How to Beat The Maniacs And Bullies At Online No-Limit Hold’em Tables

Poker table bullies are those annoying semi-maniac type of players that you meet in your no-limit cash game or tournaments, and they often accumulate their large chip stacks by sheer aggression alone and sometimes catching someone off guard when they happen to land a strong hand amidst their relentless aggression. These players don’t like to show down a lot of hands, usually because most of the time the have nothing much, as they play to win by exerting immense pressure on their opponents with every hand they’re involved in a pot with, and when they occasionally get lucky and actually do hold the best hand they usually win a lot more than they should do.

Table bullies win over both weak players who don’t have the heart to put money into the pot, and tight-aggressive players who don’t like to put in their money without what seems to be a lock hand. Here is an example hand that to give you an example of how to use their uncontrolled aggression to your advantage.

Slowplay the maniac and trap him for all his chips.

Imagine that we’re at an online late-night $2/$4 no-limit hold’em cash game. The player directly to our left has decided to play table bully for the night and is making every hand expensive before the flop and then not hesitating to shove in the rest of his chips on the flop, turn, and river if necessary in order to take the pot from us.

Not wanting to turn it into an expensive coin flip, most of us are praying, “PLEASE let me pick up those pocket Aces before this guy dumps his money off to someone else”. But Aces don’t come often at all. In this example, this hand actually came up in a real game played:

I was dealt Ah-6d from the small blind. Certainly not a powerhouse by any measure, but with the maniac and two other limpers in the pot it seemed worthy of another $2 to see a flop. The bully in the big blind checked to a flop of Ad-6h-2s, giving me top two pairs – a great hit. Naturally, table bullies love to take control so I decided to check to him to let him start the betting. It was obviously an unconnected flop, with unsuited cards on the board and so I didn’t doubt that he was going to bet out here. To my disappointment, he just checked behind.

Play moved on to the early position limper who made a $16 bet. The late position limper folded and I just called the bet. Without delay, the table bully goes all-in! Jackpot city! The original bettor thinks for a while before finally folding. The bully had more than I did (about $300) so I already had the checkbox on “Call”. Normally, I might hesitate and worry about a set in this position but rarely (if ever) will I lay down top two pair on the flop with a board like that. I make the call and the bully is forced to show his 9-3 offsuit – a ridiculous starting hand in hold’em for a multiway pot. After that hand, the table bully was completely crippled and soon busted out shortly thereafter due to his much reduced chip stack afterwards.

I like this hand for its fun value and the truly awful bluff that the bully tried to pull, but there is a lesson to be learnt here. Such players are becoming more common in no-limit hold’em cash games or tournaments, especially online. When an ultra aggressive player tries to take control every hand, the rule is to let him do the betting for you when you have a monster of a hand. If you bet out big to try to build a pot, these bullies will often be scared away (unless they are truly stupid, but most of them aren’t that stupid). After all, they thrive on dominating the action and winning pots without showdowns… so they have to bet and usually bet big to achieve this.

This strategy echoes a comment that the infamous Doyle Brunson mentioned in his book “Online Poker” – if you’re playing heads-up against a highly aggressive player, let him do the betting for you, fire a second bullet, and then get him for a raise on the river. If you aren’t fortunate enough to get in all your opponent’s money on the flop as I did, you definitely should consider slow-playing table bullies on an disconnected, harmless-looking board. It works!

Trapping Your Poker Opponents for Maximum Value

Trapping Your Opponents and Maximising Your Winnings

Many players seek to employ a technique known as trapping when they flop a monster hand. While this strategy seems simple enough, the truth of the matter is that to get maximum value for a trap, a player needs to take into account a slew of variables. Here we discuss a few of those variables and exactly what constitutes the optimum trapping situation.

Springing a trap can be one of the most fruitful enterprises undertaken at the poker table. But to do so requires more than merely flopping a monster and checking. Here are some guidelines to help you maximize on your traps.

Know Your Opponent: Every single time I write anything having to do with poker, the first thing I write is to know your opponent. From bluffing to trapping, the most important thing that any poker player ever does is understand who it is that they are playing against. Conventional wisdom would have you looking to trap against aggressive players. This is logical enough: a player who is likely to bet is also likely to bet with the worst hand. The classic trap here is to flop a joint, check or smooth call depending on your position then come over the top on fourth street or the river. Fine, that makes sense. The problem with this strategy is that it is inflexible and depending on your playing style it’s also rather easy to snuff out. To understand how to disguise your trap, we need to look at calibrating your monster with the flop.

