Mastering Multi-Way Pots
Does it ever feel like you always get coolered in multiway pots?
Are your semi-bluffs not working well?
Do you ever try to rep the nut flush but get called down?
Or does it feel like you never get any value when you bet?
Today, we’re going to dive deep into this one spot, both in theory and practice, and we’re going to extrapolate these learnings to other multi-way pot situations.
I’ll share some stats, some solver work, and my own advice for navigating multiway pots in practice.
This will be a bit denser than my average post, but I’ll make sure to wrap up with some actionable advice in plain English!
You ready?
The Spot
Imagine you’re playing $2/$5 NL at your local casino.
You raise to $20 in early position with A♣️A♦️, and you get four callers.
The flop is K♠️T♠️6♣️
The blinds check to you.
WTF do you do?
What if you have A♠️Q♦️? Or 8♠️7♠️?
By The Numbers
We all know that the more people that see the flop, the more likely it is that somebody has a good hand.
But just how likely is it?
Let’s start with some math.
On this flop, At least one player has…
Top pair or better: 69% of the time
A flopped flush draw: 42% of the time
Exactly QJ: 25% of the time
And how often will nobody have one of these hands?
10.5% of the time.
No wonder your bets are getting called!
Even if we ignore your hand and ask how often none of your four opponents have one of the above hand categories, it only jumps to 17%.
Compare this to how often a single opponent will flop worse than top pair without a strong draw (67%), and you can see why it feels so much different being up against one or four opponents.
What’s more important, when we’re sitting there with A♣️A♦️ against four callers, is that someone will have out-flopped us about 22% of the time.
This isn’t how things actually work, but let’s say we bet 75% pot on the flop. If we got called 55% of the time, and only by the strongest hand left among our opponents, we’d be beat 40% of the time, and we’d be up against a flush draw the rest of the time.
This means we would be an equity underdog with Aces after getting just one bet called!
[Note: I have no affiliation with them, but I answered these questions using ProPokerTools Odds Oracle, which used to cost $90 but is currently free through at least the end of the year because the developer is unsure if he’ll continue the project. It’s an excellent tool for you to pick up for no cost!]
Okay. But WTF Do I Do?
What does the above conclusion tell us about how the spot should be played?
Well, the first thing I’d take away from the above is that our threshold for putting in big bets on the flop (calling or betting) should go way up.
The next thing it would tell me is that big bets are going to be tricky to manage.
Why?
The logic I would use is: What bluffs do I want to bet big with?
A♠️5♠️? Sure, I guess that works okay.
8♠️7♠️? Doesn’t feel great, because I get called a lot, and never fold out the nut flush draw or Q♠9♠️ and J♠️9♠️.
Weaker than a flush draw or an open-ender? No thank you.
And what about my value range?
I can’t even big-bet AA here profitably.
So, my value range needs to become KT+.
That’s a pretty narrow value range, and also, what am I hoping to get called down by?
If I bet big, people are mostly supposed to defend with draws and KT+.
So now I need to drop to only betting sets for value? Two of which block KT really hard.
This just doesn’t feel right to me.
Let’s consult the solver.
GTO Solutions
I ran a 4-way flop simulation in MonkerSolver, which, if you have ever worked with Monker, isn’t very fun! (I tried to run it 5-ways and, well, it didn’t go great.)
Let’s first look at what defending ranges should look like against a big flop c-bet. Are they in line with what I expected?
To sum up, the following hands have to fold very often to a big bet:
QJ, KJ, K9, weak flush draws — and even KQ should fold sometimes.
If one of the blinds leads into the preflop raiser, the preflop raiser should sometimes fold AK!
There also happens to be essentially no big betting
used on the flop when playing GTO.
How does this spot work, then, in theory?
As might be implied by my words thus far, in theory, there should be a lot of small betting in multi-way pots.
Why?
When you bet small, you accomplish two things:
You widen the range of hands that can bet for value (or protection)
You apply pressure far beyond your bet-size, because your opponents need to worry about you and each of the remaining players behind them
When looking through the strategy, here’s how I interpret the solver’s “thinking”:
Small bets allow me to bet a wider range of hands, and to apply a lot of pressure to my opponents for a low price.
I force my opponents to fold hands with outs against my 1-pair hands, and I also force them to define their stronger hands some of the time by raising.
When they don’t raise, they somewhat cap their range, while I remain uncapped, allowing me flexibility and leverage on future streets.
For most of my betting range (1-pair), I am “clearing up equity,” folding out weaker 1-pair hands and weak draws, increasing my equity in the overall pot for a cheap price.
Small bets make sense to the solver, and they make sense to me.
In Practice
What’s best in theory-land is all fine and good, but that’s not what we encounter from our opponents at the local $2/$5 tables!
We see things like:
• 50%-100% pot bets
• Much looser calls against big bets
• People really defining their hand on draw-heavy boards (less creativity)
So, what should we do?
The first thing to be aware of is
making sure you fold to big bets a lot.
Less than in theory, because your opponents are betting big with too wide a range, but still more than your opponents do.
You should be especially careful calling big bets with several players to act behind you. Remember, they’ve flopped a big hand pretty often!
As for the rest of your strategy, I have two alternatives for you.
Tricky Tactics
Assuming your opponents won’t be super-focused on following your tendencies, you have some freedom with how you can respond to the average players’ leaks in these situations.
They are betting too big and too often, calling big bets too often, and they’re defining their hands too often against bets.
Tactic #1: Don’t use small bets
What? I thought we figured out that small bets are great!
Yes, we did, but one way to adjust to these situations is to not stand out from the crowd.
Use bigger bet sizes, just like them, but only bet with huge hands. Sets, some nut flush draws, and that’s about it. Check the rest and see what develops.
Most of your opponents won’t notice that you’re betting a fraction of the frequency they’re betting. It’s too hard to keep track of.
So they’ll put in too much money calling your bets, you’ll rake in those chips, and you won’t waste your money bluffing with weaker holdings or “value” betting KQ like they will.
Tactic #2: Small bets with small bet hands
For this approach, you only use a small bet sizing on the flop, and you can go ahead and bet all of the hands that “like” betting small. These are hands that want to thin the field and clear up equity:
AA, KQ, KJ, K9, AT, some 76, QJ, flush draws, KT.
And check your hands that want to put big money in:
KK, TT, 66, some KT
Now, you accomplish what you want to accomplish with your small bet hands, but when you have a monster, you check to let your opponents make their bad big bets.
Most opponents won’t raise against small bets as often as they should.
When you small bet TT, you’ll rarely get raised, so betting doesn’t allow you to build that large of a pot.
Yet, when you check, your opponents will often build the pot for you by betting big with KJ and the like.
When you small bet K9, you’ll rarely get raised, which is perfect.
(Keep in mind that the closer you are to being last to act, the more often you’ll still want to bet your good hands)
This is the tactic that I prefer personally.
The Turn and River
After employing one of these two flop tactics, I’d encourage you to play “normally” on the turn and river once a bet goes in and the field has been thinned to two or three of you.
If the flop checks around, treat the turn somewhat similarly to how we’ve discussed the flop.
These are, of course, simplifications, but they aren’t too far off. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s critical to simplify your strategy.
