Pot Control

One of the biggest mistakes that beginners make is simply looking at their own hand, thinking that it's good, and automatically trying to bet for value on the flop, turn, and river. Consider the following situation:

You have AQ in middle position. You haven't played a hand in two orbits. You open raise to 3 time the big blind. The big blind, a conservative player, calls you. You're both deep-stacked. The flop is A73 rainbow. He checks, you bet 3/4 pot, he calls. The turn is a ten. He checks. What do you do?

If your gut reaction is "bet again," you need to learn pot control. You absolutely must check here. There are so few possible cards he could have for which betting will help you. AJ and 45s are the only ones. You're crushed by AK, AT, 77, and 33 (and chop with AQ). These are really the only likely hands for your opponent, based on the action thus far.

The idea behind pot control is recognizing when you have a hand that is good, but not strong enough to get a call on all three streets from a weaker hand very often. In these spots, checking behind on one or two streets allows you to reduce ("control") the size of the final pot. This is vital, because when you throw out too many bets with a hand like this, the last bet you make will be quite large, and will usually only be getting called/raised by hands that have you beat. In the situation above, you must check behind. You might call a river bet, depending on the river card, the bet size, and your assessment of the opponent's range and betting tendencies.

Pot control is infinitely easier in position, which is yet another reason to avoid playing out of position.