Good Bet

A few months ago, John Vorhaus, who coauthored Killer Poker Shorthanded with me, and I hit Hawaiian Gardens for a quick session. Other than that, I can't remember the last time I played live poker. LA has great poker rooms and I've spent plenty of time in them, but one table of 9-handed action is now brutally slow for my taste.

Competition online is tougher than it is in live card rooms, but small edges accumulate quickly when playing over 1,000 hands per hour. Furthermore, I don't like driving around LA any more than I absolutely have to, and if hermit-like is my way of being good to the environment, so be it.

For better or worse, I'm not completely withdrawn from the outside world. Some of my friends still play a bit of live poker, so I hear my fair share of random poker stories and anecdotes stemming from live play. Recently, one of my friends and I had a conversation that went something like:

Friend: "One of the most ridiculous things that poker players say is..."

Friend and I (almost in unison): "Good bet!"

From there, we both went on to state our opinions about why it's so ridiculous (and entertaining). Typically, a "good bet" (or some equivalent phrase like "good bet, man" or "nice bet") is offered up after one of the following two sequences occurs:

Sequence No. 1 (Heads-Up Pot):
• Player 1 Bets
• Player 2 Folds
• "Good bet," uttered either by Player 2 or someone else at the table.

Sequence No 2. (Multiway Pot):
• Player 1 Bets Flop or Turn
• Player 2 Folds
• Player 3 Calls
• Action Proceeds to Showdown
• Player 1 Wins, Player 2 says, "I would have hit my draw ... good bet on the flop/turn."

Sequence No. 2 touches upon something I refer to as the Deal or No Deal phenomenon, which I'll discuss in a later issue of Poker Player Newspaper. Meanwhile, sequence No. 1 is ridiculous when you think about the qualities of a good bet. When a player makes a good bet, he's typically doing one of the following:

• Bluffing with air (folds wanted)
• Knowingly turning a made hand into a bluff (folds wanted)
• Value betting (calls wanted)

*Note that the converse isn't necessarily true: using one of the above as a justification for betting doesn't necessarily mean that betting is correct.

A player at your table bets, and his opponents fold. What kind of bet was he making? Who knows! Maybe he thought he was making a value bet, but in reality, he was unknowingly turning a made hand into a bluff.

Maybe he was knowingly turning a made hand into a bluff from late position. He might have had enough showdown equity against his opponent's probable range or holdings to make checking the best play.

Unless the bettor exposes his hand, there's really no way of telling whether his bet was good or bad. But whatever you do, don't castigate him-and for the record, I'm not castigating; I'm educating. Players who use "good bet" like this are among the best to have at your table. They're typically good sports and usually pleasant personalities to socialize with. And what's more important, they don't clearly understand the theory behind betting, and because of that, they're exploitable.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker by the Numbers and Killer Poker Shorthanded (with John Vorhaus). Visit him online at www.killerev.com, and check out his weekly show, Killer Poker Analysis, on Rounder's Radio (www.roundersradio.com) Fridays from 5:00PM to 6:00PM Pacific Time.