Texas Hold Em: Initiative
Texas Hold Em: Initiative
Initiative is a term you will hear sometimes when studying poker. In this article I will take a look at what exactly it is in terms of poker and how it should be used to help your win rate.
Firstly let?s take a look at what initiative means in context to poker.
Initiative is where a player has shown aggression in a round of betting, therefore taking the lead and representing the strongest hand. It would be said that they have the initiative in the hand, and a lot of the time the player who takes the lead will continue that into later rounds.
To take the initiative is simple. You need to make the last aggressive move in the last betting round. Below is an example of taking the initiative pre flop.
Player A (mid position) limp calls Player B (you, button) raises Player C (bb) calls
The easiest and most common place to take the lead in a pot is pre flop. If you raise and a caller sees the flop with you then have the initiative in the pot. Of course the initiative can be taken on further betting rounds, again by betting and raising instead of checking and calling.
The reason we want to take initiative in the hand is to gain an advantage over our opponent. Below are the advantages it gives us.
Our hand is seen to be very strong. A raise pre flop, followed by a c bet will look extremely strong a lot of the time.
By taking the lead in the pot, other players will want to see want we do on further streets and will check to the pre flop raiser a lot of the time, allowing you to continue the strength shown on previous rounds of betting.
We will be taking control of the pot, making other make tough decisions. This will cause them to make bad plays and therefore when opponents are making mistakes we will be winning more money.