150

Playing Over-Cards

Andy Bloch

June 11th, 2008

For many players, there's nothing prettier than peeking at their hole cards and seeing paint. A-K. K-Q. Q-J. They're all big hands and, often times, very playable ones, especially in position. Sometimes though, your masterpiece of a starting hand can lead to a very ugly result.

The fact is over-cards can be some of the trickiest hands to play well if they don't connect with the board. So how do you avoid going broke when you whiff with your overs? In the words of Kenny Rogers, "you gotta know when to hold 'em and you gotta know when to fold 'em."

Let's say you're in late position or in the blinds with over-cards and are facing an all-in bet after seeing a ragged flop like 8-5-3 rainbow. What do you do? The answer is an unequivocal "It depends". First of all, what could your opponent possibly be betting here? Top pair? An over-pair? A set? Your read of your opponent's hand should greatly influence your decision because if he's holding anything but a set, you may have odds to call.

That brings me to the next question: how much is he betting? If your opponent's all-in bet is worth half the pot or less, I think you have to call with any two over-cards so long as you think they're still live. Over-cards give you six potential outs to the board, meaning that you're only about a 3-1 dog against top pair if you have no straight or flush draw possibilities. Your over-cards may even be ahead if you think your opponent is pushing all-in on his own draw or is bluffing at the pot.

In situations where you're not facing an all-in bet, the decision becomes a little harder because you must not only consider the size of your opponent's current bet, but also the size of his next potential bet. If you're both deep stacked and you call on the flop, you could find yourself facing a sizable bet on the turn. In this situation, I believe mucking your hand and looking for a better spot is the preferred option.

Another thing to consider in this type of situation is your position relative to your opponent. If you're playing from position, you may want to consider staying in the hand even if you miss the flop – especially if you can do so cheaply. For one thing, calling a cheap bet on the flop might let you hit one of your overs, giving you what may likely be the best hand. For another thing, being in position can let you try and steal the pot away on the turn or river if your opponent shows further weakness on those streets.

Facing this same situation out of position is much riskier as your opponent has control of the hand and gets to act behind you on every street. I'm much more likely to throw my over-cards away here and look to play a better hand later on.

While position can be a key factor in determining if you carry on with your over-cards, the texture of the board is also something to be considered. On a flop like the one earlier – 8-5-3 rainbow – I'm much more likely to at least see the turn with my two over-cards than I am if the flop is more coordinated, like 9-8-7 or something that brings flush or straight draw possibilities. Why? Because unless my opponent is holding a pocket pair, it's just as likely that he missed the flop the same way I did. On a more coordinated flop, there are more ways for my opponent to connect and, even if I hit one of my cards, I could be drawing dead against a flush or straight.

If I'm in a pot with multiple opponents, I'm even more likely to play my over-cards conservatively because there are that many more hands that can easily beat me. Where I might try to continuation bet the flop against a single player, I'll almost certainly check against multiple players because I don't want to give someone the chance to raise behind me and force me to give up chips I don't need to waste.

If someone does bet and another player calls, I can very easily give up my hand without having lost too much. If, on the other hand, someone else bets and the action folds back to me, I can determine whether I want to fold, call or possibly even raise in an attempt to steal the pot myself.

When all is said and done, the key to playing over-cards successfully is not to fall in love with your starting hand no matter how pretty it may first appear. Play your hand smart after the flop and you can avoid an ugly result.

Playing Against Limpers

Playing Against Limpers

It’s common for beginners to set themselves up for disaster by misplaying hands before the flop. Then, they complain about their bad luck when they lose.

Well, bad luck has nothing to do with it. Rather, they likely committed a critical error by misplaying a pot against limpers who called their too small pre-flop raise.

Here’s an example from a recent tournament.

The blinds were 100-200 with a 25 ante. A beginner was in the small blind with pocket aces. He didn’t want to scare off the other players so he tossed in a very modest 300 chip raise.

Two players limped in and called, as did the big blind. They correctly believed it was worth risking a mere 300 chips to try to crack any hand, even pocket aces.

