If playing 100,000 hands this year in cash games has taught me one giant lesson, it’s that you have to always re-evaluate your hand on every single street. So often players at the micro
limits of 50nl and below simply look at their hand, know what they have, and put their head down and “bet bet bet” thinking that their aggression is a good thing. Although
aggression is much better than playing passively, a good poker player will always re-evaluate a hand after seeing a new card. If you simply play your hand and not play against the
villain’s hand your losses will be greater and your winnings will be less. For those of you that do not know of the Baluga Theorem, it was a post from the 2+2 forums a couple of years back that can be summed
up as:
“Always re-evaluate the strength of one-pair hands on the turn in the face of a raise or check-raise”
This is a fantastic theorem that has received praise from everyone in the industry and is a staple of beginner learning for online poker. Here’s another theorem making it even simpler to
apply and remember:
“Always re-evaluate the strength of your hand at every street”
Let’s go into the Baluga theorem with some examples and also show how the second theory (I won’t name it because it’s too simple and straightforward to ever catch on) can save you
a lot of money when donks outdraw you at the turn and river (or slow play their flopped monsters).
Here’s an example of the Baluga theorem at work:
Our hero has a strong hand in mid position and makes the right move preflop by making a raise. He’s called by one of the blinds and hits top pair with 2nd best kicker – a
very strong flop. Our hero continuation bets and is flat called by the villain in the hand. We see a somewhat connected card come on the turn but it isn’t a huge scare card for
AQ. However, our villain has check-raised us in strong manner here at the turn. Our hero figured that he had his opponent beat the whole way but now really has to evaluate where he is in
the hand.
According to the BalugaWhlate theorem the hero has to strongly reconsider whether his hand is good or not here. What makes a check raise in this spot? Either a ridiculous bluff or a hand
that certainly has top pair 2nd kicker beat. It’s time to walk away assuming we have a good read that our opponent is not a Wildman bluffer. In this instance we even have
position on the opponent, but the situation is exacerbated if we were out of position on this hand.
Now let’s take a look at a one more hand that illustrates the second theorem and break down the play.
Made a set of queens … and face a river shove.
In this hand our hero definitely has the best hand at the flop (he’s got the nuts) with trip Queens and he bets about half the pot. Our villain goes along for the ride and flat
calls. The four hits filling a potential straight draw but most likely giving an Ace hand some outs with a straight draw. Our hero bets a large percentage of the pot and our villain flats
again. At the river the straight isn’t filled but the flush is filled and our hero properly slows down and bets half the pot. Our villain in the hand shoves his entire stack into
the middle. Now, there is some merit to thinking that this might be a bluff. This is where your table reads and stats would come in hand but for the case of this situation, what would you
do?
Recommended Action: Fold and cry. There’s no questioning that you had the nuts at the flop. But did you at the turn? What about the river? No – you
didn’t. Both the straight and the flush draws filled and against betting every street our villain has shoved his money in the middle. It’s absolutely sure that your set got
cracked and time to save yourself the rest of your stack for a better opportunity.
Summary
· Remember that with a hand like top pair you really have to tread lightly after your flop cbet gets called. Many
pros like Ed Miller have taught to check the turn if it blanks to control the pot in the face of making too large a pot for a smallish hand.
· Always re-evaluate your hand on every street and balance that by playing against your opponent’s
cards. Don’t look down at your cards and think it’s unstoppable and keep blindly betting and calling.
If you are familiar with a HUD or have already read through the article, what we are going to do in this article is run a quiz for you by providing a hand up until a certain point and then
offer you the stats of the villain.
