How to “Float” in Texas Holdem

Watch this example of Phil Ivy (The world’s best poker player) floating the flop and the turn, to take down the pot on the river with the worst hand!

The “Float” is a very powerful poker strategy, that allows you to take advantage of someone who often continuation bets after they lead with a pre-flop raise.  Because they raised pre-flop, they will want to keep the initiative by betting on the flop, regardless of whether they connected.  The reality is that the flop will only improve on your pre-flop hand 1/3rd of the time.  That means without having any knowledge of our opponent’s hand, we know that roughly 67% of the time he missed the flop.  So we “Float” is continuation bet in hopes that he will check on a later street, and we can take down the pot.

So let’s say you’re sitting on the button with A9 off-suit, and someone in front of you raises pre-flop. You assume that because they raised, they have a playable hand, but you’re feeling lucky and you want to play your A9 off-suit. So you decided to call, and everyone else has folded. The flop comes, and without even looking at it, you know that the raiser will have missed the flop 2/3rds of the time. The person who raised, also knows that, so it’s in his favor to make a continuation bet, and hope that you missed the flop and will fold. But you’re smarter than that. You decided to call his continuation bet, so you can see what he does on the turn. If he really missed, it will be very difficult for him to bet twice with nothing, so he will just check. And that is when you take advantage of your position and hammer him with a convincing sized bet. More often than not, he’ll fold and you will have taken the pot down.

This works because poker is not about what hand you have, it more about what hand your opponet doesnt have. You see, you can bet with any two cards, but it much harder to call with nothing.