Poker – Jamming The Pot
September 25th, 2009
This is the counterpart of the example of slow-playing given above. Sometimes, when you hold the nut hand, you just need to jam the pot on fourth street, in order to make the pot as big as it possibly can be. But it's hard to know the right time to jam the pot, rather than smooth-calling someone else's bet. Generally, it depends on whether someone has bet right in front of you or not. If someone has, then you usually want to smooth-call the bet. But if someone has bet and several others have already called that bet, then it's time to go ahead and raise it up.
Protecting Your Hand with a Raise
The principle of protecting your hand by way of a raise is also very important in Hold'em. ("Protecting your hand" is all about making raises when you have a strong hand, so that you can eliminate players, thus giving yourself a better chance to win that hand.) It can mean the difference between winning and losing a pot. Suppose that you have [*J-p*1 (A-x suited), and garner two pair with 0-[jV]-|3 on the flop. Now on fourth street 0 comes off the deck for 0 -0 _[3 "S • Someone now bets into you, and you just call the bet. But because you just called the bet, you let a jackal in with K-Q, and he hit a J on the end to make a straight.
Clearly, even the jackal would have folded his "belly buster" (inside-straight draw) for two big bets; but for just one, he was able to dream about a jack and convince himself that hitting a king or queen might win also. Because you didn't protect your hand here by raising, you wound up paying the ultimate price in poker; you lost a pot that you should have won.
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