The End of Playing
HEAD UP ON THE END
Most of the concepts we have discussed up to now apply to situations in which
there are more cards to come and in which there may be more than two players in
the pot. However, if the war that is a poker hand continues from the struggle
for the antes to the final showdown, it eventually reaches a last round of
betting, most often between two players. And in this last round, after all the
cards are out, you must sometimes apply concepts totally different from those
that were operative in earlier betting rounds. In this page we will discuss
these concepts. They apply to any one-winner limit games (thus excluding
high-low split) when two players are heads-up on the end.
BLUFFING ON THE END
There are two basic conditions that determine how you act when you are
heads-up on the end - whether or not you have made a legitimate hand and
whether you are in first position or last position. Without a legitimate hand
against an opponent with a legitimate hand, you cannot win except on a bluff- a
bet or a raise that causes your opponent to fold. You cannot hope to win by
checking or by calling. Determining whether or not to try a bluff on the end is
based on the same logic as any other bet. You have to decide whether the
attempt has positive expectation. If the pot is $100 and you bet $20 with
nothing, you have to believe your opponent will fold more than once in six
times in order to expect a profit. Thus, if your opponent folds once in five
times, you will lose $20 four times, but you will win $100 once on average for
a net profit of $20 or an average profit of $4 per hand. However, if your
opponent folds once in seven times, you will lose $20 six times and win $100
once for a net loss of $20 or an average loss of $2.86 per hand. Whether a
bluff works often enough to be profitable depends, like most plays on the end,
upon an accurate assessment of what your opponent is likely to do.
While it's tough to get away with a bluff on the end, it's much tougher to get
away with a bluff raise. Your opponent needs to fold more often for a bluff
raise to show a profit because you are putting in a double bet. Suppose, as in
the last case, there is $100 in the pot, and your opponent bets $20. You now
call his $20 and raise another $20 on a bluff. With your opponent's $20 bet,
the pot has increased to $120, but you are making a $40 investment in the hope
your opponent will fold. Since you are now getting only 3-to-1 for your money,
your opponent must no longer fold more than once in six times but more than
once in four times for you to show a profit. Yet when calling your bluff raise,
your opponent is getting 8-to-1 for his money. The $100 already in the pot,
plus your opponent's original $20 bet, plus your $40 call and raise add up to a
total of $160 in exchange for the opponent's $20. So as we noted in the page on
raising, it takes a very tough opponent, capable of super-tough folds, to throw
away a legitimate hand in this situation. Average players will almost always
call. The only time a bluff raise might work against them is when you suspect
correctly that they have nothing themselves. Most of the time, though, when
your opponent bets and you have nothing, your best play is to fold.
Let us now consider betting strategy heads-up on the end when you have a
legitimate hand. You are going to be either first or last to act, and as we
have noted, strategy changes according to your position. We'll begin by looking
at strategy in last position, which is not quite as tricky as in first
position.
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