Phil Galfond, known as one of the best poker players, frequently shares his poker strategies and learnings about the game on his YouTube Channel. In this report, we will share the top 5 Questions Phil Galfond asks himself before or during playing a poker hand.
1. What Is My Hand?
Evaluating the strength of your hand for the situation, your hand on a particular board, in a specific spot after the action is played out a certain way, is a crucial step in thinking through what you want to do next.
Ask yourself these 5 questions –
- Is my hand high up in my range?
- Is it low in my range?
- Is this hand one that I can get value from?
- Does this hand have good blocker qualities?
- How strong is it compared to my opponent’s range?
2. What Am I Trying to Accomplish With The Next Action?
Players always bet when they are holding a top pair, check because they have a middle pair, or bet because they have a flush draw, and C-bet because they raised pre-flop. These are not good reasons.
Good reasons to bet, check, or fold depend on your hand. You can bet to get maximum value, also known as making a worse hand to put money in. You can bluff, forcing your opponent to fold his better hand or forcing your opponent to fold his good equity hand. Sometimes, you can also bet to protect your hand.
3. What Is My Range?
What are all of the hands that you would play up until this point in the hand the same way? Because those are all the hands that you could have here that the opponent needs to worry about, as well as you. Because if you are getting advanced for a second, there’s such a thing as “minimum defense frequency.” You will find many spots where you want to make sure that you are not exploitable by folding to a bet 90% of the time or folding to a bet 70% of the time.
You want to make sure that you are not betting on the river 90% of the time in a given spot. There are some rare exceptions where these things are okay, but for the most part, you want to be indifferent to bluffing, calling, and bluffing. Knowing your range can not only help you make sure you’re not exploitable, but a lot of people find comfort in playing a set of hands and not being exploited.
4. What Is My Opponent’s Range?
Hand reading is extremely important, so knowing your opponent’s hand range can significantly improve your play. There is a lot of content available regarding what type of hands your opponent may play from certain positions, which includes Under the Gun, Button, and many other positions. You can also study your opponent’s range by seeing how your opponent plays with his hands.
5. What Is The Board Texture?
What is the board texture? Does it favoor my opponent or mine? You have to think about how these ranges interact on this board. For example, – You are short-stacked and in pre-flop, you three-bet the flop came out Q-10-4. You may have an overpair like Ace, Queen, King, or maybe sets like tens, queens, and more Broadway straight draw.
In this spot, you want to have a high betting frequency, and also in that spot, if your opponent checks-raise, you have a marginal hand. You don’t need to worry about being run over because your range can support you very well on this board.
This is Phil Galfond’s 5th question he asks himself every poker hand. Galfond also shared some bonus tips on his YouTube Video. Check out his video for more information and bonus tips.
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