Here’s the first tip: When any player shows interest in a hand by calling the initial bet, they almost certainly will call a tiny pre-flop raise, too.

Okay, so the rookie is now in a four-way action pot. He has exposed the strength of his hand by his pre-flop raise yet has failed to gather any information about what hands his opponents might have. To make matters worse, he’ll need to act first after the flop.

The flop comes 10c-8d-5c. This time he decides to make a stronger bet, throwing out 2,000 chips. The first two players fold but the next player shoves all-in for 10,000 more. The beginner calls.

His opponent turns over 8s-5s to win the pot. The beginner moans about his back luck and berates his opponent for playing a bad hand.

Let’s dissect this hand.

I rarely use the term never when it comes to poker but I’ll use it here -- never make a stingy raise before the flop after someone has called in front of you. If you want to raise, make it meaningful.

With two players already calling the 200 chip big blind, a post-flop raise to around 1,000 would have been considered standard. But the beginner’s initial small raise only served to reveal that he had a decent hand. With that knowledge, other players simply wouldn’t play the hand after the flop unless they’d caught a big piece of it.

Another error in the beginner’s play was that he raised from the small blind. It’s the worst seat at the table because you are forced to act first on every street after the flop.

Remember, position is a powerful tool. Avoid getting tangled up in tough situations after the flop when you are out of position. That, of course, doesn’t mean you should automatically fold pocket aces. But make a sizable raise that protects your hand.

Professional players would never play this hand the way the rookie did. Instead, they’d punish limpers by raising large amounts before the flop, especially when they had position. They’d use the power of position to isolate weak players and then try to outplay them heads-up after the flop.

Say a weak player limps in for 200. A pro in position would raise the bet to 800 with a hand like J-9. He wouldn’t necessarily be hoping to catch a straight or a full house; he’s simply trying to knock everyone else out of the hand and steal the pot away from the weakest player at the table.

Position in poker is similar to being the dealer in blackjack. The dealer has a big advantage because if you bust, he wins. At the poker table, when a weak player busts by missing the flop, a skilled player will go for the win with an aggressive bet on the flop.

© 2009 Card Shark Media. All rights reserved.

155

Two Sides to Every Coin (flip)

Team Full Tilt

July 16th, 2008

Poker is a game of choices. Some of these choices are fairly straight forward and simple while others take a lot of thought. The thing is that when all is said and done, there may not be just one correct path to winning a given hand; it's all up to you to decide what road to travel.

With that in mind, we asked Team Full Tilt's Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson to share their thoughts on one of poker's trickiest decisions – the coin flip. Should players be willing to put everything on the line in a coin flip situation? Here are two different sides to the coin flip question:

Chris Says:

For the most part, coin flips are something that I tend to avoid. You never want to take on a negative EV proposition, so you can pretty easily fold a hand like A-K when you're certain your opponent is holding a high pocket pair like Jacks or Queens. Some players are willing to take a negative EV coin flip early on in a big tournament in order to accumulate chips, but this is an incorrect decision (unless you're trying to catch an early flight or make like Ivey to the golf course).

Of course, there are a couple of situations where pressing a coin flip can be the right move. For example, if you think your opponents are better players than you, then it might be correct to take a coin flip. When you're outclassed in a game and are certain that you'll be outplayed after the flop, taking a coin flip can help even the playing field.

By that same token, you should be willing to press a coin flip situation every chance you get against a player who thinks he's better than you. Make him avoid taking the coin flip by raising and putting a lot of pressure on him to make that decision. If he really thinks of himself as the superior player, he'll want to avoid that situation and keep folding until he gets the chance to try and outplay you after the flop. He may think he's the better player, but if you put a lot of pressure on him, you may end up outplaying him.

Howard Says:

I think people try to avoid them too much, especially after they've already committed chips to the pot. If the pot has 1,000 in it and you have to put your last 500 chips in to make the call, you're getting 2-1 on your money – yet people dodge this situation all the time. It's just wrong; you should love to take 2-1 on a coin flip even if you only have a 48% chance of winning.

