Floating in No Limit Holdem
As poker becomes an ever increasingly aggressive game online, one needs to able to defend himself against loose-aggressive players who more often than not are bluffing with air. At least from NL100 and over, there will be a lot of pots there are won without the best hand. The float-play or floating is a defensive move used against aggressive post-flop players.
To float a bet, literally means to call a bet with a weak/sub-marginal hand, with the objective of bluffing your opponent at a later street and winning the pot. For example, we‘re on the button with 22, and our opponent raises pre-flop from the blinds. We call, and the flop comes 9-5-3, and our opponent c-bets $20. We flat his call and the turn brings a 8. Now our opponent checks, and given the fact that he has shown weakness and no scare card has come up, we lead out for $30 – enough force our Ax opponent off the board. Our opponent folds AQ and we win the pot.
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Now, think about how many flops are c-bet and played out like this. Surely the can’t always have a hand? And that’s the truth that they don’t. This is why floating c-bets is so important. If your opponent is c-betting every single flop, then at least half the time you will be ahead or you can at least make him feel like you are ahead of his range.
Conditions for Floating
We have to be careful how often with float our players bluffs as we need to make sure that our opponent isn’t betting with the nuts. Most TAG players will normally only be betting with solid hands. Remember that the last thing that we want to do is be committing chips into a pot that our opponent has bet into on 3 streets, which indicates a pretty resolute hand.
Position is a very important factor for being able to float aggressive players profitably. By floating a player’s c-bet in position we’re able to see how he acts on the turn. If he folds then we can bluff him for value with our marginal hand, and even if he calls we might be able to pick up some equity on the next card with overcards or a draw (broadway cards are traditionally good for floating with as you can usually hit top/2nd pair or hit a straight). On the other hand, if he bets the turn then we can let go of the hand.
If you’re wondering whether you can afford to float two streets, I’d say that it really depends on your opponent and your image. You can only profitably float him down the turn if you’re confident that he is capable of double-barrelling the turn.
The last thing that I want to say about floating, asides from limiting how frequently you use it, is that if you manage to pick up a little equity like a flush draw on the turn and you opponent checks to you, then you should never just check -back to see a free card. By checking, your opponent has shown clear weakness and throughout the entire pot you have represented a strong holding. By bluffing the turn after floating his c-bet, you not only have some equity for the draw but you’ve also given yourself a chance of taking down the pot immediately. Let’s say that you have a 15% shot of hitting your flush and 50% chance that he will fold to a big ¾ pot turn bet. That gives you 65% equity in the pot so of course you should be raising. If you were to check for instance, and missed the river, then you’d basically have to give up the hand and all of that super cool float-play would have been for nothing.
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