In chapter 6 of Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker, Jonathan Little explains how to approach flop play when everyone is deep-stacked (125BB+), focusing on avoiding common valuation mistakes, building repeatable default lines, and then selectively mixing strategies so opponents cannot exploit patterns. He frames the flop as “simple in theory” but highly profitable for players who recognize how quickly pot sizes can snowball in no-limit hold’em.
Mixing Standard Lines Without Becoming Predictable
Little’s baseline is to play hands of similar strength in similar ways so you are not constantly improvising, but he repeatedly stresses that you must occasionally vary (for example, not always checking back the same thin-value hands) or opponents will learn exactly what your actions mean.
Donk-Betting as a Selective Weapon
He describes leading into the pre-flop raiser (“donk-betting”) as a tool that can work well when:
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The flop is more likely to hit the caller’s defending range than the raiser’s opening range (often connected/low boards).
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You have some equity (typically a semi-bluff profile) rather than pure air.
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The opponent is prone to give up without putting you in uncomfortable raising wars.
He recommends using it more against tighter, give-up-prone opponents and avoiding it against aggressive players who will attack these leads with raises. He also emphasizes balance: if you only lead as a bluff, good opponents will counter; mixing in strong hands and strong draws keeps the line credible.
Why Pure Bluff Check-Raises Are Often Bad
Little is skeptical of flop raising/check-raising as a pure bluff because it tends to:
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Risk a large amount to win a relatively small pot,
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Create unclear turn plans if called,
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Force you into expensive, low-clarity decisions.
He prefers check-raising strong draws (semi-bluffs) when out of position, because you gain fold equity now while still having meaningful equity when called, and you avoid the problem of trying to realize equity passively out of position.
Floating: Taking Pots Away Later
Floating—calling a flop bet with the intention of winning on a later street—is presented as one of the most powerful in-position tactics. Core points:
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A good floater can arrive at the turn with a wide range (strong hands, marginal hands, bluffs), making them hard to read.
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Floating is often better than flop-raise bluffs because you learn more from the opponent’s turn action (a second barrel vs. a check).
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Floating does not obligate you to bluff later—if the opponent keeps firing, you should often release.
He strongly discourages floating out of position, because opponents can check turns to induce river calls and you can end up investing heavily with little leverage.
Delayed Float
He also outlines a “delayed float” line: call flop, check back turn after opponent checks, then bet river after another check—especially effective on boards with few draws, where your line can plausibly represent a medium-strength value hand. The success of this play depends on how capped the opponent’s range becomes after repeated checks.
How to Respond When You’re Being Floated
If you suspect a float:
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With bluffs, consider firing a second barrel to force folds.
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With strong hands, avoid shutting your opponent out too early; let them continue the plan and consider trapping lines that capture their river stab.
Continuation Betting: A Core Engine of Stack Growth
Little calls frequent continuation betting one of the biggest dividing lines between winning and struggling players. His main ideas:
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As the pre-flop raiser, you should often bet when checked to, because both players miss flops a large portion of the time and many pots are “unclaimed.”
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Bet sizing should generally scale with board texture:
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Smaller on dry boards (fewer draws, easier folds),
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Larger on wet boards (more draws and more hands that can continue).
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He dislikes small “information” bets, arguing they leak strategic meaning and rarely produce reliable signals against competent opponents. Instead, he favors consistent sizing patterns that don’t reveal hand strength.
When Not to C-Bet
He highlights several common exceptions:
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Weak made hands that are awkward against a raise (e.g., top pair weak kicker, middle pair in volatile situations) often benefit from checking to avoid being forced into a high-variance guessing game.
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Boards that strongly connect with the caller’s range and poorly with your perceived opening range are frequently better for checking.
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Against opponents who aggressively attack c-bets, he recommends adjusting frequencies and being more willing to check/call with bluff-catchers rather than automatically betting.
Delayed Continuation Bet
If you check back the flop and the opponent checks again on the turn, Little treats this as a strong signal of weakness and encourages betting many turns to pick up pots cheaply.
Reads and Tells
A major theme is that c-bets mean different things depending on the opponent. Against habitual c-bettors, the flop bet itself carries little information, so you should contest more pots—preferably with informed reads about when they are weak vs. strong.
Raising and Check-Raising the Flop for Value
Because he doesn’t like bluff check-raises often, he also check-raises for value with a narrower range to keep his overall strategy coherent. He prefers raising for value when:
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The opponent’s range is likely to contain strong, willing-to-pay hands,
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The board favors the opponent enough that they’ll stack off with second-best holdings.
He warns that many weak players raise top pair and create a situation where only better hands continue, turning a decent hand into a low-quality bluff-catcher and exposing themselves to big losses.
Donk-Betting: How to Exploit Frequent Leads
He notes two common donk-betting profiles:
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Competent frequent donk-bettors: tend to lead with strong hands and semi-bluffs, choosing hands that are awkward to check-call or check-raise.
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Weak “information” donk-bettors: often lead with marginal made hands to “see where they are.”
Against the second type, he recommends punishing them with raises, because their line often reveals capped strength.
Flop Play in 3-Bet Pots
When a pot is re-raised pre-flop, Little advises playing more straightforwardly because stacks can become threatened quickly. Key adjustments:
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The 3-bettor can credibly represent many strong hands on many textures, so continuation betting often wins pots immediately.
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When out of position versus a player with position after a 3-bet, he leans toward check-raising strong draws/monsters and check-calling a range of made hands rather than trying to force the issue with weak holdings.
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When the re-raiser is out of position, he recommends floating more often on boards that are bad for the re-raiser’s range, then taking pots on turns after checks.
Default Lines by Role and Position
He provides practical defaults (meant as guidelines, not rigid rules), organized around:
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Whether you are the pre-flop raiser or caller,
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Whether you are in position or out of position,
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Whether your hand is a strong made hand, marginal made hand, draw, or air.
The general pattern is:
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Bet more when your range advantage is strong and the board is favorable,
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Raise more with strong value and strong draws,
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Check more with marginal hands that are hard to continue with versus aggression, especially when deep.
Multi-Way Flops: Tighten Up and Respect Strength
Little stresses that multi-way pots change everything:
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Made hands drop in value because the chance someone has a strong hand increases.
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Strong draws increase in value because pots are larger and implied odds improve.
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Players tend to play more honestly in multi-way pots, so aggression from multiple players is a major warning sign.
He advises continuation betting less as additional opponents see the flop, and in very multi-way situations often limiting flop betting primarily to hands with real value.
He also adds two higher-level points:
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Occasionally, you can exploit the “everyone is honest multi-way” assumption with a carefully timed bluff-raise, but it should be rare.
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“Position” in multi-way pots is not just the button—relative position to the bettor and the players left to act matters a lot for whether marginal holdings can continue.
Key Takeaways
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Use the flop to win many small-to-medium pots through smart continuation betting and selective aggression.
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Prefer semi-bluffs and position-based lines (like floating) over expensive, unclear pure bluff raises.
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Check more with marginal hands that become costly when raised, especially deep-stacked.
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Adapt heavily to opponent tendencies: who gives up, who fights back, who donk-bets honestly, and who floats.
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In multi-way pots, tighten up and treat heavy action as stronger and more reliable than in heads-up play.