The following hand illustrates a common leak that many amateur players have in their poker strategy. When they face the least bit of resistance, they fold all but their very best hands.

In a tournament with a $500 buy-in, blinds were at 250-500 plus an ante of 75, with effective stacks of 25,000. The player in the cutoff seat raised to 1,200, and our Hero raised to 3,000 from the button with J J. Only the cutoff called.

The flop came K 10 9. The cutoff checked, the Hero bet 3,500 into a pot of 7,425, and the cutoff called.

I am perfectly fine with the Hero’s making this continuation bet, but it also would have been perfectly reasonable to check behind. If Hero bets on the flop and also bets either the turn or river, he will have a difficult time getting a significant amount of money in the pot when he has the best hand, because most players typically only call two or three bets even with strong made hands and premium draws. This means that Hero’s pocket jacks are good for one or possibly two streets of value.

While checking behind on the flop may appear quite weak at first glance, Hero should not plan to fold too often to turn and river bets because his hand is underrepresented.

The turn was the 4. Both players checked.

Once Hero bets the flop, I think that he has to check behind on the turn. If Hero continues betting, he will have a difficult time getting called by many worse hands, meaning that when he gets called, he is either behind against a better-made hand, or he is up against a strong draw. Hero is better off checking behind and hoping to see a cheap showdown.

The river was the 6. The cutoff bet 9,000 into a pot of 14,425, and the Hero folded.

This is where I have a major problem with Hero’s play. Granted, he would clearly lose to all hands worthy of a value bet. But since this was a somewhat small-stakes event, it’s safe to assume that many players would overvalue worse-made hands, such as A-10 and Q-10. Also, all of the flush and straight draws on the flop missed. While there shouldn’t be a ton of flush and straight draws in the opponent’s range due to Hero’s preflop re-raise, I think there were enough of them to justify calling.

Hero only needs to win 28 percent of the time to break even in this situation. I think there were enough combinations of worse-made hands and busted draws in the cutoff’s range to warrant a call.

Don’t fall into the habit of continuation-betting the flop with a wide range, checking behind on the turn, and then folding to any river bet. If you take this line on a regular basis, your opponents will quickly figure out your weak tendency and adjust to take advantage of you.