Thinking about a Poker Hand - Picking a Betting Line

The goal of BetUS Sportsbook’s online Poker School is to get you thinking about poker strategy. It’s not about memorizing the correct play in each situation, because every hand of poker is different, as is every opponent. One of my favorite conceptual tools for thinking about poker strategy is the idea of a “betting line.” Knowledgeable poker players will often ask each other what “line” they took when presented with a certain tricky situation.

A betting line is a series of decisions, either on one betting round or across several. For example, you bet the flop and reraise after you get raised. Your betting line would be “bet-three bet.” If you decided to check-raise instead, it would simply be “check-raise.” An example of a multi-street betting line would be “check-call, check-raise.” The comma represents a new betting round, in this case, check-call the flop and check-raise the turn. Betting lines are extremely helpful because they take into account the fact that no poker decision is an island; each decision affects later decisions that you will have to make. The right decision for the moment might be the wrong decision when the entire hand is considered. For a simple example, take hitting the top pair on the big blind. You’ve got a good hand, so the simple analysis is to bet, but you may make more by check-raising. If you wanted to get trickier, you could decide on the betting line of check-call, check-raise.

Of course, your opponent might not take the action you expect him to take, and thus you must take a different betting line. You should not limit yourself to thinking about only one line; take into account the different things your opponents might do, and develop several betting lines. For instance, let’s say you’re the big blind again, and this time you flop two pair. Your opponent is aggressive and you decide to play this hand a bit tricky; your plan is to bet the flop, but only call a raise, then, on the turn, you’ll go for a check-raise. Your projected betting line is bet-call, check-raise. But what if your opponent only calls on the flop? You might decide to simply bet, bet in that case. That would be your secondary betting line.

What you want to do is match your betting line to the strength of your hand and the suspected strength of your opponent’s hand. The following examples assume you’re playing limit hold’em, but they can easily be modified for no-limit or Omaha games. With a monster you’ll usually adopt a betting line that aims for more bets to go in on later rounds than early rounds (slowplaying). With a strong but vulnerable hand (top pair against a draw-heavy board) you’ll want to put in a lot of action early, and little on the turn and river. If you have a monster and suspect your opponent of also having a great hand (but not as good as yours), you may want to simply bet and raise at every opportunity (bet-three bet, bet-three bet, bet-three bet).

Keep your eyes peeled for an upcoming “quiz” on betting lines where you’ll have to match-up situations with betting lines.