Book Excerpt: 'Exploitative Play in Live Poker' by Alexander Fitzgerald

November 20, 2018

Many poker players can make good decisions at the table with a reasonable frequency. Nevertheless, there are numerous situations where even very experienced players behave in predictable ways. These deeply-ingrained habits lead them to make mistakes. The problem is that these situations won’t often arise at the table by chance – you have to make them happen. Exploitative Play in Live Poker is a ground-breaking work that teaches you how to create the circumstances where your opponents will be likely to blunder and how to exploit them when they do.

To achieve this you will need to put to one side starting hand charts, balance and GTO (Game Theory Optimal) play. Instead, you will incorporate new concepts that may well place you outside your comfort zone. However, your style will now be forcing the other players at the table outside of their comfort zone and, unlike you, they won’t know how to adapt.

Learn how to:

• Counter the auto-continuation-bettor
• Develop a powerful donk-betting strategy
• Use the overbet, the check-raise and the three-barrel effectively

As well as being a highly successful player, Alex Fitzgerald runs a poker consultancy that serves more than 1,000 professional poker players in 60 countries. As part of this work, he has very likely trawled through more hand history databases than anyone else. This gives him a unique insight into how players really play, especially when placed under pressure and forced into unfamiliar situations.

Fitzgerald's book, Exploitative Play in Live Poker How to manipulate your opponent into making mistakes, comes out December 2018. A sample excerpt can be read below.

^{You can order a copy of the ebook or physical book from D&B’s website.}

River Value

I want you to imagine this hand. You raise preflop with 8-7 on the button. Your opponent calls from the big blind. You are 50 big blinds deep, late in a tournament. You raised to 3x. The board comes 6♥5♥3♦. He checks to you. You bet 4x. He calls. You each now have 43 big blinds left. There are 14 big blinds in the middle. The turn comes an offsuit king. Your opponent checks.

The river is Final Jeopardy. I love the river.

You remember that you’re allowed to bet large amounts. You also know this guy would likely raise a set on the flop due to how coordinated the board is. He would have three-bet preflop with an overpair or A-K, and he likely would have folded K-Q, K-J, K-10 on the flop. He also possibly would have check-raised his better flush draws. So, his range is capped at one pair on the board, and he just saw a scare card.

He checks to you. You decide to bet 10x instead of the traditional 7x. Let’s see if he’s got it in him to call there with second pair or a better high-card draw again. He calls. Damn! Good call. Oh well, you have the rebate based on your straight draw... And sure enough, the river rolls off a non-heart 9. You have the nuts. He checks to you. There’s 34x in the middle. You have 33 big blinds left. What is your bet?

I bet almost all of you shove this river. I know this because I teach poker every day, and it’s honestly astounding when someone doesn’t take the river jam, because “the stacks are right”. It looks like you set up for a river jam. You have to take the river jam, right? You have to balance for when you’re bluffing, right? Most of your opponents are just playing their cards. They don’t want to look stupid.

What is their most likely hand? I told you it was third pair, and yet you still were considering the jam your most likely option. Are you in the habit of calling all-in jams with third pair late in tournaments? Why not just bet 12x?

And what’s most amazing about it is it’s so damn easy to make money on the river.

You know he’s not going to fold to a 1/3-pot bet. Hell, many of your opponents will call as if they’re mandated by the government to do so. They literally wave their hand up, like, “What am I supposed to do differently? I can’t fold to that puny bet!” Then they call. Which is hilarious when you think about it. When was the last time you got to a river with a missed draw here and went, “Quick! Bet 1/3-pot. That oughta fold him out!” It’s always a value hand, and yet everyone pays it off.

Hell, you could show up at the poker table, and announce to everyone, “I use 1/3-pot value-bets on rivers” and they’ll still call you down, because they’re assuming you’re leveling them. Because it’s so damn cheap, and because they can just fold their hand if they’re wrong. 12 big blinds is not chump change either. 12 big blinds is more than what aces make on average. You can get that right here, 100% of the time, with zero variance. If you shove here it’s like being dealt aces, looking at them, and then yelling to the table, “I gotta take a real bad leak!” and then folding them face-up while you walk off. That’s how bad this river bet is to me. 12 big blinds is a lights out win rate over 100 hands for a grinder. It takes four hours in the Rio to play 100 hands. If you bet here and get a casual call from an otherwise good pro, you just stole four hours of his work. Your entire goal in No Limit Hold’em tournaments and cash games is to get to the river and get paid off.

All that three-bet stuff is light skirmishing. It’s good for a big blind or two. It’s made to just pick up pots on the flop. You’ll occasionally get a value-bet on the flop, or you’ll back into a hand. But none of that means anything before the river. The river is Final Jeopardy. I love the river. You play for the biggest amounts, and you play for them often. Let’s see if you can put the pieces together. No more games. Put up or shut up, right now. Let’s get this work in. A 70 big blind bet would be bizarre preflop, flop, or turn, but on the river it’s possible. If you get one large river bet called it can erase eight miscues preflop.

Your entire goal in No Limit Hold’em tournaments and cash games is to get to the river and get paid off.

And what’s most amazing about it is it’s so damn easy to make money on the river.

There was this player I once found in my databases. I couldn’t figure out how in the world he was making money. His preflop game was embarrassingly tight. He never three-bet bluffed. He seemed to nit it up and hope for the flips later in tournaments. Yet, when you watched him with a hand, he was something to watch. He had a knack for always knowing exactly what a guy was willing to pay off. He would stall with his timing. He’d go into himself, in a way that would confuse others into thinking he was weak. And he always got the damn call. If he got two of those early in a tournament, he would be well into the later stages before he needed his flip. And that was if he didn’t get another river bet. If he jammed the river and the guy folded, he’d lose his mind. It was as if he let his firstborn drown. He was one of the smartest players I ever saw. Because really, a value hand on the river is incredibly valuable.

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