You're a Bunch of Factors

Hi All,

I have been playing a lot of 6 max games of late and have found that floating in position can be an extremely profitable play and quite a good tool to have in your arsenal.

Why I say this is that especially in a six max game it is almost always raised preflop and is usually only ever called by 1 opponant. So effectively each hand is pretty much heads up post flop. So obviously there will be a continuation bet nearly 100% of the time by the pre flop raiser. A pre flop raise 6 handed can be done with nearly any 2 cards. Just because they raise doesn’t really narrow your opponants range down all that much (depends on skill level of opponent) as 6 max can be very creative and a lot of the time you are opening with any two hoping to take it down or get one caller and then bet them out with a continuation bet. So calling a preflop raise in position with any two cards with the plan of floating the flop (obviously depending on the board) can be quite advantageous for a few reasons.

1: Our calling range in our opponents eyes is quite wide so it makes it very hard for our opponent to read what sort of hands we may have and how strongly the board may have hit our hand

2: Obviously we can bet our opponent out of the pot when it is checked to us on the turn. As a lot of the time players tend to give up once their continuation bet is called on the flop and the flop has missed their hand.

3. players will start to see us as a ‘calling station’ who never fold to a flop bet so a lot of the time they will stop continuation betting which puts the ball in our court and we are now the aggressor.

4. when we do hit our hands we may get more value out of our hands as us calling the flop doesn’t mean we are necessarily strong thus they may fire another bet on the turn. A bet which they may not have made if we had a super tight image.

The one main negative I think that we probably have though is that we are quite susceptible to the check raise on the turn. Obviously if our opponent sees that we are calling pre and post flop with such a wide range and then betting a checked turn then if they are smart will start to check raise a lot of our turn bets. Which makes it hard for us to call or raise unless we have monsters. In saying this however, because our range is so wide if they check raise us on the turn they will usually have to be guessing as to what we hold. So if we do hold a monster then we are going to get paid off even more, if that makes sense?

Obviously the texture of the board, position, our opponents ability, playing style, our image, hands we have shown down etc etc all come into play when we play like this. We don’t want to be doing this all the time every hand but if we find the right times to change geers then I think floating can be quite a profitable tool to have. Obviously There is a difference between just being loose passive and calling every hand,hoping to hit big or hit our second pair on the turn then there is to a set plan against certain players to float and take pots away from our opponents on certain boards and situations.

This was just something I have been thinking about a lot lately and have found doing so quite helpful and profitable lately. thoughts?

Cheers. jason

Nice post Jason, good to get some strat discussion going on here, it has been a while.

jasonbling36 wrote:I have been playing a lot of 6 max games of late and have found that floating in position can be an extremely profitable play and quite a good tool to have in your arsenal.

You are correct, although i would go even further to say that it is an essential part of 6max games these days - if you give up after just a cbet you are quite often lighting money on fire.

jasonbling36 wrote:So obviously there will be a continuation bet nearly 100% of the time by the pre flop raiser. A pre flop raise 6 handed can be done with nearly any 2 cards. Just because they raise doesn’t really narrow your opponants range down all that much (depends on skill level of opponent) as 6 max can be very creative and a lot of the time you are opening with any two hoping to take it down or get one caller and then bet them out with a continuation bet. So calling a preflop raise in position with any two cards with the plan of floating the flop (obviously depending on the board) can be quite advantageous for a few reasons.

The first thing i would mention is that floating, as with bluffing, in general, is best when you have some sort of equity. By equity, that could be as low as Ace high, or a runner runner flush draw. Ace high hands are probably best because if you turn top pair, it is quite often good. And an Ace on the turn is usually seen as an ideal second barrel card for the villain. Thirdly, ace high quite often has a lot of showdown value if villain decides to shut down after the cbet.

jasonbling36 wrote:3. players will start to see us as a ‘calling station’ who never fold to a flop bet so a lot of the time they will stop continuation betting which puts the ball in our court and we are now the aggressor.

This is player dependent. Against good opposition, they will cbet the same frequency, but their turn and river barrel frequency will increase a lot. In general, when countering against habitual floating, i think barrelling more turns is better than going for the check-raise on the turn for the reason i mentioned above - a lot of villains will float with ace high and then check back turn hoping to get to showdown.

jasonbling36 wrote:The one main negative I think that we probably have though is that we are quite susceptible to the check raise on the turn. Obviously if our opponent sees that we are calling pre and post flop with such a wide range and then betting a checked turn then if they are smart will start to check raise a lot of our turn bets. Which makes it hard for us to call or raise unless we have monsters. In saying this however, because our range is so wide if they check raise us on the turn they will usually have to be guessing as to what we hold. So if we do hold a monster then we are going to get paid off even more, if that makes sense?

this is a good point, although as i mentioned above, i think villains are more likely to just increase their turn barrel range rather than go for the check raise.

A way to counter villain's who go for the check raise is to only bet a very polarised range on the turn. If we float the flop with something like a runner runner flush and straight draws, and the turn bricks off, we can safely bet-fold this as there is no decision to make when we get check-raised, we are always folding. Similarly if we called flop with some sort of strong hand, that we're never folding turn to (obv)

But if we float the flop with ace high, and then the turn is an ace, quite often i will check back this turn if checked to. This makes our river decisions very easy, as we can snap off any sort of river bet from villain, which now includes a lot more bluffs, or we can safely bet the river for value if checked to, even if it is very thin.

so i think being very polarised on the turn is a good idea in general

Thoughts?

Very good points you make especially when we hit the turn. I mean we are most likely in front if we hit our top pair on the turn anyway, however we dont really want to get check raised as it puts us to a tough decision. so checking the turn to snap call any river is probably the best play here most of the time. obviously this also comes back to pot control. we dont want to end up playing a massive pot with just top pair. I agree for sure about only betting with a polerized range. we either have the monster or nothing. which goes back to the previous sensentance, you dont want to be having to make touch decisions on the turn with weak made hands.

agree with the points you make for sure.

Online, when we are multitabling, i think there is value in making decisions easy for ourselves too. I.e if we were playing live, our reads are usually much more developed compared with online (in my experience anyway). so it means we can go for thinner and thinner value live.

whereas online, if we are 6-8 tabling and then we get check raised on 1 table, unless there is significant history it is really hard to counter this. so i think checking back turn with the intention of calling any river bet just removes this situation a lot.

maybe this means that i should play less tables online, and lately i have been limiting myself to 6 as i think i suck when playing 10

yeah definetly agree with you there. unless you have quite a large history of hands with one opponant you really cant afford to be having to make touch decisions when playing more then probably 4 tables id say. So by checking back on the turn there is not even any time for thought needed really. its just 'yep im calling this river no matter what' and move on to the next table.

In saying that, thats why i love playing live. i love the challenge of having to make touch decisions. being a good poker player is almost like being good at solving riddles. take in all the info you have and work everything out step by step. no better feeling in the world then making the right play after taking in all the info. ie calling with like queen high on an ace high bored. love it

yeah i love live cash games, they are about my favourite form of poker, especially when it is short handed and deep, because it is pretty much correct to play every single hand from every position. thats when it gets fun

totally agree. tough to find a short handed cash game live though unless you get a home game up. well in crown they dont offer any 6-max tables at all unless its in the high rollers.

whats it like in adelaide? even worse so im told

yeah its more when a table is starting or a few people leave that you can play short handed.

crown is definitely better than adelaide in pretty much every facet