Strange Lines

Sometimes its better to do something a little different in order to get more money out of a particular hand. Against nonthinking players, this types of moves are always a mistake, but against someone that can at least hand read a little they can be very profitable.

If you can make your opponent do what you want him to do, lets say call or raise because he thinks you don't have much and can't call, then you can make more money doing some weird lines. Also the advantage that other people on the table can see you do this once and think you can do it later when in reality I usually go for the standard ABC bet/raise for value on every street.

Lets take this hand for example.
I raised JTs from UTG 5 handed, got two callers, and flopped a Flush Draw with two overs. Now I have position and they both checked to me. I decided that the best way to play this particular hand was to play it deceptively and check behind. Most regular will think that I will CB from UTG with a flush draw almost always . However the check is good, because if I check they can put me in something like AK/AQ and that gives me a ton of outs for my hand. I can easily make them fold their pair if an Ace or King hit the turn, I can improve to the best hand if a Jack or Ten hit, and of course my Flush.

Ok now the Flush hit on the turn and the SB bet into 2 players. He can do this with a lot of hands (Set, twopair, combodraws, bluffs) and I decided to just call. Again now they can put me in AK/AQ with one of the flush. If I raise the turn I won't get paid off by his marginal/bluffs hands. But if I call they may bet again on the river, and I can raise and get a light call or if he checks I can bet and get a call, because he will never put me in a flush and may see my raise as desperate attempt to steal the pot.
Another important part of the hand is the size of my raise, I can make it bigger and get paid out.

Here is another example. A 5way limped pot and I decided to lead with my nut flush draw and got a caller, the turn gives me almost the nuts, but I don't think I get paid out two streets. So I decided to check, usually villain will check back and bluff the river, or valuebet worst river so my plan was to check again the river and raised him big and expect to call me with any flush. Because of his stacksize, I didn't thought he would have called two bets unless he had the K high flush, but he can call a big raise on the river with a lot worst.

He ended betting small, so I couldn't put him all in.... but still my raise was big enough where I could extract some additional value from his hand. Again the betsize is important on the river, I know I can raise him big, but I can't scare him away with an allin. So I decided to left him with over $100 so that he thinks he can still play. Oops!!