Laying Down a Big Hand

There are many situations that come along in the game of Poker, where we are faced with a very tough decision. Perhaps the most important is when we are holding what looks like a Big Hand, and there is significant action in front of us. It is these times especially that we need to look not at how strong our hand is in a general sense, but how strong we are in the situation at hand.

An example would be when you have made a straight on the turn, bet, and get called by someone who appears to be drawing at a flush. If that flush card comes on the river, what are you going to do? If you check, any good player is probably going to bet and try to take the pot down whether they have the flush or not. But in this example let’s say we are playing against a straightforward, average player. I’d say about 90% of the time, a straightforward player is holding a flush when he bets the river here.

Even if you made a large bet that forced him to make an incorrect call on the turn, depending on the size of his river bet you will almost always want to lay down your straight there. You have a big hand, but he is telling you with his betting, and the board is telling you with a 3-flush, that your big hand is Beat.

Many players just can’t bring themselves to believe that they are beat in that situation. It is usually caused by a combination of frustration (that this person may have chased them down and got there), and skepticism (refusing to believe that this large hand got cracked), and they will pay off the flush, which just adds insult to injury. Saving these river bets, especially in a tournament can help quite a bit. As the old quote goes: “Money saved is just as good as money won”

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