Buying Information with Probe Bets

When playing online poker, it is often very difficult to determine the relative strength of your hand against that of your opponents. In brick and mortar casinos, players often develop signs (“tells”) that their hands are good or bad and sometimes, online, the speed of a player’s betting action can reveal that he has a good hand and cannot wait to get his chips on the table. Most of the time however, your betting actions are determined by your position, what knowledge you have acquired about your opponents and finally the strength of your hand.

One way in which to increase your knowledge when you are holding a good (or even marginal) hand is to make a small bet from out of position – an action known as a probe bet. This bet is much smaller than you may normally make, but you will be able to tell by the betting reactions of the other players where your hand stands in the table hierarchy. It is a similar strategy to a semi-bluff, but your goal is to see if there is any opposition to your betting action, rather than to take down the pot (although one of the advantages of the probe bet is that sometimes your bet goes uncontested).

If your probe bet is raised further around the table, you can gauge by the strength of the raise (and what you know about the player making it) whether you should remain in the hand or fold your cards. If the probe bet is only called, what you have learnt is that there is a little strength elsewhere on the table but not sufficient to warrant a raise. This gives you the information that you can bluff after the turn or – depending on your position at the table – enable you to get a free card in the next round of betting.

The probe bet can also act as a blocking strategy if you have a particularly aggressive player behind you in the betting. Aggressive players are prone to think twice about the size of their bets when there is already money on the table so, should you not ultimately win the hand, your probe bet will have saved you money as well as helping you to gather information. Most certainly it will have helped in the decision making process.

As valuable as probe betting is, it is a strategy that should not be used too frequently. Once other players grasp what you are doing, you will find more opposition to your small bets and, if you use this betting action when your hand is not particular strong, it will develop into a leak. However, used in the right circumstances, probe betting can be a useful addition to your poker arsenal and provide you with the additional information you need to make more profitable betting decisions.

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