The Postflop Engine

THE POSTFLOP ENGINE The Four Categories Every hand in poker can be placed into one of four categories. Once you know which category your hand is in, you will know how to play it profitably. #1 Valuebet (Bet or Raise) This is the category of hands that you are betting because you want action. You have a strong hand and you want to get called or even raised. These hands are played for bets or raises immediately to play a big pot with a winning hand. #2 Medium Strength Hands (Check or Call) These hands are best played passively. These hands aren’t strong enough to want to voluntarily put any money into the pot, but they are strong enough to call a bet. These are the hands that we should use for checking back, calling a bet, or checking intending to call a bet. If the action checks through on the flop or turn, then these hands may become Category 1 hands on the turn or river, depending on the circumstances. #3 Bluffs and SemiBluffs/Draws (Bet or Raise) These are our personal favorite hands. They are disguised to look like value bets, when actually we are hoping to force our opponent to fold their winning hand. They are played as bets or raises immediately, in conjunction with the hands in Category 1. #4 Very Weak Hands (Check or Fold) Air. Nothing. These are hands that we are simply done with. These hands are too weak, and it is very likely our opponent will have a playable hand. We give these hands up to any immediate action. If the action checks through, then these hands may become Category 3 hands that would then bluff. As the Category 2 hands become Category 1 value bets, they need bluffs to balance them out. Category 4 hands fit in nicely to these situations. While it may sound “simple,” it’s actually incredibly important that you understand the theory behind these categories to allow you to make the correct decisions about which hands fit into what category.

100% of our decisions in poker are made by using this simple strategy. If you can understand how these categories work and how to properly rank and place hands, then you will be a very strong poker player (and a rich one at that!). The categories are easy to understand… but ranking hands is a bit more tricky. There are many different situations in poker. Here are some general guidelines on how to play a hand in a certain category. First let’s clearly define each category in more depth. Category 1 (strong hands): In order for a hand to constitute being a value bet it must meet the following criteria: 

A very strong hand. (On the flop) A strong top pair, overpair, two pair, three of a kind, straights, flushes & full houses.

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Qualifies if you can bet the current street and also value bet all remaining streets.

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You expect to be called by a worse hand often enough to make all subsequent bets profitable.

In other words, a hand is a value bet if it is a very likely winner when you bet the river and are called. Some examples would include: On a flop of [T52], hands such as [JJ, ATs, 22] are Category 1

On a flop of [KQ6], hands such as [AA, AK, 66] are Category 1

On a flop of [Jh8h4h], hands such as [AA, 44, 7h6h] are Category 1

Category 2 (Our middle pair and middle strength hands): These hands are not strong enough to bet with, yet. 

On the current street (oftentimes the flop), many middle pairs or even weak top pair hands just don’t make sense as a bet.

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The idea here is to just make it to the next street as cheaply as possible, then reevaluate your situation.

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In some situations, if your opponent checks back or checks to you on the next street your hand will now be good enough to be recategorized as a Category 1 valuebet.

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In most situations you will have to either keep checking or just end the hand by checking back the river and taking it to showdown.

Here’s a trick I use if I’m struggling to decide whether to place a hand in this category or Category 1… I ask myself “If I bet my hand on this street, as well as all subsequent streets, and my opponent decides to call on the river, do I think I will have the best hand at showdown?” If the answer is yes, then I’ll place the hand in Category 1. If the answer is no, then I’ll place the hand in Category 2.

In these examples, the answer will be no if your hand gets to the river unimproved.

On a flop of [T52], hands such as [T8, 77, 65] are Category 2

On a flop of [KQ6], hands such as [K9, AQ, JJ] are Category 2

On a flop of [Jh8h4h], hands such as [J9, TT, A8] are Category 2

Category 3 (Our draws and semibluffs): Our favorite category, the bluffs. These hands are probably not currently the best hand but can still be extremely profitable. These hands have a good chance of becoming the best hand or making your opponent fold a better hand. 

On the flop, these hands should have a chance to improve to the best hand on the turn or river. On the turn, it is not as important that they are drawing to the best hand.

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Straight draws, flush draws, and gutshots all make great semibluffs.

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It is critical that you choose these hands wisely as we are only going to win this pot if our opponent folds or we improve, both of which can be tricky.

