Playing the Monster Flop
May 14, 2009
It’s a wondrous event that happens to every avid poker player. You’ve been waiting for hours mucking hands and playing tight until you choose to play one hand. Your chips are pushed to the middle, the dealer shows everyone the flop—and you’ve flopped a monster. What do you do now?
The answer isn’t as clear-cut as you might think. You don’t flop monsters very often so you need to make sure that you get maximum value for such an incident. You also don’t want to act too cocky because your monster isn’t necessarily the nuts. You might end up getting beat on the river. So the first thing you need to do when you flop a monster is to study the possibilities. Can your monster still be beat by any card on the turn and river?
Once you’ve assessed the real strength of your hand, consider how you are going to play the monster. If you get too over-aggressive, your opponents might get out of the way and you’d have wasted a golden opportunity. So think about your current table image. Have you been playing aggressive? Have you been playing weak? Use this perception to your advantage. If everything knows you raise high with trash, do so now. If people view you as the type of player who will fold as soon as someone makes a strong bet, go ahead and check—but only if you feel that someone on the table will make a bet. After all, what a waste if everyone just checks behind you.
A good rule of thumb when you have a strong monster is to bet about a third or maybe half of the pot. This is a good-sized bet to get a call or even a re-raise. Over the duration of the hand, you need to get your opponent pot-committed as to get all his chips in the middle of the table. But do be careful. You don’t want to get too fancy with your nut flush only to find out that your opponent draws his full house on the river.
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