10 More Essential Hold'em Moves: Floating the Flop

There’s no simple fix for becoming a winning poker player but there are a handful of simple, easy-to-execute poker moves that can make a world of difference to your bottom line.
By fine-tuning these tactics you’ll have more tools to put to work at the poker table. You’ll be able to better understand your opponents and how to manipulate them, and that will translate directly to money in your pocket.
We already wrote the book on the 10 Essential Texas Hold’em Moves and now we’re back to bring you 10 more.
Today we’re talking about floating the flop, a move that can turn your opponent's continuation bets against him. By just calling your opponent’s bet on the flop, you’ll be in a perfect spot to take the pot away when he shows weakness on the turn.
The float is an intermediate poker move that requires a strong understanding of the players you’re up against but if you can master it you’ll be able to win more pots post-flop, regardless of the cards you’re holding.
The What: At its most basic, floating the flop refers to calling a bet on the flop with the intention of betting and taking down the pot when your opponent checks to you on the turn.
The Why: Floating the flop is a move used to defend against the continuation bet. Because marked cards players routinely continuation bet with a wide range of hands, you shouldn’t be surrendering every time someone does it. But instead of simply raising the flop, floating allows you to pick up more information on the turn before making your move.
The Who: You should only be floating the flop against tight-aggressive players who do a lot of preflop raising and continuation betting.
The When: You should only be floating the flop when you are in position.
The Where: Floating the flop is a powerful poker move that can be used in all forms of Texas Hold’em but because it requires two streets of action it lends itself more to deep-stacked games.

Floating the Flop the Right Way

Floating the flop is a bluffing technique so it’s important to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it to avoid burning money.
To make it crystal clear, you are only technically floating when you believe your cards are worse than your opponent’s. If you believe you have the best hand then you would be calling the flop and betting the turn for value.

Like most poker moves, floating works better when you're in position.

And because you’re bluffing, the conditions have to be just right to give yourself the biggest chance of success.
Here are the three most important factors to consider when you’re thinking about floating the flop and betting the turn.

• Only float when you’re in position.
• Only float when you’re in a heads-up pot.
• Only float against tight-aggressive players who continuation bet frequently and are able to make laydowns when shown strength.

It’s important to be in position when you float the flop because you need that extra piece of information your opponent will give you on the turn.
Because your opponent will be continuation betting with good hands as well as bad hands, when he checks to you on the turn you’ll have one more clue that he’s got air. If he does bet the turn instead of checking, you need to reevaluate your plan.
It’s also only advisable to float the flop and bet the turn when you’re in a heads-up pot. More players mean more variables and a worse chance of succeeding with a bluff.
Floating is about telling your opponent a story, one that involves you calling the flop because you have a trick cards legitimate hand. In a multi-way pot your call on the flop doesn’t mean as much and your story will be less believable when you bet the turn.

Advanced Strategy Tip

If your opponent throws a wrench into your plans by betting the turn, all may not be lost. Many aggressive players won’t give up and check/fold fourth street. They’ll fire a second barrel as a bluff to try to blow you off your hand.
If you think you’re up against a tough, very aggressive player, you should consider raising the turn. Calling the flop and raising the turn is an extremely strong line and will usually force a good player to quickly lay down marginal hands.
This is an advanced move and should only be made with a very strong understanding of your opponent and his or her behavior.

Only Float Against Tight-Aggressive Players

Making sure you have position and only one opponent are important factors, but you must also consider the type of player against whom you are going to float.
Floating does not work against a player that only raises preflop and continuation bets with premium hands, for obvious reasons.
Floating also does not work against a loose/passive calling station who will frequently call your turn bet with marginal hands.
Look for tight-aggressive players who raise a lot in position preflop and follow it up with a continuation bet a high percentage of the time. These players will be showing up with air a lot, and check-folding to you when you bet the turn.
It’s much more difficult to float successfully against tough, hyper-aggressive players, however. Try to find players who fire one continuation bet but tend to shut down on the turn when they don’t have a hand.

Floating the Flop in Action

If you’re still not convinced about the efficacy of floating the flop and betting the turn, let Phil Ivey show you how it’s done like only Phil Ivey can.
In this video Ivey breaks one of our golden rules by floating in a mutli-way pot, and he does it not once but twice.
Ivey calls two big bets with seven-high and manages to take the pot away when Patrik Antonius checks on the river. This hand doesn’t even come close to following the easy-to-execute formula we presented above so consider it something to which you can aspire.

