A look at the “gap concept” in Texas Hold’em

Bob
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Posted on: April 27, 2020 5:14 pm EDT

Understand the theory proposed by David Sklansky can help players determine their bets

This is an important concept in poker, which was first seen by the professional poker author David Sklansky. He talks about the “gap concept,” referring to how a player must have a better hand to call a raise than to propose a bet. Meaning that, in two different situations, the same hand will have two values, depending on the position in that specific hand. Most likely, players sitting in early positions will raise only if they feel they have a better hand than the rest of the players at the table.

It is not the same to raise from late positions; it could just mean the player is insinuating to have a better hand than any other player, although it is still more relevant to pay attention to a raise done at early positions. When facing a raise like this, it is important to consider playing much tighter, meaning that your hand should be even stronger than the hand you will use to initiate the bet if that was the case. This action ends up compensating for two possibilities: counteract the way in which your opponent is revealing to have a good hand to bet the field and the lack of activity you had when calling.

At this point, one other aspect to look for is to decide or not to raise. It might not end up well and an opponent can become the dominant one during that hand. It is very risky to play a hand like this hand and that’s exactly the reason why the gap concept exists – to guarantee that the raise is done with a really good hand and avoid chances of being dominated.