So here we go, finally managed to get this finished. It's long,sick long, I know. You don't have to read it but I think there is some decent stuff in there...Anyway, good luck getting through it and I hope it is helpful for some of you...
P.S.: tl;dr replies unnecessary because, well, I know that it is too long...

Pot Control

Introduction:

Nearly everyone knows what the term pot control stands for, nonetheless the concept is applied wrongly or at least suboptimal very frequently.
Applied wrong here means, in some short words, missing value in spots where pot control should not be used. I will give examples on this later.
Obviously, this also works in the opposite direction: building a big pot when we should apply pot control. This, however, is not nearly as often a problem as missinig value when it is crucial not to. So, here we go…

1) What is pot control by definition?
Applying pot control means that we are trying to manipulate (aka control, aka keep small) the size of the pot to achieve different goals (for example going to showdown).
We have several ways to apply pot control, the best known being checking behind (most often on the turn) to basically eliminate one round of betting. We will get back to this later of course.

2) What are the consequences of pot control?
This is in my opinion the question that is not posed nearly often enough: what are the consequences that my play is going to have? It is of overriding importance though. So let’s see what the consequences of pot control are:

a) Positive consequences:
- keeping the pot size under control:
I think this does not need much explanation, we risk a smaller percentage of our stack and we minimize our losses when behind.
- more likely to see a showdown:
What does that actually mean? Well, seeing a showdown in itself is not automatically a good thing. However, in this situation it is because by applying pot control correctly we minimize the risk of making a mistake by folding the best hand.
- (sometimes) widening villains calling/betting range
This is especially true when we apply pot control early in the hand, either by just calling a raise PF with a hand that we could 3b as well, more often though if we check behind on the flop with a made hand. Let’s take a look at an example:
It is folded around to us in the CO and we raise to 4BBs with AJo. BTN and small blind fold, big blind calls who is a decently playing regular but not especially good or tricky. His calling range here mainly consists of PPs, SCs, some broadway cards and Axs. He’d most likely reraise with JJ+,AQ+. 100BBs stacks.
The flop comes A38 rainbow and the small blind checks. Usually the default play would be to bet here but let’s think about that for a second: if we bet here he’ll most likely fold most of the hands in his range, maybe call 1 bet with stuff like 87s,77,99. He’ll obv call or raise with 88 and 33 and with aces up.
On the other hand we are not really afraid of getting outdrawn here: if he has a PP he has 2 outs, a weaker A has 3 outs and a hand like 87s has 5 outs.
Therefore, this might be a good situation to check this flop back. We will now most likely get 2 streets of value from his Ax holdings and he might be more inclined to look us up more lightly with hands like 99 given that we were supposed to bet an A on that flop.
In a situation like this, we are not really giving up value because there are basically no hands in his range that we could get 3 streets of value from and that we have beat. We do however maximize our winnings vs certain (weaker) parts of villains range when he gets suspicous due to our flop check.

b) Negative consequences
- giving away freecards
As we have seen in the example above giving away freecards is not always a problem. In some situations though it is indeed one and a very costly one in fact.
Let’s look at a situation that I’ve seen several times posted in the micro forum:
Villain in MP limps, Hero makes it 5BBs with QQ on the button, folds around to villain who calls. For the moment we assume he is an unknow but his range here is most likely something like PPs, SCs and some suited high cards if he is not very aggressive. 100BBs stacks again.
Flop comes 2c6h7h and villain checks. We bet (I hope you all see that this is a super standard bet) 8BBs into a 11.5BBs pot and villain calls, pot is 27.5BBs.
Turn comes the Jd and villain checks again. This is the kind of spot where pot control is very often applied incorrectly, betting in this spot is mandatory. Why? Well think about the range of hands that he might have here and that he might call a bet with. Also think about what happens if we check now and the river bricks off. How often is he going to call a bet then?
Checking back here would be horrible because we would either win a small pot if the river bricks off and it goes check/bet/fold or we would lose a medium sized pot if say the river is the 5d, villain bets and we call and get shown 9s8s for the rivered straight. We can not afford to not get value from drawing hands at a point in the hand where they are still willing to pay for their draw.

- might induce villain to play back at us / play correctly vs us because we are polarizing our range
This is actually a rather theoretical problem at the micro stakes but it’s for sure one to think about. It will also arise more often at higher stakes against thinking players that are not shy to make aggressive moves on all streets and that have no problem with deviating from standard lines if they think it will turn out to be +EV. It also illustrates a general problem that comes up when applying pot control in a too standardized way.