When you have a hand like A-K and you could be running into Aces or Kings, committing chips to a coin flip is obviously not something you should be looking to do. But at the same time, when you're getting 2-1 on your money in a likely coin flip situation, I think its right to take the flip. It's a pretty big disaster if you're holding Jacks and don't want to flip against something like A-K, but it turns out your opponent has pocket 9s.

The whole point of a coin flip is that yes, sometimes you have the classic A-K versus Queens race. But what about all the times you have A-K and the other player has A-Q. When you have a hand where you aren't in a coin flip, you likely have your opponent dominated, and you should take that proposition every time.

With that said, there are obviously times when you should not be looking to take a coin flip. When you're in a situation where you have a lot more chips than your opponent, this is a good time not to take that flip. The more of an advantage you have over the other player, the less willing you should be to take the coin flip. Avoid that situation by not committing too many chips to the pot and waiting until after the flop to outplay the competition.

As you can see, there's no one right way to approach a coin flip situation. There are always two sides to every coin.

Misplaying Low Pocket Pairs

By P0ker H0

For the beginning player, I would have to say the most common mistake is either in bet sizing or misplaying low pocket pairs. I can even remember what it felt like to get dealt 44 UTG, and not have any clue how to best play it. Know that I know folding is most likely the best option, although definitely not always. I’d like to share with you why.

Early in tournaments, I am never folding a low pocket pair in early position if it is an unopened pot. This is because in most tournaments you start with at least 100 big blinds, and you can always afford to see some flops and set mine, to try and win a big pot. What is tricky is late in tournaments with the same hand. Let’s say you are dealt 44 UTG, and you have 80k in chips at 1500 3000 blinds. The players in front of you all have 40k or less, and there are 5 of them. What do you do? Let’s say you open raise to 9k. Know there are 5 people in front of you , who if they re-shove all in, it’s not going to be a ton more to call, and you will more than likely force yourself to call with a pair, as you feel you are getting odds.

So honestly the best thing you can hope for is a fold from all players as you are essentially bluffing with 44. I try and just muck small pocket pairs in early position, in these situations, because I hate pricing myself to call short stack shoves in a situation where I am most likely racing at best. To be honest, someone who is shoving an early position raiser with little fold equity, almost certainly is ahead of 44, if not barely behind. For me, I have decided that raising Low pairs in early position, late in tournaments, just puts you spots where you are almost always unsure of your hand strength and how it matches up against your opponent.

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157

Early Tournament Strategies

Allen Cunningham

July 30th, 2008

Many players' first exposure to poker comes from watching WSOP and WPT tournaments on TV, and I think that's great. It's entertaining and you'll see some interesting plays, but viewers have to understand that they shouldn't model their games based on the action they see on TV.

Why? The answer is simple - what you're seeing is unrealistic and edited for television. Players in these televised tournaments often start with very deep stacks (sometimes 10,000 chips or more) and, most of the time, all you'll see on the broadcast is action from the final table where the blinds are high and play is fast. In contrast, the majority of the low buy-in ($1 to $20) tournaments you'll encounter online usually start with stacks of 1,500 and blinds of 10/20.

Because your approach to the early stages of these tournaments is key to whether you'll make the final table, the question is, what should your strategy be?

I suggest adopting a simple approach, especially if you're not a very experienced tournament player. Try not to play too many hands and aim to see a few cheap flops with small/medium pairs if possible because these can provide some the best chances for you to double or even triple up during the first couple of levels. There are many times when you may be able to put in 5% of your stack or less to see a flop and try and hit your set. You're 7-to-1 to flop a set, but you may be getting 20-to-1 implied odds early on since a flopped set will often be the best hand, and you'll have a good chance to double up against weaker players who may overplay top pair.

If you are expecting a few callers, you might want to limp with these hands pre-flop. You may also just want to flat call with these hands if there are already a couple of people in for a small raise when the action gets to you. But, if the action is folded to you in late position, you definitely want to raise and take down the blinds. If you want to play conservatively, you can safely throw away small pairs in early position. As I said previously, you don't want to commit more than about 5% of your stack pre-flop with small and medium pairs (maybe 6% or 7% max), and when you play from early position there's no guarantee that's going to happen.

