Sports Articles Johnson

Maximizing a Hand - Building up a winning pot

So, how do you maximize your hands? That’s what I’m here to tell you. Ask yourself important questions like what do you think your opponent has. Say you have pocket 5’s and you call someone’s preflop raise and the flop is A-7-5. Since your opponent raised, it’s likely hat he has an ace. A lot of players would check and call or check-raise. I say, just bet into the player. If he has an ace like you think he does, he will probably raise. When he does, I would recommend just smooth calling now because he will think you’re worried when in actuality you are setting him up. You are trying to get your opponent to put in more chips early so he feels more pot committed and puts even more chips in on the turn and river. If you start the betting early, you will naturally build up a bigger pot.

Another thing to think about is what the flop looks like. You need to think about how a flop may have hit your opponent. Let’s say you have 6-8 and the flop is 4-5-7. You flopped the nut straight. In an unraised pot, it is possible, someone has flopped a set given these smallish cards. In this spot, I’d check and induce others to do some betting for you. Let someone catch their card. If it ends up beating you, so be it. Sometimes you have to take a chance to win a bigger pot, even if sometimes it means, you lose out once in a while.

These are just a couple of ways to build up bigger pots when you flop a monster. Remember, if you slow-play for too long, chances are you won’t make any money at all. Now what fun is that?

Until next time, may the chips fall your way.



by Johnson