Professional poker player Chris Halverson posted a hand that is a common problem hand in NL. It got me thinking and inspired me to write this article.

There are times when:

1. You flop a monster and need to extract the maximum value from your opponent.
2. You flop a vulnerable hand and need to extract the most from an inferior hand while avoiding giving up too much to a superior hand.
3. You flop nothing and try to push your opponent off the hand.
4. You flop nothing and give up.

So much can be said, but I'm going to discuss #2 today.

Monster or vulnerable hand?

The size of your monster is relative to the texture of the board. Flopping quads or a royal flush is obviously a monster anytime, but sets, straights and flushes are vulnerable to the texture of the board. A set or straight on a Tc9c8c board is not a monster.

2 pair is rarely a monster in a deep stack ring game, even top 2.

TPTK is never a monster!

The more vulnerable your hand, the more you'll need to put in early before your opponent catches up. This will also help you determine where you stand and can keep you from going broke in deep-stack NL. The stronger your hand, the more you want your opponent to catch up.

So far, so obvious right?

Playing your monster based on your opponent's range

What percent of your opponent's range are you ahead of?
What percent of your opponent's range will pay you off?
What percent of your opponent's range have a lot of outs (or they think they have a lot of outs)? Of these, how much can you make them pay for their draw?
What percent of your opponent's range are drawing slim? Of these, how many will pay you off if they improve?
What inferior hands will pay you off and how?
What inferior hands will take your money if they hit?

Let's walk down the monster list...

-You flop quads on a AA7 rainbow board after you raised preflop. Believe it or not, this situation isn't very good. The good news is that you won't lose this hand. The bad news is that very few holdings are going to pay you off no matter how you play this hand. Even KK is going to lose few chips against you unless he hits a K. So you check until the river and make a small bet or somehow you convince a maniac to take a shot at the pot after you check twice. You win a little bit, but you're not going to bust anyone 99% of the time. Checking this to the river and then coming out strong is more scary than 3 weak bets starting on the flop. It is hard to tell if you're scared of the AA or trying to milk them when you're betting a quarter to half the pot. (This turns into a nice bluff-size bet for you later if they catch on)

-You flop top set on a Q72 rainbow board. There are no draws on the flop and you will fold a large percentage of hands with a bet. Giving a free turn card may allow them to pick up a draw, but you MUST bet the turn and you must bet big if your stacks are deep. This brings up another subject...bet strong if you're unwilling to fold later.

- You call a preflop raise with AT and the flop is ATT. This is where poker gets to be fun. Since your opponent raised preflop, you can assume that AA is in their range which kills you, but you're probably going to pay them off anyway unless they are the rockiest rock you know. You can include AK-AJ which should help you build a decent pot. You can include KK-88 or so, which will not pay you off at all.

My goal during these hands is to extract the maximum from the % of their range which they might think they're ahead with. Slowplaying will not extract many chips from KK-88. If I call their bet, they'll likely slow down (probably to a halt). If I bet, they'll likely fold. Another consideration is to avoid going broke to KK-JJ, but that isn't huge because they're drawing so thin. So the main goal here is to pull some chips from AK-AJ right? My point is to not worry about extracting money from hands that aren't going to put money in the pot unless they catch up and overtake you. Play the hand as if you have AJ early and like you have AT late in the hand.

Smooth-calling can be scary to AK/AQ here. Perhaps a minimum-raise or 3x their bet to build the pot. Many AK/AQ opponents will come along for small raises/bets. If you call early and raise later it appears that you either flopped a monster or you caught up and their one pair will have a hard time calling ANY bet/raise from you. You'll win a smaller pot than if you starting building the pot earlier as if you were weak early. AK will probably be happy to bet/call, call, call. They will probably fold to bet/call, bet/raise...unless you know they're a bad player of course.

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