Using the Stop'n Go in HUSNG

If you are facing a button raise with a hand strong enough to commit all your chips, another alternative to reraising all-in preflop is the Stop 'n Go. The best hand for doing this is usually mid pocket pairs. If you think your opponent will realize his bet has pot-committed him into calling a resteal, then you still might induce a fold if you only call his preflop raise and then bet all-in on the flop regardless of what hits.

If your opponent has missed, he might well fold rather than call a post-flop shove with a weak hand. Sounds cool doesn't it? Continue reading the rest of this article for some examples on how you should execute this play.

For example, you hold

and your aggressive opponent makes a pot-committing steal-raise to 3bb with effective stacks at 20bb. Your hand is too strong to fold, but if you call now and shove on the flop, he may fold if his hand does not improve. This betting sequence will win you a pot you would otherwise have lost when your opponent would have paired on a later street, or when the board double-pairs to counterfeit your small pair.

Example

Effective stacks: $600 Blinds: $50-$ 100

You are in the big-blind(OOP) and are dealt

Your opponent raises to $300.

What should you do?

Call and then push all-in regardless of the flop.

If you raise all-in your opponent will not fold another $300 having already put in $300.

However if you call and the flop comes something like....

And you then shove all-in.

The pot contains $600 and you are betting $300. If your oppnent holds something similar to

He might fold his high card, thinking you have a better hand. However he would never have folded this hand pre-flop.

In summary, the stop 'n go is a technique used to increase pot-winning frequency when playing with short effective stacks out of position facing a pot-committing raise. You call the raise, then shove all-in on the flop regardless of what hits.

Strategy