If a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, then the journey to becoming a post-flop poker master probably starts with the first time you don’t panic ship it all in pre-flop with aces because ‘they always lose’.
Working yourself out of the negative mindset traps that adorn the playing field for any novice poker player aren’t easy. There are the bad beats, the emotional swings, the financial setbacks, the physical exhaustion and many, many more hurdles to jump. Let’s be honest, how many of us ever get past the bad beat stage?
We know many players who still can’t resist telling us about that time they lost to a one-outer on the river, but thankfully we never stoop to mention our own cruel twists of fate along poker’s path such as that time we were all-in with a straight flush only to lose to a Royal Flush. I mean, what are the chances of that happening?
Thankfully for you, we’re here to help you and below are seven easy ways you can make your first tentative steps to understanding post-flop play.
1. Use Position to Control Pots
Controlling a pot means that you stay in charge of betting and that is often the case by prioritizing the most important part of post-flop play: position. Late position means you’re last to act and using this position, you can watch and wait for others to act before you, gathering information on their play. Make sure that you keep it smallball and use your bet-sizing to keep players involved if you want them to be or push them out of contention if you feel that’s the best decision you can make.
2. Size Your Bets Sensibly
Making sure that you don’t overprice your bets or under-price them post-flop is hugely important. Many good pre-flop players suffer in post-flop pots when they don’t put care and attention into the size of their bets. Pre-flop betting ranges are often studied, with push/fold charts breaking down exactly when and where at the table you should be making moves. Approaching post-flop play without such a well-studied plan can be nerve-wracking for the beginner. It really is about trial and error, but to get comfortable, you’re going to have to play more post-flop pots. Take notes and you’ll improve in no time.
3. Disguise Your Intentions
Many players can approach post-flop play with a simple ‘draw or value’ approach to play. By this, we mean that they can look for flush draws or straight draws to be completed or they have a made hand and are looking to extract value from a board that fails to fill up those flush or straight-inspired hopes in other players. The problem with this is that those intentions often become very apparent to others at the table. Mixing up your play by considering more what you opponents are holding and what you can do to make you the winner of each pot is a mindset that is improved by frequently playing post-flop hands.
4. Send in the S.W.O.T.
If you want to ambush others at the table post-flop, it could be worth applying a business technique to others play. ‘S.W.O.T.’ analysis has nothing to do with gun-toting hard men, however, as it stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats rather than the special weapons and tactics deployed by Americans. Looking at your own strengths shouldn’t be a tough task, but others could be more important, and the opposite is true with weaknesses. Looking for opportunities to win pots we’ve already mentioned, but any threat to you winning at the felt is vital to identify. If you’re not involved in a hand, do a quick mental appraisal of each player in turn, using this method of analysis.
5. Take All Your Big Plans and Break Them
Making a plan from different points of each hand is one way of making sure that you see each pot as one that doesn’t begin and end pre-flop. One of the best answers we got to an interview about planning for hands was that at each separate stage, a new plan had to be made, because of the change of information. If you’re only using pre-flop information to put together that strategy for winning the hand, you could be limiting yourself. Think of how often a hand changes direction with the flop, turn and river. Now think back to your original plan for how to win it pre-flop.
6. Compile Information
While it’s not practical to compose detailed notes on every opponent during gameplay if you’re at the live felt, getting your mind around what each player does and how they’re affecting your play post-flop is vital. If you’re playing online, then categorizing and note-taking each opponent you face will always pay off, if just for your capability to process information after the flop, turn and river. Make it a habit that you get into by looking to take notes for 16 sessions in a row, as it takes 16 times to make that habit a routine you stick to.
7. Develop a Strong Mindset
Resist tilt, dominate the table and stay strong on and after every street. Sounds easy, right? It really isn’t. The key thing to playing confident poker post-flop is to have a positive attitude to improving your play and that starts with a good mindset. Again, like the last tip, practice really does make perfect, but although only you can make that mindset a priority, you’re never alone. Talk to peers, friends, family and rivals in a bid to improve and it will happen.
Now you just have to put in 10,000 hours and get a little bit of luck. When you do and you’ve become a post-flop poker-playing genius, we might just be telling the story of how you did it.
