3 Poker Reasoning Traps You’ll Want to Avoid

Poker is a treacherous game, full of logical pitfalls. The following three reasoning traps are still among the most common mistakes players make today. In fact, in a more aggressive modern poker environment, these mistakes often get punished even harder than they used to. Make sure you avoid them.

Nothing Changed!

This piece of faulty reasoning occurs when an innocuous card comes off on the next street. For example, the flop is ((Kh)) ((Th)) ((6s)) and Villain raises your continuation-bet. You make the call and the turn brings the ((2c)) – the blankest of blanks, right? Sure, this card is unlikely to have had any effect on your equity against your opponent’s range, but that equity can change when he continues with aggression on the turn.

In game theory, it is completely correct for you to fold the weakest hands that made it to this spot because the turn card not changing the board does not entail that Villain’s range has remained the same. In fact, his follow up bet on the turn typically represents a further narrowing of his range towards higher equity bluffs (like flush draws) and strong value hands. It is quite common at the lower stakes for players to make check-raise bluffs with a variety of hands on the flop, and then, to give up when their line does not yield an immediate fold.

Against more aggressive modern opponents, however, blank turns can often become powerful opportunities for continued pressure. Even when the board itself changes very little, your opponent’s betting range can become significantly stronger once he fires again.

So why does the ‘nothing changed’ reasoning happen in the first place? It comes down to an error in the player’s poker language. This thought is often accompanied by thoughts such as: ‘Well if I was right to call the flop, then I’m still good’. The player gets mixed up here as he assumes that it is his job to decide whether or not he has the best hand; as if poker was merely an exercise in clairvoyance. In reality, such a judgment is often completely unsupported by evidence and you would be well advised to doubt the ability of a player who constantly made claims like ‘I think I’ve got the best hand.’

A better way to word things would be: ‘I think I have sufficient pot equity to call for now against his range.’ This better wording allows logical space for the admittance: ‘I did have enough equity to call the flop, but now that he’s bet again, I think my equity has dropped significantly.’ This recognition dispels the myth that it is a contradiction in reasoning to call the flop and then fold on a blank turn. Developing the right semantics is key to avoiding this reasoning trap. The word is ‘range’ – not ‘hand!’ Ranges change via actions, not just cards falling.

I Bet Because I Think I’m Ahead

First thing’s first; players should not ‘think they’re ahead’. Rather, the goal is to think in terms of ranges – being ahead of a Villain’s range, or ahead ‘most of the time.’ If you were asked how many daisies were in your garden, saying ’87’ would be a guess. A more approximate answer such as ‘between 50 and 1000’, however, would be far more realistic. Poker hand reading works the same way: opponents should be assigned a range of hands, not one exact holding.

Secondly, even if you are confident that you are ahead of Villain’s range, that still might not be enough of a reason to bet. The bet must serve some purpose.

Your bet could be for value if you are confident even after Villain calls that you are still ahead of his range. Alternatively, that bet could be for protection if you think that by betting, you can cause Villain to fold a sizable chunk of his hands that have live outs against you. Betting with a strong hand that does not fare well after being called, however, is usually a big mistake, so where does the ‘I bet because I think I’m good’ fallacy come from?

This faulty reasoning occurs because many players over-simplify poker into a game of: ‘Who has the biggest stick?’ This is a very instinctive way of thinking about life and is evidence of an uncultivated logical thought process.

This mistake still appears frequently in modern games, where many players bet strong hands far too automatically. In many situations, checking can keep weaker hands in the pot or induce bluffs from aggressive opponents. Being ahead is not, by itself, a sufficient reason to bet.

I Was Trying to Represent the ______

This thought is usually finished off with reference to some scare card that recently came down. ‘The flush’ and ‘the ace’ are by far the most common examples. Here, the player takes on the role of the impressionist. He tailors his actions to resemble what he thinks would be the behavior of one who has just connected with a certain aspect of the board. The problem is that impressions are only effective when you know how they will be interpreted. A convincing Liverpool accent might fool somebody from that area. The trouble is that neither a dog nor a person from Sri Lanka would recognise the accent.

Trying to represent the flush is like performing the accent to an unknown audience. On a good day, your opponent might interpret your betting as: ‘He must have the flush.’ On another day he might think the opposite: ‘He is trying to bluff me.’ In some cases, your opponent might not think at all! His thought process might literally be: ‘meh I call.’ How much theatrical glory can you really reap against such an unthinking opponent?

The point is that representing things is only effective when there is a high likelihood that your opponent does not hold too many very strong hands himself and that you have a strong justified suspicion as to how he is likely to perceive your action. This is why online poker leads to so many failed attempts to ‘represent the ____’ – too many opponents are complete unknowns.