This hand from a $1,500 buy-in live tournament illustrates a common leak of many poker players. When they face the slightest bit of resistance, they fold all but their best hands, resulting in their loose, aggressive opponents running them over.

With blinds at 500-1,000 with 50,000 effective stacks, the cutoff raised to 2,400 and our Hero on the button three-bet to 6,000 with J J. Only the cutoff called.

The flop came K 10 9. The cutoff checked and Hero bet 7,000 into the 14,500 pot.

Hero’s flop continuation bet is a reasonable option, given he has a gutshot straight draw to go along with his pair, but checking behind is also viable due to having a clear marginal made hand.

Notice that if Hero bets on the flop and either on the turn or river, he will have a difficult time getting a significant amount of money in the pot when he has the best hand because most players typically only call two or three bets with strong made hands and premium draws. This means that Hero’s J-J is good for one or possibly two streets of value. It is almost never good when three post-flop bets go into the pot.

While checking behind on the flop may appear quite weak, when he checks behind, Hero should not plan to fold too often to turn and river bets because his hand would then be somewhat underrepresented.

The cutoff called. The turn was the 3 and both players checked.

Once Hero bets the flop, he has to check behind on the turn against all but the most straightforward opponents. If Hero continues betting, he will have a difficult time getting called by many worse hands, meaning that when he gets called he is either behind a better made hand or he is against a strong draw. When that is the case, Hero should check behind and look to see a cheap showdown.

The river was the 5. The cutoff bet 4,500. Hero decided the opponent must be value betting to use this size and decided to fold.

Folding is a clear mistake. While Hero loses to all hands worthy of a large value bet, when the turn checks through, many players will value bet with worse made hands, such as A-10 and Q-10, especially when using a small bet size.

Also, all of the flush and straight draws on the flop missed. While there should not be a ton of those in the opponent’s range due to Hero’s preflop three-bet, there are enough of them to justify calling.

Notice that Hero only needs to win 12% of the time to break even in this situation, 4,500/(4,500 + 4,500 + 28,500) = 12%. Even if Hero loses when he calls 85% of the time, he should still call. There are enough combinations of value bet worse made hands and busted draws in the cutoff’s range to justify calling.

Do not fall into the habit of continuation betting the flop with a wide range, checking behind on the turn, and then folding to any river bet. If you take this line on a regular basis, your opponents will quickly figure out your weak tendency and will run you over, winning the pot any time you do not have a premium made hand.

This hand illustrates just one common leak of many poker players. If you want to quickly plug the 25 most common mistakes I see my students make, I put together a course called The 25 Biggest Leaks and How to Fix Them. This course is completely free inside Card Player Poker School!

I created a simple flowchart that has five questions you should always ask yourself when deciding if you should call on the river with a bluff catcher. I also recorded a short video that shows you how to use this flowchart by going through two hand examples!

If you want more resources to help you improve your game, I put together a course called Master the Fundamentals. This course covers the basics, preflop, post-flop, multiway, turn and river strategy, and much more. This course is completely free inside Card Player Poker School!

When you join the Card Player Poker School (it’s free to join), you’ll also get:

• Free Downloadable Preflop Charts
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• Free Course: The 25 Biggest Leaks And How To Fix Them
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Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT winner and the 2024 PokerGO Cup champion with nearly $9 million million in live tournament earnings, best-selling author of 15 educational poker books, and 2019 GPI Poker Personality of the Year. If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush the games, check out his training site at PokerCoaching.com/cardplayer.