of the players won’t ring a bell. The fact is — they are not important. What I am trying to show here is simply how I had analyzed the situation, playing shorthanded PLO that was a relatively new game to me at the time, and trying to find exploitable mistakes in the opposition9. It may not be directly helpful to your game — but I believe that for some readers
there will be a lot of value in seeing how I have held my own under the circumstances described. So, consider this no more than just a mere example of how one could do things — it is my no means intended to as some kind of definitive set of rules on exploiting weaknesses.
Player 1: T-6 Andreas
A key aspect to my game has always been to identify specific weaknesses in every player, and if by chance I couldn’t identify or exploit any, I would try to avoid this player as much as possible. T-6 Andreas fitted into that profile, or to be more accurate, he fitted into that profile for the very short games, and especially heads up. Being a somewhat overaggressive player with a decent hand-reading ability, he definitely had a slight edge over me when the games got really short. Especially the first few months on the site, he was simply a much better heads-up player than me.
In five-or six-handed games, I liked being up against him though, as his play had some unusual yet exploitable patterns:
♠ His pot bets were almost always a sign of strength, and often were top set or a premium draw, in contrast to the two-thirds pot bets that were done with a slightly wider range. Especially his quick pot-sized raises were top set much more often than one would expect from a slightly overaggressive player.
♠ He had the strange betting pattern of playing top full and even quads incredibly fast. One time, he even bet full pot into me (the flop raiser) when the turn had given him quad 10s! I happened to have made a straight flush on that hand and would have gotten his stack regardless of how he played it. But calling a raise OOP on a flop J♦-10♥-8♦ with 10–10, to then bet full pot into this flop raiser after the turn 10♦… well, that is a quite remarkable way to play quads.
♠ Lots of marginal check-raises on the flop, especially against continuation bets from preflop raisers.
♠ Even in six-handed play, he would sometimes call three barrels with a non-nut flush, almost regardless of the size of the bets. Having analyzed these patterns, it was now time for me to try to exploit them. I did this by making the following adjustments:
♠ Refuse to play him heads up, unless to start up a new six-handed table.
♠ Be less scared of his check on paired boards — as with a full house or even quads, he had a tendency to come out firing. In other words: paired boards in position after a check by him tended to be excellent bluffing opportunities — where a bet of just half the pot or even less would usually be enough to pick up the pot.
♠ Because of his tendency to check-raise marginal holdings against any continuation bets in three-or four-way pots, I started checking back many hands on the flop that would have to fold against a check-raise, yet that could still have quite a bit of showdown value. For instance, hands like an open-ended straight draw on a board with two of a suit (six nut outs), or hands like middle pair + kickers + gutshot straight draw. Especially by checking back decent draws, I could expect to get excessive action on the turn once I would have hit my draw, as people don’t expect a preflop raiser to check back an open-ended straight draw in position. Of course, in heads-up play where the pots are smaller and thus I wouldn’t automatically need to lay down against a check-raise, I would still continuation bet a significant percentage of the time, even with the types of hands mentioned.
♠ On all-suited boards, my general strategy had always been to be aggressive on the flop with either the nut flush, the bare ace, a set or an occasional bluff — while playing my K-and Q-high flushes a lot less aggressively. This meant that a relatively high number of flop bets by me on these types of flops would be bluffs or semi-bluffs. (Like when I would be betting my set, hoping to make small flushes fold yet still having outs if called. Especially if accompanied by the bare ace, I tended to play these hands extra aggressively, as I would now know for a fact that no one could be in there with the current nuts.) In other words: only a relatively small percentage of my bets and raises on these flops would be the hand that I was trying to represent: the nut flush. And although other players had not yet noticed this, as Andreas and I played each other almost daily, he had noticed this, and thus started to call me down with non-nut flushes — sometimes even on all three streets. Of course, once I had seen the changes in his play, it was time for me to start making some adjustments:
♠a) Once he would call me on the flop when I had the bare ace, just give up — no more bets would go in.
♠b) Once he would call me on the flop when I had a set, I would check back on the turn in order to make my full house on the river and maybe get paid off. (When out of position, I would tend to make a relatively small stop bet on the turn, to avoid facing a bigger bet by Andreas that I could not call. Given that with non-nut flushes he liked to call rather than raise, this was a play that I could sometimes get away with.) However, those times when I had a set and the bare ace, I would still continue with a rather big bet on the turn, say around 60–70% of the pot. This served two purposes. First, it would give Andreas the positive reinforcement to keep calling me down with non-nut flushes, knowing I could still be betting the bare ace. (Even though obviously, I would simply check back on the river with a set + the bare ace, and would only fire a big bet with a full house or better. However, those times when I did not improve, he would see my bare ace and think: “See, I had him again with his naked ace — my turn call was good.”) And the second purpose was perhaps even more important: my 60–70% pot bet on the turn would make the pot 2.2 to 2.4 times as large, meaning that if would make my full on the river, I could now value-bet much bigger than I would if I had simply checked back the turn.
♠c) Once he would call me on the flop when I in fact did have the nut flush, I would continue to make substantial bets on the turn and river, usually about two-thirds of the pot. Say, the same kind of bets that I might make against other players if I was bluffing with the bare ace.
