The Gman’s Treatise on The Click-Back and Why it Shouldn’t be Used

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The Click-Back and Why it Shouldn't be Used

by: LPG

I have been involved in a rolling discussion in the forums with a couple of players and it has centered around the use of a click back with a marginal hand. I thought that what would make sense here is to go through and lay out what I and some of the players that I routinely play with have done to decode and combat this maneuver based on what we understand about this move. I think it is fairly enlighting when you start to think about the click-back and in the end the conclusion is that the move is actually highly exploitable. To start lets think a little bit on when this move is used and what we are trying to accomplish in general in the situation and look at it against more traditional betting mechanisms. From there we can explore what each side does in the situation against different opponents and then we can conclude with what is the recommended course of action.

When we are looking to 3bet an opponent (be it pre-flop, post-flop, turn or river) what are we trying to accomplish? If you break it down we are looking to really do one of two things:

1. Take down the pot right there as we believe the villain is betting with a weak hand to take a stab at the pot and will fold to resistance

2. Increase the size of the pot (bet for value) because we have a very strong hand and are convinced the villain has a second best type hand that he is not willing to fold.

These are our primary reasons for the 3bet. There aren't any other functions of this bet as outcomes like inducing a 4bet shove either serves to prove that assumption 1 is incorrect, or is providing maximum value in the case of assumption 2. Okay, now that our motivations are understood lets get into the situation a little and look at the mechanics of the 3bet and why the sizing is critical to accomplishing what we want and how it makes a big difference as far as perceived ranges of both our hand and the villains. When you are involved in a 3bet pot one of the first things to recognize is that the size of your bet is going to make a very large difference to how a reasonable opponent is going to evaluate equity and implied odds and then decide on how they proceed. What do I mean by this? Lets look at an example and explore a little.

Villain (MP): AdAs

Hero (BTN): 78hh

Pre-flop: Villain opens to 3bb and Hero calls on the BTN, blinds fold and we go to the flop

Flop (6bb): 5d 6s Kh: Villain checks, Hero bets 3bb, Villain raises to 6bb, Hero?

Okay in the situation outline above here the Villain has clicked back out bet here with our draw, what do we do? The click back here has actually told us a lot of very useful information and puts us in a great situation to dictate a lot of the hand here and string along the villain allowing them to effectively hand themselves. How you may ask? First off there is 15bb in the pot and we need to put in 3bb more to make the call, giving us 5-1 odds which is exactly the odds (4.75:1 is the actual I believe, but lets round cause its easier) we need to draw out on him. Now that is the exact pot odds, the situation is actually substantially better for us because the villain is indicating they are willing to commit some level of chips as they like their hand to some degree or another so it isn't inconceivable that we could take a lot of their stack. Now that the villain has clicked back and we are in position we can take a more creative line on the turn which is also going to let us get to the river card cheaply (in a lot of situations free). If the villain clicks back here and we correctly call and the turn peels, what does the villain do. Our perceived range should actually be very wide and weak if you think about it because the odds laid means we should call with virtually our entire range, but in practice our range looks very strong because we flatted a 3bet. When the turn comes we are in a great position to allow it to check through as the villain should be concerned that we have a strong hand and aren't going to go away and in a lot of cases are going to call a bet (they should bet for value, but a lot of players will not out of fear of what we hold). Now lets look at a more traditional betting pattern and see what happens to the situation.

Villain (MP): AdAs

Hero (BTN): 78hh

Pre-flop: Villain opens to 3bb and Hero calls on the BTN, blinds fold and we go to the flop

Flop (6bb): 5d 6s Kh: Villain checks, Hero bets 3bb, Villain raises to 9bb, Hero?

Okay, in this situation the villain has put in a standard 3x reraise (which cleverly is a pot sized bet) and how we have to think. We need to put 6bb more into 18bb, which is 3:1 on the pot, the incorrect odds to take our flush. As the Hero here, we are looking at a bigger 3bet now which serves 2 purposes, we are making a mistake explicitly to make the call here from a pure pot odds situation, but our implied odds are very good. The second consideration will lead to a call a lot of the time, but we are only going to get the turn card the overwhelming majority of the time because we are going to get bet and bet hard on the turn by what looks like a very strong hand. So we call and what happens on the turn, there is 24bb in the pot and you are going to see a bet of 12-15bb, meaning you are going to have to invest 24-27bb on a draw here with potentially no return and no river card.

In the example above we put a situation out where the villain has a very strong hand so there is no way there will be a fold if we come over the top, this is just a discussion of the basic pot odds and what problems it lends. If the villain has a more marginal hand and is doing this as a stab this becomes a lot more like the first situation as the turn becomes a more passive street and essentially the 3bettor is in reality giving up their initiative without really knowing or understanding it. This is a limited example presented here, but you can look at it for any number of hands and I think the same trends start to appear. The conclusions we can draw about the ideas presented are outlined here:

1. Clicking-Back gives our opponents very good pot odds to draw out on us.

2. The victim of the click-backs range in reality stays very wide because of the odds laid, rather than becoming very narrow as in the case of the traditional pot sized 3bet.

3. The use of the click-back hampers the ability to use the threat of the hammer of future bets because the aggression level and pot size do not change significantly and in most cases cause a shift in the initiative to the opposing player.

Overall in conclusion the click back is a very dangerous action for those who use it. You are presenting an opponent with an opportunity to play perfectly and to steal the initiative from you utilizing perceived ranges and strength and putting us in a lot more difficult spots for future cards as it becomes very difficult to determine what helps the villian and what does not. The traditional pot sized 3bet brings a very effective tool for giving the wrong odds for drawing in combination with the prospect of future bets causing our opponent to only continue with very strong hands and fold drawing hands and low equity hands.