If you have a pocket pair, and you aren’t sure if you have the best poker hand, you’ll often be in a position to try to gather information through a flop bet. Say the preflop betting has led you to the conclusion that your holdem opponent likely has a pocket pair with you, but you aren’t sure whose pair is higher. If an unthreatening flop like

comes, you can use an information bet against some holdem opponents to clarify the situation. If you make a substantial bet, some straightforward players will tend to raise with a big pair (say pocket aces or kings), but just call with a smaller pair. Since you have only two outs when you are beaten, you can use their response to help you play when you aren’t sure about your pair.

Conclusion

As with any play, betting slightly more for information is not without its perils. Against perceptive, skilled hand-readers, an information raise might invite a big bluff. Or, more generally, they might pick off bets slightly larger than average as information-gathering attempts and feed you intentional misinformation.

Many Texas Holdem players make a very obvious information-gathering attempt. If they find themselves under the gun with a good, but potentially vulnerable, poker hand such as pocket jacks, they often make a big raise. In a $2-$5 Texas Holdem game, they might make it $40 to go under the gun. This uncharacteristically large raise is designed to scare out the riff-raff, while limiting reraises only to hands bigger than jacks. The play works poorly in the best of circumstances. It puts too much money at risk, out of position, with a hand that isn’t strong enough, and it encourages everyone to play more correctly.

Against a player who can read it for what it is, this play is truly horrendous. The big jacks raiser is out of position and has told everyone else almost exactly what hand he has (usually jacks, possibly tens or maybe ace-king). That’s a terrible situation to be in when you’re playing deep stack no limit Texas Holdem.

So use the information-gathering play wisely. Try it most against straightforward and unaware players (players who will almost never just call your information bet or raise with a great poker hand or raise it with a merely good one). You can use it against better players also, but use it sparingly, and mix up your play. Make sure those bigger-than-average bets are often big hands as well. But, used correctly, the information you glean can be worth far more than what you have to pay for it.

Good luck.

Also recommended:

1. Quantifying the Value of Information
2. Imperfect Information and Implied Odds in Holdem
3. Paying for Information in Texas Holdem
4. Play Poker Information
5. Choosing Starting Hands in Pineapple Poker Hi/lo