Sooner or later, all Limit and No-Limit poker players will make their way to Pot-Limit poker. Whether or not they consistently play Pot-Limit games in the future mainly just depends on how they do. Many people don’t stick around Pot-Limit poker very long because they don’t take the time to learn how to exercise proper pot control. So no matter what variation you’re playing – whether it be Hold’em or Omaha – learning the basics of controlling pots in Pot-Limit poker is crucial to success.
Pot-Limit involves both the mathematics of Limit along with the reading abilities of No-Limit. Of course, most would say that Pot-Limit is closer to No-Limit than Limit so you’re going to need to control the pot for sure. This means you’ll need to make lots of small bets (or no bets at all) along the way so you can dictate the action.
For instance, if the pot is at $10 on the flop you can check and allow your opponent to make a maximum bet of $10 which gives you 2 – 1 pot odds. However, if you were to make a small raise of $5 then your opponent can make a wager of $25 which is one and a half times larger than the previous raise they could make. Your pot odds are still 2 – 1, but you now need to pay a whole lot more to see another card.
Of course the aforementioned situation can also help you tremendously if you’re holding a monster hand. That’s because a small raise can show weakness to an opponent who will then come out with the same $25 raise. This is why making the small raise can be a good strategy since it’s more enticing to an opponent to call a seemingly weak raise than a pot-sized raise.
But no matter what hand you hold, always remember that your bets and actions will dictate which way the pot goes. And depending on what hand you have or what information you have on an opponent, you’ll want to influence the pot size in your favor.
Tags: Tips
