In this post, we are going to try and breakdown some key hand examples of how we should be floating in Poker.

If we only continue when we hit the board then we are playing way too tight, so we need to work some floats into our ranges, this way we won’t be overfolding and making ourselves too easy to bluff and to read when we have a good hand.

Floating in position

So for this example, we are going to be in position against just one opponent in a single raised pot, a pretty common scenario when playing on a tight table of opponents.

We are playing $1/$2 in Bellagio

MP: Raises to $6
Hero: Calls on the Button

Flop: 8♣ 6♠ 4♥

Cut off: Bets $10

So which hands will we want to continue with on this wet board?

Well, this is a pretty dynamic board, so we won’t want to continue with any of our broadway or Ace high hands unless they hit this board. We can some times take a card off with hands like A6s or A4s if we have got to the flop with these holdings but we shouldn’t have too many A6s in this situation.

So our range that hits this board looks like this:We will obviously continue with our sets, overpairs and good top pairs that’s a given.

We will want to include some more marginal holdings in our calling range too like 55 & 77 as well as any good draws like 97s in this case and we will also want to continue with any pair and straight draw with hands like 54s, 65s, 76s, 87s.

We also want to add in some other top pair hands like 98s, T8s and J8s will all continue here and we can throw in two overcard hands that have a gutshot to the nuts and backdoor flush possibilities, so T9s will get a call on this board too.

So all of these are hands that are pretty straight forward to play, we have hit this board, but if we continue with only these holdings we will be over-folding, so let’s work in some floats so we are less bluffable on this board…

As you can see we have added some high suited hands, these will allow us to pick up equity in the shape of flush draws and some of these holdings like J9s and JTs have backdoor straight possibilities too.

Other strengths of the hands we have added is that they can improve to strong top pairs with either card connecting and they have a small amount of showdown value against bluffs and straight draws too.

Floats out of position

Too many players just play in the style that they only continue if hit the board when out of position, we need to be continuing more than this otherwise we are just burning our money.

Let’s take another look at a slightly different example:

We are playing $1/$2 in Bellagio

Button: Raises to $6
Hero: Calls on the from the Big Blind

Flop: 7♣ 7♥ 3♥

Hero: Checks
Button: Bets $12

So what type of holdings will continue with here?

We will want to have a pretty high raising frequency with our three of a kind on this board should we have a seven in our hand and we could balance this our with some bluffs that include some Ace highs like A5o etc that can’t call a bet too often but serve as a good check-raise as they will even have equity when called by draws and can make the best hand with an Ace hitting the board.

But that’s not why we are here, we are here to learn about what hands we will want to float on this board, so we aren’t going to talk about the obvious hands which we will want to continue with, because we know we are going to stay in the pot with pretty much any two pair or better on this board, but that’s not too many hands, so let’s look at which ones we can add-in.

If we look at this range of hands that can continue on this board we see a lot of our two pairs and then we have a tonne of suited Aces and most of the suited King high hands that we would look to continue with.

You may notice that hands like AQo and ATs etc are not in these ranges that’s because we would want to be 3-Betting these stong holdings pre-flop for value against the Buttons range.

Too many players will continue with pretty much any flush draw on this board, but that is continuing with just too many hands, if we call with all our flush draws we will be weighted way too heavily to that part of our range, so we will just want to continue with the best ones that have high card value and that can make good two pair hands on the Turn rather than just having to hit the draw.

A good tip for these types of boards is to check-raise bluff with hands that aren’t strong enough to call a bet like inside straight draws, this way we aren’t burning our money up when we call and miss with these hands, we don’t mind getting raised off our equity as it won’t be much at all and we could make a hand if we do get called.

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