200

Winning by Checking and Calling

Nick Schulman

September 22nd, 2009

It’s been said many times that the weakest play in poker is calling – that it’s better to be raising or folding. In my opinion, there are situations where that statement simply isn’t true. I recently played a hand online at Full Tilt Poker that served as a perfect example of how checking and calling can win you a hand that you would have lost by folding (obviously) or raising.

The key to the situation is that I recognized I was up against an aggressive opponent and I had a marginal hand. I was playing $10/$20 6-max No-Limit Hold ’em, and the action folded around to me on the button with two red nines. I was pretty deep-stacked with $2,447 in front of me, and I made a standard raise to $60. The player in the small blind, who was even deeper with $3,356 in his stack, raised it to $210. The big blind folded.

It was an interesting spot. I obviously wasn’t going to fold there, but I feel pocket nines is the type of hand where calling is preferable to raising. Consider: If I raise there and get re-raised, I really don’t like my hand anymore. So I prefer the call.

The flop came 5d-8d-Qh, and although it wasn’t a great flop, with only one over-card to my nines, I figured I would call just about any bet. There was $437 in the pot and my opponent bet $280. I figured his range of hands could be pretty loose. He was a good player and an aggressive player, and while the Queen might have hit him, he could just as easily have a hand like A-J, J-10 suited or K-J suited. In that spot, I don’t really think you can fold nines, but I don’t recommend raising with them either. So I called, bringing the pot to $997.

The turn was the Jd, giving me a diamond draw and a gut-shot to go with my pair. My opponent checked, and I very strongly considered betting. But then I thought about it more carefully: What hand better than mine can I convince to fold? If he has pocket tens without the 10d, he probably folds that. But that’s about it. If he has Aces or Kings, he probably won’t fold. Other than pocket tens, the only hands I’ll get called by are hands that are ahead of me. And I could get check-raised and have to fold my hand without seeing the river. So I checked behind.

The river was the 8c, which paired the board, but was pretty much a blank. I hoped he’d check again and just let me check behind with what’s probably the best hand. Indeed, he checked, turned over Ad-Kh, and I won the pot.

Looking back at the hand, I think I was right to just check or call all the way. Pre-flop, who knows, if I’d re-raised, anything could have happened, including him shoving all in and me having to fold. On the flop, a raise probably would have worked, but that’s a really risky play. If I had bet the turn, that could have been disastrous. He had me covered, he’s shown himself to be an aggressive player, and he had the nut flush draw plus a gut-shot and two over-cards. There’s a very good chance he would have check-raised all in, which would have been an excellent play. I would’ve had to fold the best hand if he’d done that.

In that spot, I didn’t want to open myself up to getting outplayed, and I still had a lot of showdown value with my hand. Sometimes, against an aggressive player in a marginal situation, it’s best not to be aggressive back. Sometimes, aggression can cost you a pot that would have been yours if you’d been a little more cautious.

Betting A Flush Draw On The Flop In Hold'em

Betting A Flush Draw On The Flop In Hold'em

Here's one of my favorite hold 'em plays that you can use quite often without opponents adapting.

You have a flush draw on the flop -- two of your suit in your hand, two on the board. You're last to act. Everyone checks to you. Bet. Sometimes you'll win the pot immediately without a struggle, but even if you don't, you'll frequently have helped your cause.

Now, everyone is apt to check to you on the 4th board card (the turn). If you make your flush, you just keep betting, natural as natural can be. If you miss, you check along. And the great thing is that you get a free card which could have costs double in common limit games where the size of bets increase after the flop. The final (river) card is also effectively free, because if you miss, you'll usually fold.

There's another twist to this tactic. You don't want to overuse it, because astute players may catch on and adapt, but one of the built-in tools of deception comes from mostly betting these flush draws when you have at least one card higher than the board. That way, you have additional chances of making top pair and continuing to bet on the turn.

When this happens, many opponents won't notice at the showdown that you were originally betting the flush draw. They sometimes just see the top pair and forget when you made it or how. This psychologically camouflages the fact that you're often betting flush draws "on the come," hoping to get a free card.

199

A Big Hand Early in a Tournament

Erick Lindgren

September 16th 2009

In the late stages of a tournament, big pairs are generally pretty easy to play. When you have 20, 30 or 40 big blinds in your stack, and you find a pair of Queens or Kings, you usually just want to play aggressively, force a fold, or play a big all-in pot and hope things work out in the end.

But early on in a tournament, when the stacks can be very deep relative to the blinds, I don’t think it’s always a great idea to play big pairs quite as aggressively. A hand I played this year at the WSOP Main Event demonstrates the point pretty well.