Player 2: T-6 Henrik
Another winning regular at the site was T-6 Henrik. However, in contrast to Andreas, he was more the prototype of the “typical grinder”. He would rarely be playing a big pot without a big hand, and would surrender in the small-and medium-sized pot much earlier than most other players. Combined with the fact that he respected my play a lot, I made the following adjustments:
♠ As Henrik showed a willingness to quickly give up, playing a strategy that closely resembled “fit or fold”, I could pick up lots of small pots on the flop with just moderate-sized bets. While against most players, I would usually bet two-thirds or three-quarters of the pot, when I was heads up with Henrik I would usually bet just half pot. In fact, against scary boards and either/or boards like A-A-Q or K-K-7, I would often bet much smaller that that, and with success. Assuming that I also checked back to give up a pot every now and then, I could steal more than my fair share of pots for a minimal investment — as he would check-raise only when he really had the goods.
♠ Of course, if Henrik would just show any kind of interest on no-draws flops like A-A-Q by betting, check-calling or check-raising, I would instantly give up. However, as time progressed, Henrik started (check-)calling on the flop a bit more liberally, having noticed I seemed to be picking up a bit more pots than I was entitled to. This meant that slowly but surely, the key of our pots together would be the play on the turn. If my half-pot (or a bit less than that) flop bet would get called, I would still just give up on the turn a fairly large percentage of the time. But maybe just 35% or 40% of the time, I would now fire a second half-pot barrel on those either/or boards, even with total air sometimes. Perhaps even more importantly, on drawheavy boards where on the turn the draw had not yet been completed, I would almost always fire a no-frills, two-thirds or three-quarters pot bet. I could profitably make this play even with drawing hands of my own, as Henrik was not the type of player to use the turn to make a move, like raising with a draw to represent a made hand. In other words: there was not much danger that by being a bit too aggressive on the turn I could bet myself out of the pot, and as he would often give up even his rather decent draws at this stage, there was a lot of value in taking an aggressive posture. Let’s say I had A-A-9–7, heads up and in position on a flop J- 8–4 rainbow. (In a situation where I have raised preflop, and have had Henrik check-call my standard 50% pot bet on the flop.) Now, let’s say that the turn was an offsuit king — a card that did not help me at all, yet that could easily have helped me in the eyes of my opponent. (Given my preflop raise, it could easily have given me top two pair or even top set.) Against tricky or highly aggressive players, this would be a situation where I might check back on the turn, given that I had a combination of a relatively weak made hand and a relatively weak draw, and even more so because of the likelihood of getting check-raised off my hand by what could very well be just a semi-bluff. But against Henrik, this king was actually an excellent card to fire again. With a hand like 10–9-x-x or even 10–9–7-x, he would hate this king as some of his straight outs were now not nut cards anymore, and could actually cost him his entire stack if he would hit. And with a hand as strong as J-8-x-x, this king on the turn had started to make this top two pair from the flop look a little bit bleak. He could very well be drawing very thin now (against K-J-x-x) or even entirely dead (against K-K-x-x) — and all of this is assuming that on the flop, his top two pair was actually the best hand. All in all, this would be a situation where a player like Henrik could often be induced to check-fold either the current best hand or a very live draw, not wanting to play a big pot OOP with a non-nut and potential trouble hand.
♠ While against most players I was quite reluctant to play pots from out of position, against Henrik I didn’t mind so much. Even first in as the small blind I had a tendency to raise him liberally, in contrast to the very tight folds I would make in this spot against good LAPs. The reason was simple: Henrik would not reraise or take over the initiative very often, meaning I could pick up the vast majority of the pots either on the flop or turn, without a showdown and almost regardless of my cards. In fact, given that Henrik indeed check-raised only rarely yet had the nasty habit to bet into me on the flop a bit more than I liked, being out of position against him actually gave me “the right to first bluff”.
♠ Not only did I take advantage of him folding too often on the flop or turn, another advantage was that in those rare cases where he had called both the flop and the turn, he would almost never fold on the river anymore, regardless of how big the bet was (unless of course he had a busted draw). So, in addition to stealing all those small pots, I could also secure myself of a huge payday those rare times that we would be on the river together, and I happened to have a really big hand. While against other players, both my bluffs my value bets would be rather standard, something like 60–70% of the pot and sometimes even significantly less, against Henrik the value-bets with my big hands would almost always be close to pot-sized. In addition, of course I rarely if ever bluffed on the river against him, except if there was a slight chance that he might have a busted draw (in which case I might make a small 30% bet or so if I couldn’t even beat these ace- high/one-pair busted draws). But on boards that had a pair or the possibility for completed straights or flushes, where the river card had not changed a thing, well in that spot I obviously never bluffed — simply because I knew he would reason “If I call twice, I will also have to make the third call”.
♠ And one of the most important characteristics for many players, also happened to count for Henrik: he would usually start out his sessions very tight, but after losing two or three decent-sized pots, his game would open up considerably. Especially after losing a big pot against me, he would start becoming a lot more aggressive — in which case I would instantly quit all of my strategies from above. In contrast to what was my standard game plan against him, I would now start to check my big draws to him, hoping he would bet on marginal values so I