Let’s say we are in a NL50 game but there is one player who plays quite aggressively and tricky and is not shy of making moves and putting money in light in some spots. He is by no means a weak player and mixes up bluffs and plays for value nicely.
We are in the CO with QsQc. A weak player limps, tricky player limps behind. It’s folded to us and we make a standard raise to 6BBs. Both players call and we go the flop with a pot of 19.5BBs. All players have 94BBs left.
Flop comes 2h7d9c, it’s checked to us and we (correctly) make a CB of 14BBs. The initial limper folds and the tricky player calls after some hesitation, pot is 47.5BBs now and we have 80BBs left.
Turn comes 3h which can and should be considered as a blank. Tricky player checks to us and we check it back for pot control.
River brings 5h. Tricky player thinks for a few seconds and then checks to us again. We have an overpair on a rather unscary looking 2h7d9c3h5h board and our villain has not shown any strenght so far so we should go for a VB on this river hoping to get paid off by 88, 98, A9, J9 maybe even 87 or smaller PP like 66, so we make it 25BBs on the river with having left 55BBs after that bet. Villain instashoves over our bet….
Now what? Well, most likely this looks like a fold given that a straight draw came in, a (unlikely) BD flush draw came in and villain could easily have a ton of sets or 2 pair combos that have us beat (97s, 75s and so on).
But there is one problem: by checking this turn back, we heavily polarized our range.
Let’s look at this hand from villains perspective: we raised PF, made a standard CB, checked the turn back and then finally bet the river again. So, from our villains perspective, what does our hand range look like? Well, we won’t ever show up with 777 or 999 here because we’d never check those back on the turn. We most likely never show up with 86 or 64 here because it’s unlikely that those are in our PF raising range and a BD flush isn’t too likely either if we don’t have exactly Ahxh (plus we might have even fired a 2nd barrel with those on the turn if we decided to CB in the first place).
As you see it’s fairly easy for villain to put us on exactly the kind of hand that we have namely an overpair that we’re not really happy to play for stacks with (we might have bet the turn with AA,KK even though AA,KK and QQ are basically the same hand in this spot). So, if villain puts us on basically TT+ (and maybe AK/AQ that tries to steal the pot with a river bet) then this is a great spot for a river bluffraise by villain knowing that we’re very unlikely to be calling here (esp as he’ll also show up with a big hand here often enough).


- risk of losing value from 2nd best hands
This one is pretty self explanatory in my opinion. Applying pot control makes no sense when the boards allows for 2nd betst hands to pay us off.
Quick example: we raise with AA and get called in one spot, board comes 244. We bet and get called and the turn brings a 7. It’s pretty obvious in my book that checking here makes no sense because villain dependant there are a ton of hands (like 99-QQ) that we can get 3 streets of value from.

3) How to apply pot control

Now we get to the practical part after some (yeah I admit, lengthy) theoretical introductions namely we’ll talk about the possibilities of how to apply pot control.
We will divide this into pot control out of position and in position. Note though that applying pot control works way better in position (like basically everything in poker), out of position we can try to use certain plays to keep the pot small but we are basically at our opponents mercy.

Pot control out of position:
As mentionend we can try to apply pot control but if our opponent decides that he wants to play a bigger pot then there is not really much we can do about it. We can try to keep the pot small though by:

a) checking to our opponent
If we check the flop to our opponent we basically do hope that he does not want to play a big pot either and/or is happy to see a free turn. If the flop goes check/check we can reevaluate the situation and decide if we want to bet the turn (for value or as a bluff) or if we want to check again (intending to c/f or hoping villain might bluff or value bet worse hands so that can we c/c one or two streets). Obviously this is not a great situation to be in, especially against tough opponents that put a lot of pressure on us if we show weakness on boards that we have most likely missed.
As a sidenote: utilizing a well timed c/r frequency on the flop when being the PFR and when being out of position is very helpful to balance your range in these situations.


b) block betting
This is a play that can be used on later streets with medium strength hands. Its advantage lies in the fact that it combines the value that we gain if we get called by a weaker hand with the advantage of setting a favourable price for a showdown. Note though that it can only be employed in smallish pots and when the stacks are still rather deep (it makes no sense to make a blocking bet of say 15BBs into a 90BBs pot when villain only has 35BBs left, I hope you guys see why).
On a downside this play might again induce river bluffs by good, thinking villains if they analyze correctly why we employ the strategy of block betting the river (or maybe the turn).