At the start of the hand, the blinds were 100/200 and most of the stacks at the table were right around the starting amount of 20,000 chips. One player raised and another called from late position. I looked down and saw two Queens.

The instinct for many in this situation is to re-raise. But I didn’t like that option. What would happen if one of the other players in the hand re-popped me? I’d hate to fold the Queens, but I wasn’t ready to risk going broke with Queens so early in the tournament.

My re-raise could have also prompted one or both players to just call. In that case, I would have been playing out of position without having a great idea of what my opponents held. After the calls, the pot would be quite large. It could have cost me most or even all of my stack before I figured out whether I was ahead or behind.

I decided to play a smaller pot and put fewer of my chips at risk, so I just called.

The flop came Jack-high. I checked, the original raiser bet and it was folded to me. I called – again trying to keep the pot relatively small. The turn was a blank, and I checked. My opponent checked behind. This check made me pretty confident that I was ahead. When the river paired the board, I was happy to put out a value bet, hoping that I could get paid off by, perhaps, a medium pocket pair.

As it turned out, my opponent didn’t have enough to call me and I took down the pot right there.

All-in-all, I was happy with the way I played the hand. I put myself in a position to win a moderate sized pot without incurring any risk of going broke. Next time you see a big pair early in a tournament, consider trying to control the size of the pot rather than playing as aggressively as you can.

Assuming Command of the Ship

How to effectively become the table captain
By Brandon Cantu

In 2008 when I won the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Championship at one point I won 17 hands in a row. I had a pretty dominant cheep lead at the time and was in position to raise or be involved in just about every hand. I had control of the table, and would certainly have been considered the table captain that day, and it was an integral part of me taking down that title.

What exactly is the table captain though? Well, the table captain is the player at the table who is setting the pace for the rest of the group; very often raising more hands than the other players each orbit, leading the way post flop, and in general making the first move in most to all situations they are involved with. It’s a position of great strength, as often you are putting your opponents at a great disadvantage, because they’ll very often being forced to make tough decisions, and tough decisions usually lead to mistakes. The more mistakes you can provoke from your opponents the better chance you’ll have at scoring a big win.

Before you jump right into the next Ultimate Bet tournament and start cramming raises down peoples throats, trying to assume the role of table captain there are certain things that need to be considered. As with most poker strategy, there are a number of factors to take in to account before deciding the right course of action.

The first check mark I like to make before jumping into command of a table is making sure I have an adequate chip stack. I like to have an above average stack, somewhere in the range of the top twenty percent of the tournament field. The next significant factor is your table draw, in fact, it may be the most important factor of all. There are just some tables that do not allow for this type of play, they’ll do anything to stop you and in these situations its best to just back off, and wait for hands. I go around and I read every single player at the table, and what I’m looking for is players that are OK with you stealing their blind just about every single time. Keep an eye on all the opponents’ style, and if you feel like you can outplay most of them, than the conditions are ripe.

Once the conditions are set its time to start raising. It doesn’t matter what your hand is, but once you see one of your marks in the big blind it’s a perfect time to raise it up, or get involved. If you see a semi-competent player to your left, you may want to limit the hands to a more playable category, such as suited connectors, pocket pairs, and weak paint like Q-J, J-T, Q-T, etc… Ideally you’ll be first into the pot and will take the pot down, but it’s also OK to flat call weaker opponents who are in the pot prior to you, if you have position and again the players on your left are weak enough to fold, or give up easily on the flop. Even though I like to be table captain, I am not a big fan of three-betting in many spots, because it often leads the pot to get out of control, therefore diminishing your edge as weak players will often be willing to commit themselves more in three-bet pots.

On the flop is when it’s time to make the decision to either retain control of the hand, or check out. Instead of looking for flops that are connecting with your hand, you should more be keeping an eye out on flops you don’t think connected with your opponent’s hands. If I’m in there with a 6-7 of spades and see a flop of say Q-J-10, I’m ok with just checking, and possibly giving up a chance at a continuation bet since it’s most likely hit my opponen. When you are raising so many hands, its fine to give up one, or two if you are winning the rest. You can’t be leading every pot.

Now more often than not though a flop will be prime for the taking. Something with a lot of low cards, or something like an A-3-5 flop, or a K-2-6; these flops are relatively dry and I’m leading at that flop the majority of the time. As table captain you need to be more looking at your opponents range than your own, and boards like this are prime as even if your opponent thinks you may be weak, its very difficult for them to make a move without a significant holding, leading to a lot of small pots going your way. While they may not seem to be worth much, winning four or five small pots is essentially the same as winning one big pot, and you are doing so with considerably less risk.

