We want to pause for a moment and point out that the situation is somewhat different if the pot is three-handed. Suppose in a three way game the player on the button raises. It's true that he better not get away with it more than 50 percent of the time, but if you are in the big blind you don't have the entire responsibility of making sure that he gets called the proper amount. The little blind should also do his share of calling (or reraising).However, you need to realize that the little blind should be aware that the big blind may also call. Consequently he should only play his better hands. Thus the little blind should play about half as often as the big blind, and their combined playing frequency should be only a little more than it was for the big blind when the game was heads-up. In other words the big blind should play approximately 70 percent as often as before, and the little blind should play approximately 40 percent as often as the big blind played in the previous case.Returning to Play on the Flop and BeyondWe previously said that you should call on the flop (in the situation just discussed) anytime you have something reasonable and with some other hands that don't appear reasonable. Let's examine this in more detail.Suppose you call a raise out of the blind with:Qª 10©This is a proper call.How often do you flop a hand that under normal circumstances is reasonable? You will flop a pair approximately one third of the time, a straight draw about 8 percent of the time, and you should have two overcards in the neighborhood of 10 percent of the time. That brings us to 50 percent, which is not enough against a very aggressive player who is automatically going to try to steal. Our advice is to pretend that the top card isn’t there! Take it off the board, or turn it into a deuce in your mind, and see if you would still play. In other words if you have the QªT© and the flop isA§ 9¨ 4ª just change it to 9¨ 4ª2§If you do this you should be at approximately the right strategy for playing against super aggressive players who constantly take the pot odds on a steal or a semi-steal. (You would play in this spot since you have two "overcards" and a backdoor straight draw.)By the way, part of the reason that we have put so much emphasis on this idea is that the strategy of betting every single time is actually pretty close to being the right strategy if you are up against somebody who doesn't realize what is happening to them. You should be playing this way against someone who you think will fall prey to it. If you are up against players who normally play 9 or 10 handed games and don't defend properly, then you should be the one taking advantage of the concept that betting every time against a tight player is probably going to show a profit.However, you don't want to make your strategy completely obvious. Thus you should bet merely most of the time as opposed to every time. Check your truly terrible hands. This way your opponent will less likely figure out that you are stealing all the money.Another idea that is very important in short-handed play (or in a ring game, for that matter, when you are up against players who play very well) is to throw in a raise with a hand that seems like it is only worth a call. This is because players are doing a lot of semi-bluffing. If they are semi-bluffing, they are hoping that they can win it there or if they don't, they might draw out. You must thwart that strategy, and you can do this by raising with hands that appear to be only calling hands.Take that Qª10© again. If that is your hand, and the flop isQ© 8¨ 5§the right play might be to call your opponent's bet on the flop and then to raise him on fourth street even though your hand only looks like a "pay off hand. If he's betting a lot of hands on the turn, there is a very good chance that the QT is the best hand, and you need to charge him for making such a play.Follow this analysis. Suppose you still have that Q4TT, a good player bets into you on fourth street, and the board shows:Q§ 9© 5¨ 2ªEven if you think that there is a 60 percent chance he has KQ, and a 40 percent chance he has JT you should still raise (or check-raise) even though he will never fold as long as you act after him. You will lose this pot over 60 percent of the time, but if he has KQ and you raise him, he will call and then check to you, and you will check it right behind him. So you lose the same amount as when you don't raise.But if he has JT, he will most likely call and then check to you. Now you make an extra bet unless he would have bet into you again (as a bluff).It is true that if you are up against somebody who will always bluff on the river if you only call on the turn, then it doesn't do you any good to raise. But if he will sometimes give up, you must raise to make more money because you make two bets from him every time he misses, as opposed to only those times when he misses and still bets on the end.On the other hand, if there is a reasonable chance that he might have a reraising hand as well as the JT, then this concept may not apply, then again it still may. Let's say there is a possibility that he has a very strong hand. If he will only reraise you when he does have it that is okay because you fold immediately and lose nothing extra. But if he is a real aggressive player and will reraise with many hands, then you are better off just calling. Against this type of player you save money when he has you beat, and if he does have that lesser hand there's a good chance he'll bet into you on the end anyway, and you'll get the money when he goes ahead and bluffs. Thus you have to distinguish between players who will "fire the last barrel" when they are semi-bluffing on the turn and players who won't fire the last barrel. If they will fire away, you can afford to flat call them more often. But most of the better short-handed players often give up on the river. They'll bet the flop, bet the turn, but then frequently check it down. And because they play this way, you don't win enough by just calling them on fourth street. These people have to be raised.
