There are plenty of tough situations that arise in online poker, but one of the toughest definitely involves dealing with players who over-bet weak Hold’em flops. For example, let’s say the flop comes out 5s-8h-7s while you’re holding Ah-8d, and a player bets twice the pot.
Obviously this isn’t a situation where you want to snap call or re-raise right away because, while you have top pair, there are so many different ways in which you could be beaten. However, you could also be dealing with somebody who has 7′s, 5′s, a straight draw or a flush draw. Sometimes your opponent(s) could even be somebody who is totally bluffing, and doesn’t even have a draw.
In any case, a lot of how you deal with over-bettors on bad flops depends on the player’s tendencies beforehand. For example, a lot of micro stakes fish like to over-bet with middle pair on a bad flop, or they’ll even bluff with nothing as we just discussed. However, you also have to deal with somebody who’s ahead of your 8′s at this point with pocket 9′s or better, and they want to protect this hand by giving drawing hands bad odds to call.
One more type of situation you have to think about is the good player who hit a set on the flop, and so they make a big continuation bet to seem as if they’re someone who missed the flop and are c-bet bluffing.
As you can see, it’s very difficult to generalize players who over-bet the flop, and you need to have some good information on them before deciding what to do. Assuming you don’t have enough info on the player(s) you’re dealing with, it could be a smart decision to lay down your cards, and wait for another hand to bet some major chips.
