Marginal made hands are some of the most difficult ones to play in no-limit Texas hold'em.
Why is that?
Because marginal made hands are usually good if a little bit of money goes into the pot, but rarely good if all the money goes in. The problem is you have to figure out if your decently strong made hand should be classified as a premium made hand. If so, are you happy to play for all the money?
Let me walk you through my decision-making in this spot.
Hands like top pair with a bad kicker or middle pair often fall into the marginal made hand category; even a hand such as pocket jacks, when the flop comes queen-nine-seven. The pocket jacks on this flop is a hand that's probably good if a little bit of money goes into the pot. If your opponent checks, check behind on the flop. Then your opponent bets the turn, and you call. If they bet again on the river, you, once again, call.
That's a pretty good spot for you because you will have induced a lot of bluffs from the villain.
But imagine if, instead, you bet the flop, bet the turn, and bet the river. They probably have to have a better hand to call you, right?
Nasty spots happen
Your marginal made hands really want to check on at least one betting round in general against most opponents.
If you bet and get raised, it's a nasty spot. It’s at that point you have to figure out, “Is my opponent raising me on the flop, turn, or river too often as a bluff?”
Some people will bluff too often in that way, but for the most part, most players will simply not bluff-raise you anywhere near often enough. And marginal made hands aren't all that good to call raises with, because you're usually drawing relatively thin when you are behind a better made hand.
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Jonathan Little reveals how to avoid nasty spots with your marginal made hands.
Omar Sader
Sometimes you fold
Let’s say you do have pocket jacks on the queen-nine-seven board against someone you think is pretty straightforward and is only going to check-raise very good made hands and draws.
If you bet and get raised on the flop, I would suggest that you just fold.
That said, if you expect to get raised a decent amount of time, simply don't bet the flop. Let it go, check, check. Then proceed to the turn, knowing you’ve induced some bluffs. You can be somewhat happy to call down because your opponent will think you have a lot of hands like ace high or low pairs.
What a lot of people do wrong with their marginal made hands is they let it go, check, check on the flop. They call a turn bet, but then they fold on the river to a bet every single time. If you play the hand that way, you're going to get absolutely run over.
My advice is to be a little bit sticky with your marginal made hands. Try to get to showdown.
But at the same time, don't raise to find out where you stand, and don't try to bloat the pot unnecessarily.
Jonathan Little is a former WPT Player of the Year and owner of PokerCoaching.com. You can follow Jonathan on X/Twitter and Instagram.
