Here our absolute hand strength is very good. A straight is a fairly difficult hand to make and one that wins more often than not, but we don't care about that. How's our relative hand strength? It's
incredible! This hand is the nuts since nothing can beat it. The question is: how is our hand's equity relative to our opponent's continuing range should we bet? The answer: it's immense! We have
answered yes to the first question on our flow chart with ease and can proceed to the second question for which we'd need a more complete context.
No to Q1 (Poor Relative Hand Strength) = Check
In absolute terms, we still have a straight, so we still have a hand that wins more often than not, on average, if you take all of the straights that can be made on all the different kinds of possible boards.
However, relative to this board in particular, our hand is horribly weak. Since any spade at all makes a flush and, less importantly, QJ and J7 already have better straights, our hand is very often worse.
To frame this in a value-betting context, we are going to struggle to get called by any single worse hand and so our hand strength relative to Villain's continuing range should we bet is pathetic. We answer no to the first question on the chart, we simply cannot value bet this spot.
Let's consider a less extreme example of assessing our likely equity when called.
Pre-flop: This hand is comfortably within our HJ opening range.
Flop: Hero flops an overpair - a strong hand here especially given there's a Fish in the pot, who will call bets with weak pairs and draws (note low Fold to F Cbet stat). It's worth distinguishing the
value c-bet Hero makes from the light variety of c-bet examined in the chapter before. The value c-bet is subject to the rules of value betting and the flow chart introduced in this chapter, not the table of light c-betting factors from the chapter before. Hero has a made-hand and is happy for Villain to call his bet. He's not trying to decide if he can take the pot down often enough to bet.
Let's address our first question in the flowchart: is relative hand strength sufficient to bet for value?
Hero can comfortably expect to be ahead when called here by a whole host of draws and lesser pairs.
The sets that these players can have are much harder to make and will only appear a tiny fraction of the time. Moreover, the Reg should have no straights here and the Fish only very occasionally when he's called 46s pre-flop. So Hero has ticked the first box in the value-betting chart. We'll soon be learning about the next two questions in that chart but for now let's suffice to say that Hero does need to build a pot vs the weaker player and should therefore bet.
Turn: A card rolls off which changes the board texture and thus Hero's relative hand strength. A flush is now possible, but luckily the remaining player is the Fish, who we know was calling the flop with a weak and wide range. This means that even though some of Villain's draws have now made a flush, and flushes have 100% equity, there are still many weak pairs in Villain's range and possibly even random overcards with a diamond that will now call again should we bet. Hero can expect to have over 50% equity here when called a second time, but only because this player has trouble folding a weak and wide range of hands.
Relative hand strength is still good when called even on this bad turn card. This is an example of favourable Villain type outweighing unfavourable board texture.
Hero bets 15BB.
But what if it had been the Reg who had called on the flop instead? Now Hero would be very hard pushed to consider his relative hand strength good enough when called for two reasons.
The Reg should be calling a c-bet on the flop quite tightly given we are three-way and Hero has bet into a Fish who rarely folds. This makes Villain's initial range stronger on the turn as he gets there with a higher proportion of flush draws than the Fish does. He also doesn't have so many random weak one pair hands as he doesn't play 60% of hands pre-flop like SB will be inclined to.
The Reg should be folding more of the one pair hands on this turn when Hero shows even more strength by betting again on a flush completing card. Hero will therefore struggle to be ahead when called on the turn.
Against the Fish, this hand is a fine value bet on the turn. Against the Reg, I think it's a fairly clear check. This illustrates what I said at the start of the chapter. More money is typically made from Fish because they make much larger mistakes like not folding Ac5c and the like on this turn card.
5.3 Building the Pot (Question 2)
The bigger the pot, the bigger you can bet and still offer opponents a non-ridiculous price to call. The bigger you can bet, the more money you can win. Building the pot is absolutely essential in many situations, but particularly for value and especially against weaker players who call down too wide.
When we see a player for the first time and tag him as a passive Fish, we can immediately form some generally reliable ideas about his game. For instance, we can conclude that it's likely he'll take too many hands to showdown and prefer checking and calling to betting, raising and folding. It's time we introduced a new stat, which over a larger sample gives an even better indication of just how much a player goes to showdown.
The more they go to showdown, the weaker the hands we can value bet against them and the larger
sizing we can use and still expect to get called.
Fish have high WTSD stats and so it's usually crucial to build the pot vs. the multitude of weak hands with which they'll pay off bets. Some rare players can be counted upon to build the pot for you, thus dissolving the requirement to bet to this end; the Aggro Fish who just can't take his cursor off the bet button is a prime example.