Isolating plays can be incredibly effective. Not only are you taking the initiative in a hand but you’re doing so to give yourself the very best chance of winning in an inflated pot. Always stay aware that whenever you make an isolating play you’re subjecting yourself to higher variance and bigger swings, which can go both ways. However, as long as you keep a tight read on the game the upswings should far outweigh the down.
An isolation play is made by raising, anything from a min-raise to an all-in, to narrow the number of opponents in a hand. There may be have been a single raise, a raise and a number of calls (this kind of isolation play would be called a squeeze) or just a single limp. If you pick your spots by judging situations and, more importantly, weighing up your opponents, you’ll give yourself some fantastic chances to scoop a lot of juicy pots.
Why isolate?
When you’re raising to isolate you’re invariably doing it for one of two reasons. Either you’re raising because your hand plays better heads-up (most pairs, for instance) or you’re raising because you want to isolate a specific player, against whom you think you’ve got an edge for one reason or another. You will also normally end up with position, unless someone comes over the top, and that gives you a huge edge. Yes, you may end up having to give up when you get check-raised by a relatively straightforward opponent on the flop, but the number of smaller pots you scoop will more than make up for it.
For instance, if you have notes on an ABC player that you know only raises premium hands from early position and always limps small pairs in an attempt to hit a set, then you have a perfect target to isolate. After all, they’re going to miss their trips 88% of the time if they limp-call looking to set-mine. A raise here, maybe 4-5 big blinds, will see them pass many of their random K-T or 6-8 limps and only flat-call their small pairs. A continuation bet on the flop will see them muck their hand in most instances and if they call you can slow down… until you turn or river a monster!
When a player is all-in
There are times in cash games, tournaments and Sit & Go’s where isolating a player who has pushed all-in is the obvious move. For instance, a short stack shoves all-in for 12BB from the cutoff and the button thinks for a short time before calling for around 20% of his stack. You’ve got Jacks in the small blind and around 40BB. This should be quite an easy decision to move all-in and isolate the action to just one other player. If we give the short stack a relatively tight shoving range of the top 10% of hands (7-7+, A-9s+, K-Ts+, Q-Ts+, A-Jo+, K-Qo) you have a 58% winning equity in the hand, which is great even if you were just getting a straight one-to-one price on the pot. Considering that you’re effectively putting in 12BB to win 25BB (the all-in, the call and the big blind) you’re getting over 2-to-1 AND you’re favourite to win against their range!
Slow-playing snakes
There is of course the chance you might run into a genuine monster or that a tricky opponent may slow-play Aces or Kings hoping that someone comes along for the ride. It does happen but if you fear every call for someone trapping you’ll not get far in no-limit hold’em! When there are antes in play or someone you suspect will shove even lighter than premium/near premium hands (such as any suited Ace, any suited King as well as a multitude of connected cards) you should also open your isolating range further. Yes, you will be gambling more but getting your money in with great pot odds is the name of the game when isolating players that have already shoved all-in. And if you pick up another caller? Well there’s even more to win then.
If someone has already called be sure to check whether you think you have fold equity or not, unless you want actually want action from them. Remember that if you shove over a player who has already called there’ll be quite a lot in the pot and they may be getting great odds on their call.
On the flop and turn
Isolating on the flop or turn draws on many of the same principles as when you isolate preflop, but has a few additional factors to consider. Most importantly, you have the benefit of having more information about your opponents’ hands, while at the same time the risks are greater because you’re playing for a bigger pot. While preflop you may raise to isolate a player and get to the flop heads-up, when you raise on the flop or turn it’s usually because you have a made hand and want to root out players drawing to a hand better than yours. Obviously isolating in a postflop situation only occurs when more than two players have seen the flop!
Let’s imagine a tight player raised preflop and was called by another tight player and you called on the button with 7d-9d. The flop comes Js-8h-6h, the open raiser bets the pot, the first caller quickly calls and you call with your open-ended straight draw. It’s a straightforward call at this point as both players are relatively tight and it’s unlikely that both are betting or calling with nothing. The turn gives you a glorious 5s for the nut straight. The raiser checks this time but the other bets out half the pot. This is where you should be raising to isolate.
Raising it when you’re favourite
The initial raiser has either given up on the hand or may even have turned some kind of flush draw (but it’s most likely he has given up or is trying to get to the river as cheaply as possible). It now looks like the player who called is trying to protect his hand – hopefully a set – so it comes to you to decide whether you shove here or not. Your (semi) disguised straight is the nuts at the moment so why wouldn’t you want to get the money in the middle? Because you might not get called? If that’s your concern you’re not thinking about the river card, because if either flush arrives it’s a major scare card for both you and your opponent and you’re unlikely to get someone with two-pair (and possibly even a set) to call much, if anything, on the river.
This play can also be effective in spots where you haven’t got a lock on the hand and have something like two-pair yourself.