Now in the situation that you do hit your hand, now you still want to lead out because anything else looks suspicious. If you are leading at the majority of the flops, and then start checking your opponent may be smart enough to pick up on this. You’ll get far more value betting out, and forcing your opponent into making that mistake of raising you with a small piece, draw, or over cards thinking “He can’t have it every time, can he?

As table captain, though it’s important to have the ability to lay down hands. Since you’re winning so many, players will be waiting to take their stabs at you, so if they do show significant pressure, be ready to back down and release waiting for a better spot to battle.

Learning when to step up as the table captain is a very important aspect of tournament poker. You’ll need to rely on your table reading abilities, and board reading skills to identify the right and wrong time to take the wheel, but when you do take control and get comfortable with it you’ll see an instant boost to both your confidence and hopefully your bottom line.

198

The Power of Position

Bill Edler

8th September 2009

When beginning poker players are describing a hand they’ve played, they usually start by saying what their hole cards were before moving on to talk about the betting. A professional player, however, would never describe the dynamics of a hand without first talking about his position at the table because in games like Hold ’em and Omaha, position can be even more important than the cards in your hand.

Simply put, you want to play more hands in late position than you do in early position. By doing so, you’re going to make more money over the long haul. Why? Because in late position you will have much more information to work with than you would if you were in early position. You will be able to see who folds and who raises, and if someone raises you will have a much better sense of how much it’s going to cost you to play your hand. When you have to act first, you have none of this information to work with.

There are three simple reasons why playing a hand in late position will be more profitable in the long run than playing the same hand in early position. First, you will end up folding some winning hands in early position that you wouldn’t have folded in late position. Secondly, when you have a winning hand in late position you’re going to make more money from it than you would with the same hand in early position. Finally, when you have a losing hand in late position you will lose significantly less than you would with the same hand in early position.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. You pick up pocket Jacks in middle position and raise four times the size of the big blind. The button calls, and the flop comes Q-7-2. You make a continuation bet two-thirds the size of the pot. Your opponent calls. A blank comes on the turn. Now what are you going to do?

Because you don’t have position over your opponent, you’re now in a very difficult situation. If you check and your opponent bets and you call, you could end up losing a big pot on the river. If you opt to fold, you could be folding the best hand. Even if you call the turn bet and you and your opponent check it down on the river and you win the hand, you’re going to make far less than you would have if you had been last to act. Whenever you play a hand out of position, there is a much greater chance that you will have your profits minimized or your losses maximized or that you will get bluffed out of a pot.

Having poor position is such a disadvantage that if I’m sitting under the gun at a full table I will often fold a hand as strong as A-Q before the flop. With so many players yet to act behind me, one of them could easily pick up a hand that has me dominated, like A-K, Aces, Kings, or Queens. Even if my A-Q is the best hand at the table I won’t make very much money off it in this position, and if it is second best I could end up losing a very big pot.

It’s the exact opposite when you’re in late position. Now you’re going to want to play as many hands as possible because getting to act last on all the betting rounds is such a huge advantage. If everyone folds to you on the button, you should often raise with any two cards. If the blinds fold, you win the hand. If they call, you still have two ways to beat them after the flop, by continuing to show strength if they show weakness or by showing down the best hand. Team Full Tilt member Andy Bloch says you might play fewer than 10 percent of all the hands dealt to you under the gun, but you should play more than 50 percent of the hands dealt to you on the button.

Having favorable position is just as important after the flop. Not only can you take pots away from players who show weakness, you can also control the size of the pot. Smart poker players want to play big pots when they have big hands and small pots when they have small hands, and having position on your opponents allows you to do that. If you flop top pair with a weak kicker, bet, and get called, it’s often a good idea to check the turn in order to keep the pot small.

The power of position in poker cannot be overstated. Whenever you’re dealt a hand, you should take into account your position at the table even before you evaluate the strength of your cards. Even in the most basic limit games, you’re going to make far more money when you have position over your opponents than when you don’t.

Misplaying Small Pairs Before the Flop

Misplaying Small Pairs Before the Flop

Some time ago, I spent two weeks doing commentary for the new Asian Pacific Poker Tour. The quality of play was surprisingly good but I did notice that many players tended to misplay small pairs before the flop.

There are few steadfast rules in poker but general rules abound. Here’s one general rule that applies to No Limit Hold’em tournaments: Avoid playing coin flip situations for all of your chips.

An example of a coin flip situation is when one player has a pocket pair while the other has two overcards, like pocket sixes against 10-J, or the classic confrontation between pocket queens and A-K. Even though the pair would typically be a small favorite in these races, it would be a mistake to overstate their value. And while pocket sixes would be a favorite over the seemingly more powerful A-K, that same hand would be a huge underdog to any higher pair.