Calibrating your Monster with the Flop (what you’ve got vs. what he’s got): First of all, let’s talk about what flopping a monster is not. A monster is not an overpair nor is it top pair with top kicker. A monster is a hand where both of your hole cards are going to be used in the made hand. So the weakest monster is two pair, which may or may not actually qualify as a monster depending on whether the board also has flush or straight possibilities. Then comes a set, which is a certified monster when the board is unpaired (like if you are holding pocket Queens and the board reads A Q 5) and a borderline monster when the board is paired (this would be like holding J-7 and the board reading 7 7 K.) Then you’ve got straights, which when flopped are always monsters, then full houses, quads and straight flushes which are obvious monsters.

Now that we have determined what a monster actually is, let’s build on the read that you should already have on your opponent:

• Raised pot, Heads up: If you have flopped a monster and are in a raised pot against a single opponent, the first thing that should cross your mind is “does he/she have an Ace?” Especially if the flop has brought an Ace, something like A 10 6 and you are holding a set of Tens. This situation is perfect for trapping. When I am first to act when the board has brought an Ace, I like to make a weak or overly strong bet (which also signals weakness to most decent players.) So this would be a bet of half the pot or so or a bet of twice the pot or so. Most trappers check on the flop, but I think that this broadcasts the strength of your hand or rather, it will broadcast the strength of your hand when you either check-raise or check-call later on in the hand. Sometimes the best trickiness is being straight-forward. The one exception I would make here is if your opponent is short stacked. If your bet is going to put him in a position where he is either folding or going all-in, then go ahead and check and let him hang himself. If you are not first to act, then the classic move is to do whatever your opponent does – if he checks, you check, if he puts $50 out then you put $50 out. Re-raising with a monster on the flop is a tough question. If you can sell it like you are making a move (making a very quick re-raise or too large of a re-raise) then go for it! Otherwise, it’s best to let the bettor keep the lead.

• Raised pot, more than one other player: These are the easiest hands to trap in and the ones that you are most likely to get paid off in. Why? Because it’s at least twice as likely that your opponent has something as you have at least twice as many opponents than in heads up hand. Remember that the best circumstance to get paid off with a monster is when your opponent has something good enough for them to call you down with. 100%, no exceptions, when you flop a monster with more than one player involved, check on the flop. You have to give your opponents a chance to make moves in front of you. I remember a hand where I had flopped a nut flush, was in first position and checked the flop. The two guys behind me, who had been engaged with each other for hours like rams locking horns, immediately raised and re-raised each other. So it comes back around to me and I “smooth call” (how this did not send off every red alert in the other two, I don’t know) then the guy who had been re-raised goes all-in for another $300 or so bringing the pot to like $700 on a flop with 3 Hearts. The next guy folds and the all-in guy goes to collect his pot like he had forgot that I had called. Then, just as his idiot fingers were reaching into the pot, the dealer oh-so politely reminded him that I was still in the pot and could he please not touch chips that were not his. His face was priceless – he had that moment of “Oh right, that guy… uh oh.” I, of course, called and he had top pair with the Queen of Hearts for a flush draw of his own. This brought him to a grand total of 0 outs against my nut flush. Now, this hand can be an example of any number of poker lessons from “don’t overvalue your hand” to “pay attention to who you are playing against” to the good old “don’t be a jackass” lesson. There is much to be mined in the failings of fools.

• Un-raised pots: These are the hardest monsters to get paid off because chances are that your opponent does not have interest in the pot. These are the hands that would more than likely get checked down to the river if you hadn’t flopped a wheel. Basically, this is the unluckiest luck you can have at the poker table and you have to keep checking and hope that your opponent picks something up. I say you can even check it on the river provided that you are first to act. Be careful though with two pair in this situation. As we have already said, two pair is barely a monster and if the turn and river come runner-runner, your opponent can stumble on a straight or set without ever betting on the turn. This is a nearly impossible hand to detect (because they won’t bet the turn) and because you have already gone down the trapping road, you will feel obliged to at least call and more than likely, come over the top. Tricky situation, un-raised pots are really not the best place to go trapping in. Play it strong unless you flop a Godzilla (quads or straight flush.)

Trapping is a largely overused strategy, especially by inexperienced players. While you can occasionally get paid off if you identify the right situation, all too often I will see players over-value hands like two pair or sucker straights and lose on the river. And betting strong with a strong hand can also go a long way to help you in the future as you will be seen as a straightforward player who bets strong when he has a strong hand. And that can set you up to pull off a much more valuable move than a trap – a bluff. So if the situation is perfect, then go ahead and trap. Otherwise, don’t get cute – get the chips.