Pot contol in position:
Being in position makes applying pot control incredibly much more easy and valuable, simply due to the fact that we see what our opponent/opponents do first. We do also have some more options and are in the position to chose (often, not always) how big a pot we want to play for.

a) Checking behind
That’s the standard pot control play: we check behind on flop, turn or river (I’ll get back to WHEN to apply pot control later) to manipulate the size of the pot.
b) calling as opposed to raising
I’d like to give an example to illustrate what I mean with “calling as opposed to raising”.
A 22/9/2 player opens in MP to 4BB. He is most likely a recreational player but not a fish. He might play a little bit to loose and make some mistakes post flop but he is not getting overly involved in big pots with poor hands neither. We have AsQs on the button and the CO folds. Both players in the blind are very tight and not overly aggressive and we elect to just call, effective stacks are 100BBs (note that you could definetely debate 3betting here) and the pot is 9.5BBs
The flop comes Qh7c2d and villain bets 6BBs. We are obviously not folding in this spot but at this point I would not recommend raising either. Why? Well, if we raise on this flop there is a pretty good chance that he will continue with those hands in his range that have us beat and will fold all the hands that we have beat.
Let’s look at the number of possible hand combinations here: there are 16 combos of hands that have us crushed on this flop, 3 combos for AA, 6 for KK, 1 for QQ and each time 3 for 77 and 22 but there are way more combinations that we have beat just assuming a range of KQ,QJ,QT,JJ-88.
So, given that
1. we don’t want to commit at this time of the hand against this type of player (vs a huge fish or a maniac you would actually want to commit here most of the time)
2. we don’t want to polarize villains range to only hands that beat us and
3. we don’t have to be afraid of villain having a ton of outs against us
calling often is the best option here.

c) betting/raising an earlier street to be able to check behind on a later street
This is a typical Limit Hold’em play where it is mostly used when we have a draw on the flop. We then raise the flop bet (in LHE the betting size doubles after the flop) to achieve that villain checks to us on the turn and we can check behind if we did not improve and by that save 1 small bet.
This idea can also be transferred to NLHE. If you think that making a small bet (or raise) on flop or turn can stop villain from making a bigger bet on a later street (that you would have to call though) then you might want to go for this.

4) When to apply pot control

For a lot of players, applying pot control means checking behind a medium strength hand on the turn. Well as we have seen, checking behind is not the only (though the most used) way to apply pot control and as we will see, the turn is not the only street where we can use pot control.
Personally, I very rarely go for pot control on the turn. If I think that a hand is only good for two streets of value then I’d most likely either bet flop and turn and check the river behind, or I’ll check the flop (behind or to villain) and go for value on turn and river.
The reasons therefore are already stated in the part: “consequences of pot control” and you might want to reread those if you don’t understand why I think that applying pot control on the turn is often misused. Here I’d like to take a look at a couple of examples:

Example 1:
100BBs effective stacks. We are in the CO with AhQd. MP2, a passive, straightforward player who limp calls with a rather wide range PF and usually does not continue on the flop without a good hand or a good draw, limps and we raise to 5BBs, villain calls. Pot is 11.5BBs.
Flop comes Qs4h6s. We flop TPTK on a rather wet board. We know that villain l/c a wide range PF so it’s kind of tough to narrow his range down. However, we surely want to bet this flop as we a) most likely have the best hand right now and b) don’t want to give any free cards. This is NOT a spot for checking the flop behind.
Villain checks, we bet 8BBs and villain calls pretty quickly, pot is 27.5BBBs, effective stacks are 87BBs.
Note that villains call allows us to narrow down his range slightly.
He could have something like QJ or KQ for TPGK with KQ being rather unlikely as he might have raised this first in.
He could have a draw like 75s or, more likely the NFD with some kind of Asxs combination.
It is somewhat less likely that he has 44 or 66 because we would excpect him to raise those most of the time. However, we can not completely rule out those.
Turn comes the Jd and villain checks again. While the J could have made him 2pair in case he has QJ, it is way more likely that he is on a draw here given the number of possible hand combinations and given that there are already 2 Qs out of the deck. So how do we continue?
We assume that villains most likely holding is a draw here (though keeping in mind that he might be playing KQ,QJ or a set in an unorthodox way). Therefore, this is NOT a spot to check the turn behind for obvious reasons.
So we bet 20BBs hoping that villain calls with his draw getting insufficent odds. Villain thinks for a little while and finally calls, pot is 67.5BBs.
River is a supoptimal Kh, board reads Qs4h6sJdKh now but villain rather quickly checks to us. At this point we are decently sure that we have the best hand but there is no real sense in value betting because there isn’t really a weaker hand out there that could call a bet. We decide to check the river behind and win the pot, villain mucks As5s.
In this example it is crucial that we BET the turn for the reasons already stated and instead apply pot control on the river.

