The Art of Pre-Flop Deception
One important thing we must consider and balance in our pre-fl op decision making process is deception. One mistake many players make is they become way too predictable to read pre-fl op. When they raise in early position they always have a premium hand, when they limp in late position they always have a weak one, etc. Someone recently told me, “I love it when I get aces on the button.” Well yeah, it’s aces, and it’s on the button, but the reason it’s so nice is most players play so many hands on the button that when they have a strong hand it is grossly underrepresented, which makes it much easier to get paid off. Conversely, when we get aces under the gun our hand is precisely what we’re representing, which, against good players, makes it much tougher to get paid off. We must constantly keep tabs on what exactly it is we’re representing pre-fl op and how closely our hand matches what it is we’re representing when making decisions.
One example of deception is the early position steal. When you raise under the gun with a less than premium hand as a steal it becomes very powerful because your hand becomes very overrepresented, so you can win the pot two ways: by representing the hand they think you have, or hitting the hand they think you don’t. One thing you must bear in mind when using this sort of play is when you’re deep stacked people will often call you precisely because of the hand they think you’re representing. So for example if you try raising with 8-7 suited UTG at $10/$20 and $3000 stacks, it is unlikely to work as a steal because many players will call you HOPING you have aces and that they can crack them. Of course, that can also work to your advantage, but it’s something to be aware of that as a steal it will not work very often when the table has deep stacks. Also, you must be conscious of the fact that people become much less likely to bluff you, as they believe your hand range is much stronger. So while it is possible players are bluffi ng you, all but the most aware players will have a range that is very heavily weighted towards real hands when playing back at you.
Another good example of deception is when you have A-K offsuit early in a tournament out of the blinds. A-K off-suit plays best heads up, but if there is a single raiser and no callers, I will often just smooth call out of the blinds. When you do this your hand becomes massively underrepresented and you can win large pots when you fl op a hand and your opponent is dominated. When you reraise out of the blinds early your hand becomes perfectly represented and you are also out of position and deep stacked. Generally I dislike playing hands in such a way out of position where my hand is pretty much face up and there is still a lot of money behind.
The fi nal type of misrepresentation I often do is when I have a hand like 8-7 suited on the button. If there are several callers I am obviously content to just call and play a multiway pot in position, something that suited connectors do very well. What if there is a single raiser in middle to late position though? Often times against reasonably competent players you can’t profi tably play suited connectors heads up in position, or at the very least you run into a lot of problem situations where you fl op middle pair and have no idea where you’re at. Same goes for a lot of middle pairs like 7-7. These often become very good hands to ‘misrepresent’ with a three-bet when you are deep stacked enough. Your opponent has opened the pot from a position of weakness (middle to late position) and if you call he will put you on exactly what you have, a middle pair or connector. If you reraise you often lose the value of the times you do fl op hard and he has a legitimate hand, but without multiple people in the pot the chances of getting paid off when you hit big are diminished greatly. By overrepresenting your hand with a raise you can win when he folds pre-fl op, when the fl op comes with big cards and you can represent a big hand, or when you fl op big and he thinks there is no way you could have hit a 7-7-2 fl op with a reraising hand and tries to move you off A-K or A-Q. So these hands can often become good three betting hands in late position with deep stacks.
The most important concept to take away is just to consider a lot of third level thinking in your prefl op strategy against aware opponents. Against unaware opponents it often doesn’t matter, but against opponents who are capable of putting you on an accurate range of hands it’s very important to not only pay attention to what sort of hands you’re representing but make sure to use the fact that they’re aware against them by occasionally misrepresenting your hand.
