Great Poker Move: The Weak Lead

• 09.06.2025 8:30 am
• headhunter
• 0 Comments

If that loose aggressive player has been driving you nuts all day at your table, there is a great way of getting back at him. Use a seldom talked about, but effective tactic – the weak lead poker move.

The weak lead is a form of bluffing, but not by having the worse hand. Many times you flop the joint and instead of checking to let the other player catch up, you bet a small percentage of the pot to look weak. The loose aggressive player will see the small bet and recognize it as a weakness and come over the top of your bet with a big raise. He's thinking his huge raise here is going to push you off the hand only to learn that you flopped a straight against his one pair or even nothing.

Here's an example:

You are playing $5-$10 NL. You have pocket Jacks, raise pre-flop to $35 and the loose aggressive player calls. There is $70 in the pot. The flop comes J-8-2. You bet $30, making it look like a continuation bet and possibly missing everything with A-K. The loose aggressive player insta-raises to $100 on the weak bet. That's exactly what you wanted.

Besides loose aggressive players, this can work well against amateurs when playing against professionals. Pros tend to get very cocky against amateur players and don't usually give them enough credit.

Using the weak lead is enticing the other player to put his money into the pot. Aggressive players just see those chips and can't help themselves. Other than using the weak lead as way to let loose aggressive players hang themselves, you can use it as a way to give odds to people holding draws when they are drawing to little or no cards.

The small bet may get a few callers and give odds and get you more money on your monster hand. Many players also have a hard time of putting someone on a monster hand on the flop if they just lead right out. The favorite move of amateurs is to check-raise in these situations and only coming away with the money made on the flop. The weak lead allows you to make money until the end of the hand.