When the Flop Misses You
Playing poker with a big hand is fun, you can win a pile of chips, a big hand is exciting BUT it doesn’t happen very often. In fact, in most poker games you will fold many more hands than you play and when you do play, you will miss hitting the flop most of the time. Playing poker is about playing well under less than ideal situations as far as your cards go. Here is a poker factoid you should always remember.
The flop misses everyone in the hand two-thirds of the time.
This is a stunning statement about Hold’em in particular. Consider that this means 2 out of 3 times after a flop, the hand will be won by the person who plays the best not necessarily the person with the best cards. Betting, bluffing, table image, position, aggression all become paramount when everyone misses the flop, which they usually do.
So what do you do when the flop misses you?
You must decide what type of player you are or rather what type of player you are going to be on this hand. You do that by asking one of two questions:
1. Is it possible for me to win this hand?
2. How can I win this hand?
An aggressive player asks question #2; a passive or tight player asks #1; a good player asks and answers both.
Sometimes you should simply abandon a hand after a missed flop, remember 2/3 of the time the flop missed everyone but we still play the other 1/3 of the time and if you are beat, surrender is not a bad course of action. However, you must win some of the pots where the flop misses you or you will not be a winning player. Learning to bet with nothing or make a continuation bet with less than ideal cards is a skill learned at the tables. But the best advice you can consider when the flop misses you is that most of the time everyone at the table is in the same situation and someone will win that pot; with skill, well timed aggression and the use of the table image you have built up; some of the time those pots will be yours.
-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #126
