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Your situations there is different from when you raise with the same 8♠ 6♠ but the flop comes
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Some flops will give you a little leverage and allow you to play on, or to be more aggressive than you could be with other flops.
3. Similarly, the flop relates in some way to your opponent’s hand.
Its texture combined with what you know of your opponent’s play, should give you some hint about how likely it was to have hit his hand. With what kinds of hands will be defend his bigs blind ? Obviously, you should be less inclined to try to bluff-raise when the flop badly misses your hand, giving you effectively no outs, while your judgment tells you that it may well have hit your opponent’s hand. This is part of the hand reading process at this point in the hand. You began reading your opponent’s hand before the flop. Against an opponent who defends with a very wide range of hands, however, your read will of course be less precise.
4. You might now extend the hand reading process, with an emphasis on reading the player. The fundamental questions is: What does his bet mean? Put in more general terms, how does your opponent play? Is he aggressive and/or deceptive? What about in this specific kind of situation? If he bets, does it very likely mean a hand, or does he do so liberally in this spot without having very much? If he is at all a thinking player, his action here will have been influenced in some part by how he currently sees your play. If he thinks you are easy to steal from, for example, the likelihood that his bet is bluff goes up.
5. How is he likely to respond to each action you might take? This involves, perhaps even more clearly, the interaction between how he plays and how he currently sees your play. (Against some opponents, you need to go to the next level and think about how he thinks you view his play. In this essay however, I will leave it at the second level ). For example, if he is very aggressive and bluffs frequently, and also sees you as cautious and often willing to fold under pressure, he will more likely play back at you if you try to semi-bluff raise in this spot. Consider as well what will happen beyond the flop. If you call on the flop, is there a realistic chance he will check on the turn?
If you raise, will he call and check to you on the turn? If you check along on the turn will he automatically bet into you on the river? Now suppose he checks on the flop. This is actually the more common scenario. Though you will most often bet against typical opponents, the situation will occasionally dictate otherwise.
You must again consider a number of factors:
1. Again, pot odds help guide your decision. The pot is laying you 4½-to-1 on a bet.
2. How your cards relate to the flop is again a consideration, but often less so than if he had bet. Though it depends on the opponent, on average you now have a better chance of stealing the pot with a bet. Should your opponent check-raise, however, the precise way in which you missed again becomes very important.
3. As above, beginning the postflop hand reading process, might this flop have hit your opponent’s hand in some way? Considering what you know of the range of hands with which he will defend his big blind against your apparent steal attempt, are you able to begin, at least roughly, to estimate the chance that he has a piece of this flop?
4. Just as when he bets, you must interpret his action. Does he tend to play straight forwardly, or is he a frequent check-raiser in this spot? Is he capable of a check-raise bluff, or semi-bluff? Is he a habitual slowplayer? Does he wait until the turn to play his stronger hands? Is he a passive player who will simply give you free cards until he makes something? Consider how his view of your play may have influenced his action. Has he observed that you invariably bet when checked to in this spot? Does he think you are easy to run over? His check does provide you with valuable information.
Though you may have no outs, and the flop may be one that would seem more likely to have hit your opponent, he did check. Often that simply means he has nothing and is prepared to give up the pot. (*This is obviously less true against players who will always check to the raiser in this situation ). While he may be planning to raise or slowplay a strong hand, a check on his part is nevertheless the only action consistent with an unwillingness to contest the pot.
The Strategic Moment in Holdem / One Way Not to Fold /
Beating the Berserko: Preflop Against a Maniac /
On Into the Storm: Playing the maniac After the Flop
One Reason to Reraise a Maniac / A Simple Read / Countering a Good Reader
Thinking About What They’re Thinking / Out On the Edge
Considerations in Two Blind Stealing Defense situations
Easing the Transition to the middle Limits: Part I
Easing the Transition to the middle Limits: Part II / Multiple Changing Images