Of course you also want to be playing your monsters like AA and KK, and other hands like QQ, JJ, AK and AQ. Remember early on when stacks are deep, you're not going to get a lot of action for all of your chips unless you're up against a pretty strong hand.

There are no concrete rules as to how fast you should try to build your stack in the early going, but the main thing you don't want to do is go broke by playing too loose. In smaller online tourneys you will either be in the money or close to the money without having to win too many pots if you can just play tight and hang around for a couple of hours. If you speculate too much or take too many coin-flips when you don't need to early on, chances are that you'll end up on the rail and miss that opportunity.

Even if you make it to the fourth or fifth level with just a little above starting stack, you'll usually be in good enough shape to take a run at the money. Remember, getting into the money and beyond is what counts - so learn how to start your tournaments the right way and give yourself the best chance to be the last player standing at the end.

201

Let the Maniac Hang Himself

Greg Mueller

30th September 2009

We’ve all played poker against those guys who are relentlessly aggressive, who’ll make moves with any two cards. The fact of the matter is that you have to make a stand against those guys sooner or later. The key is picking the right time to do it. There’s nothing more painful than being the sucker who pays him off when he finally has a monster. But it’s a gamble you have to take on occasion in order to be the guy who gets all of the maniac’s chips when he runs an ill-advised bluff.

At the 2008 Aussie Millions, I had one of those aggressive players at my table on Day One. He was an 18-year-old online guru, I think he was from Norway. It didn’t take long for me to realize that he was playing loose: involved in a lot of hands, making some big calls and making some big re-raises. He was seated two positions to my left, so I had to be careful about entering pots and prepared to make a stand against one of his re-raises eventually.

That opportunity came with blinds at 150/300. I had roughly an average stack, about 19,500, and the Norwegian was the big stack at the table with about 44,000. I was two off the button, and he was on the button. The under-the-gun player raised to 800, the next player called, I looked down at Kc-Jc and called, the cutoff called, and then it came around to the aggressive kid on the button. I’d noted that almost every time there had been five or six callers, or a raise and several callers, he had put the squeeze play on. Something in my mind was telling me he didn’t have anything most of the time and had just been making this move to pick up some dead money.

So of course he did it again on this hand, raising another 4,000 to 4,800 total. Everybody folded around to me, and I had to consider how much it was going to hurt my stack to call. I didn’t have a lot of chips and would be committing about a quarter of my stack. But something just told me that this guy had NOTHING. So I made the call.

We were heads-up, and the flop came Q-J-8, rainbow. I checked, and I made my mind up that I was calling a flop bet no matter what. But he checked behind, and the turn came another Jack, putting two spades on the board. I checked again, and he bet 4,000 chips. I tanked for a little while, making it seem like a difficult call with a marginal hand, but eventually I called. I didn’t think he had anything at all, so raising would have made absolutely no sense.

Then a King came on the river, giving me a full house. Again, I checked, and he put me all in for about 10,000 chips, and I insta-called. He didn’t even want to show his hand, but eventually he did and turned over 10-7 off-suit.

I was proud of the way I played the hand on two fronts. First, my read was dead-on that he was wanting to make a move with absolutely nothing, and I trusted that read and made a tough pre-flop call. Then, when I turned a big hand and rivered a monster, I continued to trust my read and fed him rope to hang himself. If I had bet out on any of those streets, I might have lost him. But these aggressive players often think they can bully you off of pots with all-in bets, so when I made my full house, I let him use his aggression to my advantage and I doubled up through him.

Navigating a Huge Field

By Brandon Cantu

I have had a lot of success in my career in tournaments with enormous fields; from my first bracelet victory in 2006 which had over 2,000 entrants, to my second bracelet and my recent runner-up finish at this past years WSOP, and of course my deep run in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. While it’s important to approach these events just as you would any other tournament, you need to be able to dissect the various stages of the tournament, and how to optimize your play for each of them.

