This month we again feature one of the best 6-max and heads-up limit hold’em players in the world – and former instructor at Stoxpoker.com – Bryce “Freedom25” Paradis. Bryce has made more than $3 million online, made more than 100 instructional videos and spent years crushing the high-stakes limit games against many of today’s top pros. These days “The Bryce” lives in Edmonton, Alberta, and continues to focus on his instructional limit videos at CardRunners.com, and his private coaching. He answers readers’ questions again this month.

Q: When holding Q-Q or K-K in a limit hold’em game with a raise and a reraise in front of you, does it ever make sense to simply call hoping to conceal your hand strength?

A: Generally, no. You won’t be able to trap anyone between yourself and the three-bettor on the flop. If there are loose players behind you you’ll want to make sure that they pay as much as possible to see a flop with mediocre hands. Unlike no-limit and pot-limit games, the late street plays don’t involve much more money than the preflop plays, and so it is rarely worth giving up an edge while you have it for an uncertain gain later on.

Q: I usually play $50 no-limit and $100 no-limit hold’em online. How important is it that I mix up or ‘balance’ my play so that my opponents won’t be able to exploit me easily?

A: It’s almost certainly not important. Mixing up your play is only useful if you think it will affect the way your opponents play against you – you don’t want to be mixing it up just for the sake of it. If you find yourself thinking, ‘I never call in this spot, I should call sometimes just to be more balanced,’ remember that while it may be true that you never call in this situation, your opponent has no idea what you’re doing as an individual. He only understands that you are another player and even if he is intelligent, the best he can do is make choices based on what players like you do in general. You should only start mixing things up against intelligent, observant opponents with whom you’ve played many hands and only in situations that you encounter together quite often (your opponents will never figure out what you as an individual do with all your hands in situations that seldom come up).

Q: In a live $10-$20 limit hold’em game, an aggressive player raises from three off the button and I call in the big blind with 5-6 suited. The flop comes A-Q-6, giving me a flush draw, and he bets. When I think someone is trying to steal my blind I usually raise in spots like this as a bluff, but since he raised from middle position I’m not sure what to do since I expect his range to be pretty strong.

A: When you raise with a strong draw like this as a semi-bluff, you not only win your extra bet back the times you make your draw, but you also win the extra bets you force him to pay early on. This makes bluffs like this very cheap compared to bluffs where you have no chance to win the pot if he doesn’t fold, and the stronger your draw the cheaper it gets. While you won’t want to raise here if you think it’s hopeless, it’s probably worth raising the flop to see if he folds, and then checking the turn if he calls that raise. You’ll be spending at least one bet to call if you don’t raise, so the bluff doesn’t commit that many more chips.

Q: What is fold equity?

A: When players talk about “fold equity,” they’re referring to your chance to win the pot without a showdown. For example, if your opponent raises with J-10 and you reraise with 10-9, you will have significant fold equity if your opponent calls intending to fold any flop that does not give him a strong hand. While he would win the majority of pots if the betting stopped and the pot were checked down, you’ll win the majority of pots because he will be folding so often to your aggression.

Q: I’m playing a live $20-$40 limit hold’em ring game. I raise under the gun with Q-Q and the villain of the hand, who is a solid player and whom I think views me as a solid player, calls in the next seat. The big blind calls as well. The flop comes A-J-10 rainbow and I bet. Villain raises, the big blind calls, and I call. On the turn a jack comes. I check and villain checks saying, “Just in case.” The big blind checks as well. The river is a five, I check, villain bets, the big blind folds, and I fold. Villain then tables Q-9. I was stunned. While I thought villain’s “tell” was suspicious, I just couldn’t imagine him calling preflop with a poor hand and then raising the flop. Should I have called?

–      Pete in Calgary

A: It’s important not to be too results-oriented when you see unusual things happen at the poker table. Even if you’re a very strong player, you’ll still be surprised some of the time. If your gut says that he never plays a hand that you beat this way, you’ve got to go with your gut. That being said, your gut also told you that his table talk was suspicious. Getting 7-to-1 to call his river bet the question you need to resolve is whether you think he’s seven times more likely to play a stronger hand AND make that statement than he is to play a weaker hand AND make that statement. While you may feel it’s unlikely that he plays a weaker hand this way to begin with, if you also feel that the likelihood that he makes that statement while holding a strong hand is low, that has a really big impact on the equation, and you might want to consider a call.

Q: What’s a Nash Equilibrium or “game theory optimal” strategy?

–      Failed Math, Port Perry, Ontario

A: An equilibrium strategy is one that wins the most money possible against a perfect opponent (this does not mean an opponent who can see your cards, but one who always knows your range whenever you take an action and makes the best choice against that range). In the game “rock, paper, scissors,” the equilibrium strategy is to randomly choose between the three options, choosing each one a third of the time in the long run. Finding equilibriums in poker is much more complicated, but the concept can be useful when you’re playing lots of hands against tough opponents. For example, if your opponent bets half the pot on the river after a particular series of actions, the pot is offering him 2-1 on his bluff. If he were a perfect player, the right thing to do would be to call his bet a third of the time, since if you called more he’d exploit you by never bluffing and if you called less he’d exploit you by always bluffing. In reality, of course, our opponents are never perfect, and so the idea of playing an equilibrium strategy at the table is usually pretty academic.

Q: I’ve just moved up to playing $5-$10 short-handed limit hold’em online. I’ve noticed that some good players will sometimes check-raise on the later streets with a strong hand, but it seems that whenever I try to do this, my opponent often checks it through and I get nothing. Can this be a good line or should I forget about it altogether?

– Frustrated Around the Falls

 A: It can be a good line, especially in situations where you think your opponent is very unlikely to call a bet with a draw or high-card hand. This is because you’ll often be taking bet-check or bet-bet-check lines with many of your high-card hands, and if he almost always has a pair he should be tempted to bet if he thinks you’ll pay him off. As a cautionary note, though, it’s often not worth doing this with very strong hands that you could bet and reraise with if your opponent puts a raise in against you, as you might actually win less money by check-raising. Also, if you don’t think your opponent is likely to call the check-raise, then there’s little point in trying it.

Bryce Paradis produces instructional videos for CardRunners.com and offers private lessons to limit hold’em players. He can be reached at paradispoker@gmail.com.