A blocking bet is a fairly advanced NL Hold’em play that is used as a vehicle to get to see the next card or get to showdown cheaply. It is a bet made when out of position in order to prevent your opponent from making a larger bet which we will not have odds to call.
There are two basic situations when we will look to make a blocking bet; when we have a drawing hand and secondly when we have a weak made hand on the river. Both of these circumstances rely on the expectation that we form of the opponent; that is that he will bet into us for value if we check to him on the particular street. If he would just check back the flop to you then you are building a pot when in fact what you are trying to achieve is to see a card for the cheapest possible price.
Let’s take an example, we hold 8s9s in the big blind and the cut off has made a standard raise. The cut-off has a fairly wide range so we decide to call and see a flop which comes As Tc 5s. We’re sitting in a cash game so both players are quite deep. We check to our opponent who makes a bet of two thirds the size of the pot. He probably has a pair of aces, but being so deep the implied odds mean we can profitably call the bet. The turn comes Qh which is essentially a blank for us. It gives a small number of extra outs to the straight but we fully expect our opponent to follow through with another large bet which mathematically would probably be a bad call so we need to get to see the next card as cheaply as possible. Instead of checking, we can make a blocking bet of let’s say a third of the pot. Our opponent probably isn’t strong enough with top pair to raise us so we can get to showdown for a cheap price.
If we hit our flush or gutshot draw on the river, then we can pick up a big pot or if we miss we can get way without commiting a huge quantity of chips to the pot. Your bet needs to be a reasonable size, one third at a minimum although half pot is usually best, this allows you to mix up value bets and blocking bets or bluffs up, making your play a lot less predictable and thus exploitable. You need to make thing expensive for an opponent who is considering raising over you; if to do so is too much of a risk they will only be willing to call the majority of the time.
We can also use the blocking bet on the river against players who have a propensity to make big bluffs. Against certain players a large bet on the river can mean one of two things. They can either have a monster which is unlikely or a whole bunch of the time they have absolute air. Your reading skills should help you identify the types of player I’m describing. A blocking bet is a good weapon when we have a medium strength hand in that situation like top pair with a mediocre kicker or a middle pair and we want to get to showdown cheaply as we are not entirely sure whether we are good or not. In these situations you want to make a bet of a size that balances two considerations. You want to strike a balance between the type of bet that is too large for your opponent to bluff over and those that are small enough that if the opponent does have the goods we can get away without losing a lot of chips. It may take some time to work this out but a little bit of practice should make a big difference.
When used amongst a diverse range of tactics, a blocking bet can in conlusion be a really sound and powerful tool. If you mix up with value bets it really can pay off by getting you cards or to the river for a small price, which is often to your benefit. Give the ploy a go the next time you are at the tables and reap the results.
This article was written by meshuganater.
Tags: blocking bet, hold'em, Key Concepts, poker strategy, post-flop, tactics