Calling With "Nothing"

By Donovan Doust
4-25-06

In order to properly utilize the information I’m going to give you in my next few articles you’re going to have to have a pretty clear idea of what solid, “fundamental” poker strategy is all about. You’ll also need a strong ability to effectively assess the experience level and playing styles of your opponents. I’m going to let you in on a little secret that is rarely put into print, but well known by all the top players. “Calling with nothing”, calling with nothing is a tactic that will only be profitable in certain situations against certain players.

When “making moves” we are trying to project an amount of strength or weakness that does not accurately represent the actual strength of our hand. In essence, we are trying to trick our opponent or opponents. The first thing we have to know about our opponent is that he or she is actually aware enough to be deceived. It does no good to act in a fashion that suggests, for instance, that we are drawing to a flush, if our opponent doesn’t understand what a player would generally do when drawing to a flush. When we are “making moves” we are generally attempting to use deception to earn extra bets that we would not make if we were playing with “solid values”.

Before a deceptive move can be effective, you must have established a table image conducive of the move you will attempt. The first “move”, “calling with nothing”, that I’m going to divulge is one that will be most effective against a savvy or experienced player who has also noticed that you are a formidable player. The best kind of opponent to use this play on is one who has a semi-aggressive style. Most good players will make continuation bets at poker flops a large percentage of the time. A continuation bet is an automatic bet that the pre-flop raiser fires at the pot after the flop. He or she bet before the flop, indicating a strong hand, and bets again after the flop to “continue” his show of strength. Provided his opponent did not make a strong hand on the flop (which is more often than not the case) the strength shown before the flop and again on the flop will earn him the pot quite often.

This play works in the following manner; your savvy opponent makes a raise before the flop, then you simply call the raise. This play works best when you have position on your opponent after the flop. For simplicities sake we’ll assume that everyone else has folded and you are contesting the pot heads up. Now, the flop comes out and your opponent bets out, say ½ the size of the pot. Now, assuming you didn’t connect on the flop, your opponent expects you to fold. But, in this example, we’ll assume you missed the flop completely but have no real reason to suspect your opponent didn’t. You simply smooth call his bet and wait for the turn. Now, when fourth street comes out and your opponent checks, he is putting the breaks on and basically forfeiting the pot to you. You make a normal sized bet, say ½ to 2/3 the size of the pot, and your opponent throws his hand away allowing you to steal a pot with no hand at all.

Let’s get into a specific example. We’ll assume you are in the middle stages of a $100 buy-in live tournament. The blinds are at 25-50 with an average stack of 2000. There are eight players at your table. The first player to act folds to a savvy, semi-aggressive player, he opens the pot for 200 chips. Everyone folds to you on the dealer button and you hold a mediocre AJc. You decide, based on the fact that this player raises a lot of pots and that you have position on him that AJc is good enough for a call. The blinds fold so the pot contains a total of 475 chips. The flop comes 9s Qc 2d. Your opponent bets 250 chips into the pot and you call the bet. The turn brings a 4h, your opponent checks and you bet out 500 chips with an ace high hand. It’s good enough because he folds. Congratulations, it’s your pot.

When your opponent opened the pot he could have had any number of hands, AK, JJ, J-10s, maybe nothing at all. When you called, you presumably had to have some kind of hand. When the flop arrived, your opponent was simply betting that you didn’t have a queen in your hand and would politely concede the pot to him if you did not. From his perspective your smooth call might look even more intimidating than a raise. What would he have expected you to do with, say, a set of nines? It makes sense that you would call before the flop with pocket nines, and with that flop you probably wouldn’t raise with your set and discourage him from betting again on the turn. Maybe your opponent had AK and was just taking a stab at the pot, maybe he had pocket eights and just wanted to find out where he stood, maybe he had 10-9 suited and hit the flop only slightly. Whatever he held, chances are his initial bet was him wagering that you hadn’t made a hand that could call him. When he checked the flop he basically told you that he encountered resistance he didn’t anticipate and now he’s done with the hand. This maneuver is very similar to a continuation bet itself. You showed strength on the flop by calling and then continued your show of strength when your opponent checked to you and you bet on the turn.

This move will only work when your opponent is known to make continuation bets, and will only work when used very rarely. If your opponent is very tight and conservative your call will just become money wasted when he leads out again on the turn. Also, if your opponent has discovered that you use this technique often, it will be very easy for them to trap you. Let’s say in the example above, your opponent had seen you making this move a number of times. Suppose he raised with AQ, you called with AJ and the flop came out the same 9s Qc 2d. He could fire at the flop knowing you’ll call to try and take the pot away on the turn. So then he checks the turn, you bet and he raises. Oops, back fire, that example should help to clarify the need to stay one step, and exactly one step ahead of your opponent. Much of poker “game theory” is analogous to rock, paper, scissors. When you’re two steps ahead, your actually one step behind. To reiterate, any time you intend to “make a move” you must have a good read on the player you intend to out maneuver. Be sure when you’re setting up bluffs and setting traps that you’re not trapping yourself in the process.

Good “luck”!