The best rule of thumb for semibluffing is this: The earlier on in a hand you are, the more drawing power your bluff should have. For instance [76s] is a great preflop “bluff” because it will often improve to a hand that could potentially win at showdown. [QT] would make a good flop bluff on [983], whereas [Q7] would likely be too weak to bluff this early in the hand. If say the flop checks through on [983], the turn was a [5], and our opponent checked again, [Q7] would be a ripe bluffing opportunity. On the river your hand doesn’t matter. The river is different from every other street in poker, as there is no more equity. In the purest sense, when you bet the river you are either bluffing or valuebetting – your hand cannot improve. The idea is to pick hands that make sense as bluffs. If the board is [KQ6][9][8] and you held [A2] and the action checked all the way down to you, there is a very good chance your hand is not good. Your opponent would likely play [22-55, 6x, or a better ace high] for a check three times. Your hand will either chop the pot or lose at showdown. Bluffing with [A2] makes sense as its purpose is to fold out stronger hands that would beat it at showdown. Examples: On a flop of [T52], hands such as [KJ, QJ, J9] are Category 3

On a flop of [KQ6], hands such as [AT, JT, T9] are Category 3

On a flop of [Jh8h4h], hands such as [KQ(H), T9, AhX] are Category 3

Where X is a card that isn’t a [J,8,4, or heart] are Category 3 Category 4 (Our hands that totally whiffed the board – they just suck) We want nothing to do with these hands. 

They have a marginal chance to win the pot with a bet right now and an even worse chance to make the best hand when called.

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These hands are just total misses.

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It is smart to pick your very worst hands to check/giveup with.

The most important thing to realize about these hands is that as your opponent takes a more passive line, likely indicating that they also do not have a particularly strong hand, these hands can rank up and become bluffs later on. Category 4 hands will oftentimes be bad ace highs, very weak pairs, or hands with a very weak or no draw at all. Examples: On a flop of [T52], hands such as [A6, 98, 87] are Category 4

On a flop of [KQ6], hands such as [A2, 22, 98] are Category 4

On a flop of [Jh8h4h], hands such as [AsTs, 5d5c, Ks9s] are Category 4

Hand Rankings Remember, what we’re doing is categorizing our hands and playing them accordingly. At any juncture in a hand, you could number your hands from 1 to X in terms of strength. What we do with these categories is simply pick a line where hands stop being Category 1 and start being Category 2, stop being Category 2 and start being Category 3, and stop being Category 3 and start being Category 4. Hands can fall into one… two… even three categories in one hand. The idea is to figure out when hands stop being part of a certain category and move into another. This can affect how you play your hand on different streets and can help you make decisions that would previously have been tough to make.

Let’s look at a situation where we have several hands in our range preflop. We raise and get a caller. Let’s look at how the rankings of these hands change from an absolute to a relative scale preflop and on the flop. We have the following range postflop after RFI and one player has called: [KK, TT, 77, AKs, ATs, A8s, QJs, 98s] Placing these hands in order of immediate strength, we’d end up with…

However, on a flop of 9-8-4,

…these hands change in strength, and they would now rank as…

To put these into perspective with the four categories we talked about earlier, here’s how we’d rank them…

1-

[98, KK, TT]

…are the value hands within our range. These are our strongest holdings – they allow us to increase the pot size. When we have these hands, we want to play a bigger pot, as we are quite likely to have a stronger hand than our opponent’s. Always play the top of your range aggressively, which means betting and raising. 2- [77, A8]

…are the middling portion of our range. These hands are decent, but they are not good enough to want to play a large pot. These hands are played passively. Always play the middle of your range passively, with lots of checking and calling. 3- [QJs]

…ranks higher than… 4- [AKs, ATs]

…even though they are stronger absolute value hands. Ace high is a better hand that Queen high, although in the presented situation, the Ace high hands rank in a lower category because of their relative value.

[QJs]

…is a better hand to bluff with as its value to improve to a pair is similar to that of:

[AKs, ATs];

However, any one of the remaining tens in the deck would make [QJs]

…the nut straight. Decide what hands have the most chance to win that have low absolute ranking and use these hands as your bluffs. [AKs, ATs];

…are your weakest hands. Whenever you have your weakest hand in holdem, it’s fine to concede the pot to your opponent. Besides, you will have so many stronger hands in this spot anyway. You don’t have to fight tooth and nail for every pot. Even when pots are small and seemingly unimportant, you should still figure out the categories so that you can guide yourself into making the best possible profitable decisions. Conclusion The essence of postflop strategy is the ability to compare our range with our opponent(s) range(s), rank all of our hands, and decide what to do. When presented with a postflop scenario, first rank your hands, then: 

Play Category 1 and 3 as a bet or raise.

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Play Category 2 as a check, call, or a check/call.

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Play Category 4 as a check, fold, or check/fold.

Even when pots are small and seemingly unimportant, you should still be figuring out the categories so that you can guide yourself into making the best possible profitable decisions.