You can never be certain whether your opponent has a hand like A-K or pocket jacks before the flop, so take the cautious route and avoid playing big pots with small pocket pairs. It doesn’t make sense to risk all of your chips when the most likely best case scenario is a 50/50-ish coin flip against two overcards, and the worst case is competing as a 4-to-1 underdog.

Despite the fact that pocket sixes are a heads-up favorite against Big Slick, I’d feel more comfortable playing big pots with the A-K. That’s because in the best case, A-K would be a substantial favorite over an opponent who didn’t start with a pair. In the absolute worst case, an opponent might have pocket aces or kings. That, however, would be very unlikely since I already hold one of each card. In all other situations, my A-K would only be a small underdog against other pairs.

So, you can play a bit more aggressively with a hand like A-K before the flop. If another player comes in for a raise, consider reraising all-in. It’s unlikely that you’ll be up against pocket aces or kings, you’ll be a big favorite against A-Q, and even if your opponent calls the reraise, there’s still a reasonable chance that you’ll be in a winnable race against a smaller pair. That’s not all that bad.

Keep in mind, though, playing small pocket pairs can be dangerous. Yes, you might occasionally decide to reraise all-in before the flop, especially if you sense that your opponent is bluffing. Your overall prospects to win, however, just aren’t very good. The only time to consider that play is when there’s a reasonable chance that your opponent would fold before the flop. That probably won’t happen, though, if he’s already committed a large percentage of his chips. Similarly, if your all-in reraise would only cost him a few extra chips, you can be pretty certain that he’ll make the call.

Here’s the bottom line: Avoid confrontations when playing small pocket pairs. Don’t call large bets or all-in bets. The only time to consider calling an all-in bet with a small pocket pair is when your opponent is severely short-stacked and the call won’t do too much damage to your stack.

Now, if you’re the one playing on a short stack and another player has raised the pot in front of you, it’s reasonable to fold your small pocket pair. However, if you’re the first player to enter the pot, don’t hesitate to move all-in. Be aggressive in this situation because you’ll have a chance to win the blinds and antes without having to see a flop. Even if you do get called, you’ll often find yourself in a winnable race to the finish.

© 2009 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

#MiniFTops Event #1

197

Finding Your Poker Focus

Joe Beevers

1st September 2009

Have you ever found that you start some tournaments well, but in others you just can’t get “tuned in”? What should you do about it?

Let us consider a trained athlete just before he/she runs in the 100-meter final at the Olympics. What do they do? Are they in the bar having a beer or chatting with their friends in the crowd? Not usually. They’re typically going out of their way to block out all outside interferences. They may be sitting with their heads in their hands or standing with their heads bowed.

What do they think about? Winning. Having that gold medal placed around their necks.

How do they achieve the focus that everyone talks about? They probably mentally go through races that they’ve won. They pump themselves up by recalling past victories in their minds.

Let’s apply this to poker.

First though, go through all the hands that you’ve played badly (this will take some people longer than others). Think about hands that you’ve played that have knocked you out of tournaments at crucial stages. The time that you played A-Q (or even that lousy A-J) against a good player’s pre-flop raise, hit the Ace on the flop and then decimated your chip stack. The time that you called a raise for all your chips with pocket sevens or the time that you made an early position raise with pocket nines, fell in love with them and refused to pass for a re-raise on your left.

Now that that’s out of the way, think about hands you’ve played well: The perfect reads that you’ve put on opponents because everything seemed so transparent, the final tables that you’ve made and the tournaments that you’ve won. Can you remember the way you played through those victories, how quickly the time seemed to pass, and how confident you felt? This is how you can gain the “poker focus” that you need and slip straight into your “A” game at the start of the next tournament that you play.

Mike Caro once said that when you join a poker game, you should say to yourself, “I am a great poker player; a powerful winning force surrounds me.” I believe it’s a technique worth trying.

In the Great British Poker Tour Grand Final in Bristol back in December 2007, I found myself up against several really good players at the TV final table. Roland de Wolfe and Barny Boatman were both there, as well as Neil Channing and “Bambos” Xanthos. It was a while since I had won an event and I wanted that feeling back.

I tried to remember which victories had felt the best, and the one that came to mind was winning the Irish Open. I took myself back to that table in Dublin and before long found that I was playing with renewed confidence and using all my strengths to my best advantage. You know what’s kind of funny as well: When you get into that zone, you kind of seem luckier. That’s what players mean when they talk about making your own luck!