Shuffle up and Deal

In the early stages of a tournament with large field sizes I like to get involved in a ton of pots. I tend to play somewhere in the range of 80% of the hands dealt to me as I am trying to win every pot. In tournaments where there are relatively small stacks to begin, it is of the utmost importance for me to get my stack above average as quickly as I possibly can. I achieve this by manipulating my weaker opponents from the beginning and force them into making mistakes for their tournament lives. I’ll often find weak players are willing to commit their stacks with just over-cards or a weak top pair on the flop. You can certainly take advantage of these plays with your speculative hands. Sure there will be times when you get knocked out rather early using this strategy, but with UltimateBet running tournaments non-stop, you’ll be able to jump right into the next one.

Many players will throttle back after doubling up, but that’s not my style. I think it’s important to keep pounding the table, and playing the role of table captain, if all the conditions are ripe, that is (See previous article). Since many players, especially in WSOP events will be doing their best to sneak into the money, it is beneficial to exploit these players and continue to accumulate all the chips your opponents are leaving on the table.

The Bubble

Though it’s been said hundreds of times, I can’t express enough the need to capitalize on the players looking to min-cash. Online, players have become much more aware of this strategy and it has become harder than ever to utilize. You need to be careful before raising every hand, as you’ll often find yourself on the rail. If the table is playing particularly tight, or you have enough chips to take some hits, by all means keep firing away on the bubble. However, if you begin seeing some pressure coming back your way, it’s ok to slow down.

In live events, the money bubble is often much greater, so a min-cash becomes more appealing for inexperienced players. This allows you to continue to turn the aggression levels up, and steal as many blinds, and antes as possible.

When the bubble bursts, players typically begin their move towards the final table, trying to double up their smaller stacks now that they have at least a small cash locked up. It’s important to mentally take note of this, and maybe slide the aggression down a notch, as players will be looking to gamble more. Once the majority of the short stacks have busted, you can go back to taking the lead and putting the pressure back on.

Approaching the Final Table

When play gets down to two to three tables, the number of opponents at each table is often approaching. During the WSOP this past year, I had a significant amount of chips in this spot, and was more than happy to stay at two short-handed tables, as opposed to converging on to one final table. Many players are not as experienced in end-game play, and are looking to just get to that final table, again allowing for you to put pressure on them capitalize on their desire to just survive.

As with any poker situation, you need to gauge the players; if there are experienced players still in the field, you may be limited to the amount you can raise, but if it’s an inexperienced field, take full advantage of that by raising with any two cards. You’ll find you will often be left alone and able to accumulate chips little by little. If there is pressure put back on you, don’t be afraid to let it go, as there will be plenty more opportunities down the line.

The Final Table

When you get to the final table, you should have a good read on the players that you have been playing with the final two, or three tables. If you happen to find yourself sitting on a shorter stack, let the game come to you and wait for a hand if you can. If you have an above average chip stack, you may also want to utilize that same strategy and back off a little, letting the game come to you. Your opponents will be expecting you to continue your aggressive strategy you’ve been using, and it will definitely confuse them. Remember the real money is in the top three spots, so you definitely want to either win it outright, or at least end up in the top three.

Getting three handed, and heads-up play can be pretty exciting. You need to start opening up your game even more than you previously have been. Looking at the payouts can be detrimental, so do your best to avoid knowing, as it will help you focus on your game, and not the money. I have a pretty simple strategy in these spots, if you feel like you are the more experienced player then play small ball, keeping pots small, further enhancing your edge, and allowing your opponent to make mistakes that will cost them the tournament. If you feel as if you are the weaker of the group, then you should be in there trying to get all-in with small edges; don’t be scared to push your weak Ace heads-up or get involved in bigger pots with not as strong a hand. Let lady luck become more of a factor.

Poker tournaments are a marathon; it’s important that although playing solid poker is obviously the number one priority, you also need to be constantly aware of each stage the tournament is in, and how to properly optimize your play to enhance your shot at winning.