Example 2:
100BBs effective stacks. We are on the BTN with AsJs. A rather loose, aggressive player raises in MP2 to 3BBs. He is pretty active preflop and rather aggressive and sometimes tricky postflop but does not go overboard with medium holdings. We call, the blinds fold and the pot is 7.5BBs.
Flop comes Ah9d5c giving us top pair with a good kicker. Rather surprisingly villain checks to us, so what should we do here? Let’s take a look at villains range at this point:
He is raising in MP2 with a wide range of hands, let’s say 22+, ATs+, AJo+, any 2 broadway cards and some suited connectors so obviously we are way ahead of his range at this point. Does this mean we should bet here? Well, I don’t think so, checking behind looks like the better play here to me.
This might seem counterintuitive on the first glance but let’s think about it: in case we are ahead we are very unlikely to get 3 streets of value here and if we decide to go for 2 streets of value then we can easily go for them on turn and river. Furthermore, against big parts of his raise PF, check flop range we won’t even get 2 streets of value if we bet the A high flop, for example against TT-QQ so checking this flop back also helps us opening up his calling range.
Opposed to that, in the rare case that we are behind to something like AK,AQ or a set, checking behind on the flop helps us to control the pot size.
Ok so back to the hand:
Villain checks the flop to us and we check behind. Turn is 5d and villain again checks to us, we now bet 5BBs and villain calls pretty quickly, pot is 17.5BBs. Think about what villains most likely holdings are at that point.
River is 6d, completing a back door flush draw and an unlikely gut shot with 87. Again villain checks to us (do you have established a hand range for him?) and we decide to bet rather big to make our hand look like a 2 street bluff so we bet 15.5BBs. Villain snap calls with QdQh.
In this example, we checked the flop back for multiple reasons, one of them being pot control. This was the best way to play it (imo) because:
- There were no draws that we had to charge.
- It was a basically a way ahead / way behind situation
- There was “some” value to be had from weaker hands but no real 2nd best hands that could give us “a lot” of value (of course these terms are not very precise but I hope you understand what I mean with them).

Example 3:
100BBs effective stacks. A tight, aggressive, straightforward player raises from UTG+1 to 4BBs and we have QsQc in the HJ. We know that villains PF raising range from UTG+1 is really tight, maybe something like TT+,AK and sometimes AQs. It’s folded to us and there are pretty tight players left to act behind us. We decide to not 3bet here (knowing that we give players behind us a good price to overcall) because we think that 3betting would fold out all the hands in villains range that we want him to continue with (TT,JJ) and give him the opportunity to 4bet the top of his range (KK,AA, sometimes AKs). Luckily CO and BTN fold as do the blinds and we end up in a HU pot with position on the preflop raiser, pot is 9.5BBs.
The flop comes 6h6c2s and we expect villain to CB on this board with 100 % of his range, sure enough he fires 7BBs. For the same reasons as preflop we don’t see too much sense in raising here, we never fold out AA,KK here and we don’t want TT,JJ to fold. If he has AK he has only 6 outs to improve or around 26 % equity so we don’t mind giving him a rather cheap turn card. We decide to call, pot is 23.5BBs, effective stacks are 89BBs.
Turn comes 7d which can be considered as a complete brick and villain checks to us which is a very good sign as we would expect him to fire again here with AA,KK so even though he might decide to check to us here for pot control with AA,KK (which would be bad btw) hands like TT,JJ, the other QQ combo and AKs have now become much more likely. There is also an outside chance that villain is going for a c/r on the turn with AA,KK but given that he is rather straightforward this seems pretty unlikely. We decide to bet rather smallish and make it 14BBs hoping to get called by JJ,TT, villain calls and the pot is 51.5BBs with 75BBs effective stacks left.
River is the Th, not a great card for us, and villain makes a strange bet of 16BBs. We assume that he would make a bigger bet here with TT or go for a c/r, a small bet to induce seems strange given the way the hand played out so far. However, a raise is unlikely to get called by JJ but if he played AA,KK weirdly he could very well call a raise with those. Therefore we decide to call here and villain shows us JJ, his blocking bet on the river has worked as he saved some BBs.
In this example we actually applied pot control preflop trying to set up a favourable situation for our holding.