How to Qualify for the EPT: Don't Reduce Your Chances to Survive

This is the third article in a seven-part series from EPT Serial Qualifier Pierre Neuville. Check back every Thursday for the next in the series.
See the list below the article for links to the rest of the series.
Make the hero call, make a big bluff or play for safety?
It all comes down to what best suits your one goal: increasing your chances of qualification.
Play 23s and fold AA? Not easy, but sometimes it’s necessary. And it’s a scenario that happens more often than we might think.
So what do you do?
Online there are few tells and little information on our opponents. Our big decisions remain quite subjective marked cards.
What then are the elements that determine our decisions if it’s not pot odds?

Manage Your Stack, Not the Pot

In an EPT qualifying tournament, you don’t live or die with the pot or the pot odds.
What you manage is your stack and the opportunity it gives you to survive the bubble. This is the only base that should guide your decisions.
Here are a few examples to help make it a little clearer:

Manage your stack, not the pot.

 

Example 1:
You have a stack of 150,000. Player B has 100,000. Players C and D have 37,000.
Five other players have 25,000 and you’re on the bubble. Your chances of qualification are perfect. Almost close to 99% even.
Your risk is zero whenever there are two players with an all in and a call between them.
So it’s enough to just wait quietly until they’re eliminated.
Hand 1: You have AA and Player B shoves all in.
With your aces you’re favored to win the hand around 80% of the time, but if you lose the hand your stack falls back to 50,000 - in other words, back to the average stack.
At the average stack size, your chances of missing out on qualifying now increase between 1 and 10%.
If you fold your aces?
At first glance, it’s a surprising solution that some would say is even a ridiculous idea. I even think some infraredink players won’t even consider it.
But if you fold your aces, you keep your 99% chance of qualifying. The best solution here is therefore an insta-fold preflop.
Throw your AA into the muck, without regret.

Folding aces? Not so crazy.

 

Why?
Because a call would help your opponents directly in every case.
For you, it only helps you the 80% of the time that you win and it’s very unfavorable in defeat - which would happen 20% of the time.
Qualification is virtually assured right now, so the best tactic becomes completely avoiding any "move" that can significantly reduce your chances of qualifying.

Congratulations – You’ve Just Made a Critical Leap

If you’ve never thought about folding KK or AA pre-flop, you’ve just made a big leap in your progress.
You don’t lose qualifying tournaments with 77. "Future accidents" happen with big hands, so you just have to learn to avoid them in certain cases.
In learning this new step, your chances of qualifying have increased substantially.
This is also going to serve you well in other cases.
From the moment you have it clear in your head that you can throw away AA easily and without regret, depending on your overall situation in the tournament, you'll have no trouble throwing all other average-to-fair hands away pre-flop according to the circumstances.
No more falling in love with timebomb starting hands like AK, AQ – which are often fatal on arrival.
The quality of your poker has just taken a giant step. 99.9% of players would probably make the call with AA without thinking, and you’ve come to understand that in poker everything is food for thought.
The proof is you’ve just learned to throw away AA despite great pot odds to protect your almost guaranteed qualification.

On the Other Hand: Risk-Taking is Sometimes Required

Another example:
You’re the short stack with 10,000 chips. You have JT on a board of of 246KT.
The pot is 9,000. He bets 4,000, sitting with an average stack of 25,000. You figure there’s a 50% chance he’s trying to take the pot with his AQ.
Your chances of qualifying overall at that moment are quite thin. If you fold, you stay at 10k.
Let’s say that gives you about a 10-15% chance of qualifying. But you’re also only slightly more at risk overall with 6k (instead of the 10k) if you lose when you call.
If your hero call is successful and you win the hand, your stack is up to 23k &ndash back up to the average and now with about a 50-60% chance of earning a seat.
In other words, the general situation at that exact time advises you to take a reasonable risk.
Losing the hand doesn’t change much, but the potential gain from winning the hand can reestablish your position for qualifying.
This is what you must primarily look at in any difficult situation – the effect on your chances to win or lose this seat.

Risks are still required, but only smart ones.

 

Same Principle Applies to Bluffing

This example can also be applied to making a bluff of your own.
Of course it’s reasonable to bluff at a pot if the amount won will radically change your final chances of qualifying and if the amount you might lose only results in a relatively small decrease in your chances.
This takes away almost the full repertoire of bluffs like "I push all in on the button and I close my eyes."
Repeat this to yourself:
I won’t make a "negative infinity"move with only relative improvement possible!
Key Takeaways:
Take risks with minor consequences on the condition that they can really improve your position.
But above all, don’t take risks that can turn a safe position gained into a new risk of losing your chance at qualifying.