5 ways to increase your winnings at showdown

The cornerstone of profit for virtually any successful poker player lies in winnings at showdown, depicted as the gray line on the graph in Hand2Note 4.

In this article, we will explore five effective strategies to help you increase this metric and enhance your game.

Table of Contents:

- Induce bluffs from aggressive opponents

- Bet yourself against passive opponents

- Avoid bluffing against calling stations

- Increase the size of your value bets

- Trust strong lines from nits

Induce bluffs from aggressive opponents

To win a large pot, it’s important to start building it on early streets. When you find yourself on the flop with a very strong hand, the key moment becomes choosing the optimal line of play. First, assess your opponent’s playing style and tendencies.

If your opponent tends to show aggression frequently, it’s best to adopt a passive line, representing a weak hand to set a trap and give them the opportunity to apply pressure on you.

Here’s how it works in practice:

All the opponents before us folded preflop, and we made a standard open-raise from the Small Blind with QJ suited.

The player on the Big Blind called, and on the flop JJ2 rainbow, we hit trips. With such a strong hand, our task is to extract maximum value from our opponent, playing out of position.

Let’s examine their statistics to understand how to achieve this:

At first glance, the player on the Big Blind appears to be a passive fish with VPIP and PFR stats of 57% and 4.7%, respectively. It seems that our best play would be to make a continuation bet hoping to get called by weaker hands.

However, don’t judge a book by its cover. Let’s open the pop-up and analyze their post-flop tendencies:

In the pop-up, we can discover that our opponent has a high aggression frequency on every street. Additionally, up to this point, they attacked the missed continuation bet on the flop in 89% of cases, or 8 out of 9 times.

Based on such statistics, the best decision for us would be to check with the intention of calling our opponent’s bet, inducing them to bluff.

Bet yourself against passive opponents

Against less aggressive players with a strong hand on the flop, you don’t need to invent anything: just bet and build the pot. Passive opponents are often willing to call bets with mediocre hands, but they typically won’t show aggression against your check.

Let’s consider an example:

As in the previous situation, we opened with a raise from the Small Blind, and the player in the Big Blind called. On the flop A83, two-toned, we hit the bottom set, and our goal remains the same - to maximize profit with a strong hand. We can make a continuation bet or try a check-raise. Let’s analyze the opponent’s statistics and choose the best line of play:

The dynamic HUD in Hand2Note 4 shows that, when in position, the player in the Big Blind folds to a continuation bet on the flop in only 27% of cases.

At the same time, facing a check, they bet with a frequency of 47% - not often, but not too frequently either. I expect that on the flop, our opponent won’t fold any pair or draw to our bet, however, with most of these hands, they won’t attack our check either. Therefore, planning a check-raise, we risk losing the street of value, and against such a player, it would be preferable to bet ourselves.

Avoid bluffing against calling stations

In poker, money saved is just as important as money won. To keep the growth of your gray line on the graph stable, you should completely refrain from bluffing against 'calling stations'.

Such players are fearless, and they will call your bet on the river with any pair without much hesitation.

Evaluate how often your opponent reaches showdown. In Hand2Note 4, this is reflected by the WTSD (Went to Showdown) stat, which you should include in your main HUD. The higher this indicator, the less likely your opponent will fold to your bluff.

Against players with a WTSD of over 40%, you should entirely refrain from big bluffs. Let’s see how stubborn such players are in multi-player reports in Hand2Note 4. Thanks to this innovative feature, you can pinpoint the tendencies of your opponents with similar playing styles and develop exploitative strategies against them.

Using the formula, I selected all players in my database whose WTSD stat is over 40%.

Applying filters, I selected the situations where they called an open-raise preflop and then also called continuation bets on the flop and turn:

As we can see, when faced with a third barrel on the river, they fold only 21% of the time. This is too infrequent, and in the long run, bluffing against such opponents will be unprofitable.

Increase the size of your value bets

The easiest way to increase your winnings at showdown is to increase the size of your value bets with strong hands. This works particularly well against non-folding players, which we discussed in the previous section. Opponents who are willing to call you down with any pair usually care little about the size of your bet.

Let’s return to the report we received on the ‘calling stations’ and confirm this:

In the smart reports of Hand2Note 4, all the useful statistics are always at your fingertips. When you click on the Call 3rd Barrel stat, a new report appears on the right, displaying the scenario when these players called the third barrel on the river:

In the “Bet Sizes” tab, we can observe that they call bets of various sizes with roughly the same frequency, ranging from 63% to 70%.

Considering this information, when you have a strong hand on the river, you’d better make larger bets to maximize your winnings against players who are determined to go to showdown at any cost.

Trust strong lines from nits

A crucial skill that will help you save a lot of money in the long run is the ability to fold your hand to aggression from a nit.

Such players are very selective about the hands they choose to play. Their range is very narrow and strong even from preflop, and with each bet on subsequent streets, there are fewer weak hands left in it.

If such an opponent demonstrates a very strong line, you can confidently fold all hands weaker than two pair on the river. To verify this, let’s analyze their third barrel range.

For the report, I selected all players with a VPIP of less than 15% and a PFR of less than 10%. To ensure a reliable sample, I also stipulated that each of these players in my database must have played at least 1000 hands. Next, I filtered the situations where they opened with a raise preflop and then made continuation bets on the flop and turn:

With the convenient reports navigation in Hand2Note 4, you can quickly move between related spots. By clicking on the 3rd Barrel stat, I accessed the scenario where these players fired the third barrel on the river:

In the report that appeared on the right, we see that in situations where their third barrel was called, they won at showdown 76% of the time. This is an impressive number, indicating a very strong range. Let’s examine it more closely in the “Hand Strength” tab:

According to the report, weak hands make up only 7.3% of their range, while hands from top pair with top kicker and stronger constitute a whopping 78%. Don’t try to bluff-catch nits. When facing a third barrel from such an opponent, you should easily fold medium-strength hands.

To increase your winnings at showdown, it’s important to adjust your strategy to each specific player you encounter in a hand.

With the analysis of statistics in Hand2Note 4, you can easily identify the style and tendencies of different players, allowing you to maximize profits with strong hands and stop paying off strong combinations of your opponents.