Alright, I hope these examples illustrated that pot control can not only be applied on the turn, quite the opposite. Pot control can be used on every street (even including preflop), you should always apply pot control depending on the given situation and taking all the given information into consideration.

Alright, so I’m afraid this is already a sick long post. Due to that I’m just going to put the rest of what I wanted to adress in here without outlining my thoughts. Most of this is pretty self explanatory anyway and if it is not I can elaborate on it later if necessary.


5) Examples for when applying pot control is reasonable:

a) WA/WB situations
b) Medium strength holdings on dry boards
c) Medium strength hands vs aggressive opponents

6) Examples for when applying pot control is NOT reasonable:

a) when pot and stack sizes rule out pot control
b) when villain can easily stack off / commit a lot of his chips with worse hands
c) when villain is likely drawing (and willing to pay too much)

7) Plan your hands in advance!

This is most likely the most important thing to learn when you want to improve as a poker player: plan your hands. If you raise with JJ in position you should have at least an idea how you are going to continue on an A high board.
The same is obviously true for pot control. Have a plan AT THE START OFF THE HAND on which kind of boards or villains actions you are going to apply pot control. Think about how you are going to react to a c/r by villain, think about on what kind of boards checking back your TPGK might make sense, PLAN YOUR HAND IN ADVANCE!

Allright, to those of you that got here: thanks for reading.

first didnt read

2nd didnt read!

sick post, ty

'bout F'ing time! xxx

great post, and has given me some ideas to think about as I play and review my PT hand histories.

Noticed a lot of your examples were HU; curious to get your input on how this changes in a multiway pot (would think OOP blocking bets would get looked up or squeezed from aggressive players).

It's about fookin' time, Alex. Very good post and some excellent points made. Also...

tl; dr. LOL

did not read yet, but damn sure printing it out...

thanks alot for this... i just wrote down in my notepad last night "what is a blocking bet?"

nice read.

best point for micro i think is: betting or raising an earlier street for pot control.

i think micro players dont do this enough.

Great post! Thanks for explaining this concept because I know I've lost a lot of pots by "checking behind".

Alex, great post!

Can we also check a TPTK hand on a dry flop against tight opponents in a multiway pot? Like here:


Poker Stars $0.25/$0.50 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

CO: $50.00
BTN: $14.95
SB: $50.25
BB: $24.95
UTG: $10.00
UTG+1: $8.50
UTG+2: $58.80
MP1: $45.55
Hero (MP2): $56.10

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is MP2 with Q A
4 folds, Hero raises to $1.50, CO calls $1.50, 2 folds, BB calls $1

Flop: ($4.75) 7 2 Q (3 players)
BB checks, Hero?


CO is a 14/6/4 over 160 hands.
BB is a experienced setmining 8/5/2.5 nit over 800 hands. Fold to Cb = 89%.

Now there isn't much worse in both callers ranges that's gonna call 2 streets of value if I bet this flop. The CO might float the flop sometimes, but the fact that there is a third player (and his check is meaningless) to act after him, reduces his temptation to float.

So can I check this flop? HU I could easilly check here, but does it change when we are multiway?




This is what happened (and is the reason for my question):

Flop: ($4.75) 7 2 Q (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $3, CO calls $3, BB folds

Turn: ($10.75) 4 (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets $7.25, Hero ?



I potcontrol the turn, cause I don't want a big pot with this holding against this player, but now what? Make a crying call and fold to substantial riverbet (seems so spewy)? Just fold and move on (seems so weak)?

I think in this situation I should have bet the turn a little over 1/2PSB. Fold if he raises (cause he will never bluff there) and hope he folds all his floating holdings or calls with an incidental KQ. But this situation isn't optimal. If I have the best hand I only win 1 street of value (he folds for my turnbet), if he has the best hand I lost 2 streets of value (he raises my turnbet).

Early Christmas Present!!!!!!!!!! Yeah!

Great post!

I think pot control and extracting maximum value from your hands are joined at the hip. RE made a good post about a year ago about "target hands" for your made hands. Basically, your bets should be targeting hands that you beat that would call, your AJ hand is a perfect example of this.

I am glad we now have a sticky for pot control.

great post Alex!

Great post, ty sir!

Why would you fold to this turn bet? Villain could be just calling with a pocket pair on the flop. For all he knows, you just have AK. When you check the turn, he thinks you are showing weakness after your continuation bet didn't persuade him to fold, so he bets out. Your check here has induced villain to put more money into a pot that he might have folded if you just made a bet on the turn. It's a bit early to put him on a set is it not?