Floating

Wonka posted recently asking some questions about floating. First off, if you want a floating primer, start with Foucault's 2p2 article from a few months ago. But I thought I would elaborate with a few generalized situations where floating is good or bad, in all situations assume that you have called a pre-flop raise in position:

vs. a tight-passive opponent - I'm talking a pre-flop raise percentage of 5-6 or less and vpip below 15. I like floating low card boards with gutshots or crappy one pair, but not as much just overcards. The reason is that the overcards you're floating are probably of the KQ or AJ variety, maybe AQ (if you're like me, you're more likely to 3-b preflop with AK and maybe AQ), and floating the flop here has all the same problems as calling preflop: you don't know if you're ahead if you do hit your hand. Furthermore, players like these have a tendency to just get passive and pot control whenever they're called on the frop and they don't have the absolute nuts. So you'll run into situations where frop is 863r, you call a c-bet in position with AJ, turn 2, he checks, you bet, river 3 or some other random card, it checks down, and he shows TT to win. Or the river is a J, you try to value bet and he calls you down with QQ. I'd much rather float T9 or 67s in that situation, where I can still take a stab, and I have some possibility of hitting a hand that beats an overpair and getting much more value. 

Floating A- or K-high boards is much more profitable vs. these players, especially when you've got a gutshot or at least some backdoor equity. The reason is that you're much more likely to get a fold from their turn checking range. In the first example on the low card board, the nits are check/folding AK or AQ to you on the turn, but check/calling with overpairs, because they are afraid of sets or straights. On the A- or K-high board, usually they will keep betting TPTK to try and get value from top pair worse kicker, and sets are less likely, since there's at least one high card on the frop that you wouldn't make a set with, and they assume that you would raise a  set on the frop since they "obviously" have AK. However they will still check/fold JJ/TT/missed AQ if frop is K-high, which even the nittiest players raise with preflop and c-bet on A- and K-high dry boards. 

Vs. aggressive opponents: Here I'm talking about opponents with a PFR%>10. Floating A-high on the raggy board is much more profitable here, because you'll have to best hand a higher % of the time, and you'll be able to get more value out of a turned or rivered pair, as your opponent will continue to barrel when you improve, since he thinks he can rep the A as well. The problem is you will often face second and third barrels when you don't improve, and will sometimes have to fold the best hand. So floating will work best against players who slow down when called on the flop. Most of these players will continue to value bet even weaker overpairs on raggy boards, so a turn check from them represents a much weaker range than the nit's turn check. Your bet therefore gets more folds (assuming you don't get check-raised by air).

Vs. most aggro players, I think froating a frop with one or two high cards is less profitable, because they will see your flop call as weakness, insist that they can rep top pair and push you off what they think is middle pair, and force you to fold. You won't hit gutshots often enough to counter that, so you'll have to start either shoving turns, or floating again on the turn and trying to steal on the river (Example: K86r board, you call with T9. Turn 6. You'll be facing a barrel from aggressive players very often, as your pre-frop calling range contains almost nothing that can beat AK, and they think you will fold you A8/99 by the river). 

If you've got thoughts, too, feel free to add them in the comments section. A couple of announcements:

1) Loyal spritpot readers know that I enjoy boxing. The next two weekends feature some nice matchups. This Saturday on Showtime, we've got Jermain Taylor vs. Carl Froch. I've always liked JT - his first fight vs. Kelly Pavlik was the first fight I ever saw live, and although he lost, he was very impressive early on in the fight, and it was such an exciting event that I haven't missed any of either guy's subsequent fights. I hope he lays a massive beatdown on Froch. Then next weekend, we've got Pacquiao/Hatton in Vegas, the biggest fight of the summer. Some buddies and I are going to Vegas just to soak up the atmosphere and put some money down on the fight (on PacMan, obviously). Tickets are too tough to get and expensive, so we'll just watch in a sportsbook or on CCTV somewhere. Anyway, both fight cards should be worth watching, so I encourage everyone to tune in.

2) I've done a little bit of coaching in the past for friends/acquaintances, so I figure I might as well open it up to spritpot readers. I charge $50/hr for coaching, which might seem like a lot, but I think is quite reasonable given the amount of additional money you make when your win rate increases, and the amount that other coaches charge. My blog posts should give you a sense of what my general approach is and whether you'd benefit from coaching by me. Coaching can entail reviewing your hands, reviewing specific situations or strategies (like if you asked me about floating, you'd get something like this post - so consider this one a freebie!), how to use stats, me looking at your stats to try and find leaks, or anything else you suggest. So if you're interested in setting something up, just email spritpot at gmail dot com. If you've got an "LOL .25/.50 donk trying to give lessons," please just keep it to yourself. I'm not trying to claim I'm the best player in the world, but I have been a consistent winner at every game I've played in, which extends up to 1/2, and I think I can help others at those stakes become consistent winners themselves, or improve their win rates if they're already winning some.

-BRUECHIPS