Lou Krieger & Betting Patterns

"There hasn’t been all that much written about betting patterns," writes Lou Krieger in the current issue of Card Player, "but it’s something every top-notch poker player thinks about from time to time."

Lou is absolutely right on both counts. An understanding of betting patterns is a key to unlocking the mysteries of hand-reading. And there's damned little written about it in poker books.

The best thing I've read about betting patterns is a post to Usenet newsgroup rec.gambling.poker by Tad Perry. Tad's focus is on how to bet to get the most out of your winners and lose the least with your losers. He gives a few examples, and summarizes a strategy for use in head-up play against an aggressive opponent. Tad looks at betting patterns as tactical tools.

Lou Krieger, in his column, appears to be more interested in betting patterns as sources of information — information for you about your opponents, and information about you for your opponents.

Let’s begin, Lou writes, by examining the most common pattern you’ll find in a hold’em game. It goes like this: call, bet, bet, check. That’s simple, isn’t it? You’ve seen your opponents do this all the time. You probably do it yourself. You call the blinds before the flop, catch a hand you like — something like top pair with a good kicker — so you bet the flop and the turn, but when you fail to improve to three of a kind or two pair, you decide to check the river to save a bet just on the odd chance that you’re beaten.

Guess what? By analyzing, or at least becoming aware of betting patterns, you’ve just picked up a small leak in your game. You’re leaving money on the table. Do you see it? Most of the time, the river card is not going to promote your opponent’s hand to one that’s better than yours, as long as you had the best hand going to the river. Sure, there will be times when you’re facing three or four opponents, two suited cards flop, and your opponents passively call while you do the betting on the flop and turn. It looks like at least one of them is on a flush draw, doesn’t it? And maybe he is. If a third suited card jumps out of the deck on the river, you certainly have my permission to check as long as your opponents act after you do. But if you have the luxury of acting last, go ahead and bet. You’re likely to be safe, not sorry, if you do.

Lou has a point here that this common betting rhythm says a lot about the quality of one's hand. But I think he is missing, or at least sidestepping, the point of checking on the end instead of betting.

A majority of the time, an opponent's hand is not going to be improved by the river card, true. But the question is, is she going to call your bet on the end if she hasn't? With what sort of hand is she going to call you down?

A case in point is in hold'em if that third flush card falls on the river. Lou is absolutely right that most players who make their flushes on the end will bet out, in order to get that extra bet (because checking top pair to a flush board on the end is so common). But suppose your hand is Kc Qd, the board is Qh 7h 4c 2s Jh, and your opponent checks to you. That heart jack on the river doesn't appear to have made her a flush, but she may very well have rivered two pair. She could easily be afraid of betting this hand into you, for fear that you have made a flush, but will happily check and call down your river bet.

As anyone who has read The Theory of Poker should understand what goes into the decision of betting on the river. It doesn't matter that your action on previous rounds has been call, bet, bet. You are leaving money on the table if and only if a bet on the end wins more money, on average when the situation is repeated many times, than it loses. You should bet when your hand is a favorite to win when called. Not when it is the favorite to be the best hand, but when it is the favorite to be the best hand against a hand with which your opponent will call.

Now I will freely admit that in a loose low-limit game your opponents are going to call you down with some amazing holdings, "just to keep you honest." In a game like that, betting top pair with a good kicker on the end is virtually mandatory. But as the skill level of your opponents increases, you need to fine-tune your own sense of when to bet on the river and when to check.

Lou also examines the pattern of call, check-and-call, check-and-raise, bet that is usually the signature of someone's holding a very strong hand. He's right on the money here. Read about it yourself.

Lou scratches the surface, and Tad digs a little bit deeper. But both of them only introduce the basics of a subtle subject. You are going to have to work some details out for yourself if you really want to improve your game by understanding betting patterns. That's the next jump in poker skill for book-reading players: moving beyond the books to creating your own poker expertise that perhaps no one else shares.