Phantom Outs

Distributed By Wise Hand Poker, Oct 2007

You’re playing no-limit Texas Hold’em. The board is K♦5♦2♥, and you have A♦T♦. Your opponent bets $20 into a $40 pot, and you call. The turn is the 6♦. Your opponent checks, you bet $30 into the $80 pot with your nut flush, and your opponent folds.

You weren’t paid off, but don’t sulk too much. You just got some valuable information: your opponent seems apt to lay down hands against suspected made draws. When drawing against him, you’ll need to reduce your implied odds estimates. Drawing won’t be very profitable against him (if at all), but a little creativity will allow you to make substantial profits from him…

Represent!

If your opponent associates a third diamond falling with you having a flush and is willing to lay down his hand to a bet, does it matter if you actually have a flush? Doyle Brunson said it best: “Poker is a game of people played with cards.”

Poker is about much more than your own hole cards. It’s about what hole cards you put your opponents on, and it’s about your knowledge of what your opponents think of you. If you know that an opponent will lay down strong hands to a suspected flush whenever you bet after the third to a suit falls, then you don’t actually need to have the flush. No matter what your hole cards are, you can play the hand as if you have a flush draw…even if you don’t!

Cards that look to hit you hand (regardless of whether they actually do) are referred to as Phantom Outs (I don’t know the first person to have used this term, but I have a strong inkling that it’s my boy, John Vorhaus). Phantom out bluffs are an important part of any advanced player’s arsenal.

Wield Wisely, And Know When To Defend

After learning about advanced maneuvers such as phantom out bluffs, it’s enticing to try them in a wide situations…even those in which they won’t be profitable. The key to using phantom out bluffs profitably is to use them against opponents who are willing to fold. Those who respect aggression on the turn and the river are your primary targets.

Because phantom out bluffs can be highly lucrative, it’s important to know which of your opponents are capable of such trickery themselves. When holding hands like top-pair-top-kicker against tricky opponents capable of phantom out bluffs, adopt passive lines of play and allow your opponents to bluff themselves into oblivion.