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Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker – Part II

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker – Part II
by Daniel Negreanu 
Premium hands are simply few and far between when large pots are at stake.  Tournaments are won by aggressively going after smaller pots with a range of starting hands.  The trick is learning how to do that without becoming reckless. 
In small ball poker, you’ll need to widen your starting hand requirements beyond pocket pairs and A-K.  Here’s how to do it. 
This may surprise you:  In deep-stack tournaments, ace and paint hands like A-J, A-10, K-Q, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10 and J-10 are significantly stronger when they are suited.  So much so, in fact, that it often makes the difference between calling and folding these hands.
K-10 offsuit, for example, is a hand that ends up making top-pair hands rather than hands like straights and flushes.  That result doesn’t mesh with the small ball poker approach.  One pair hands, you see, rarely win big pots.  But when you play them incorrectly, they’ll often cost you big ones. 
One hand in particular, K-J, is known as the rookie hand.  It looks tempting but it’s nothing but trouble.  This hand has mowed down more hometown heroes than any other.  You’ve been warned! 
With any ace and paint hand, however, it’s more than okay to throw in a raise if you’re the first player to enter the pot.  Proceed with caution; your goal is to win a small pot.  Be prepared to fold if someone raises ahead of you – unless you are suited.   
The extra outs that suited cards give you allows you to win pots either by making a flush, giving you the chance to semi-bluff, or even flopping a flush draw and catching a pair at the river to win.
Now, ace-rag suited hands, like A-3, A-4, A-5, A-6 and A-7, only have value in their flush potential and if they make two pair.  Flopping a pair of aces is a good thing, too, but don’t commit yourself to a big pot with top-pair and a lousy kicker.
Go ahead and attack the blinds with an ace-rag suited hand if you are the first to enter the pot.  However, if you get any resistance, calling a reraise with a hand like Ah-6h is suicide.
Watch me play and you’ll see me play suited connectors, like 5c-6c and even 4d-7d.  These hands are ideal for the small ball approach.
Remember, the goal of small ball is to make straights and flushes against top-pair hands.  Suited connectors deliver this potential, plus the opportunity to make two pair and trips.
The key to the success of small ball poker, and in particular, suited connectors, is that your opponents won’t be able to put you on a hand.  Think of it in terms of fishing.  You’re putting a little worm at the end of a pole and looking for a big fish to bite. 
The other benefit to playing these types of hands is that they are generally very easy to get away from.  You might decide to take one more stab at the pot if you don’t hit the flop, but if you still don’t get lucky, well, suited connectors just aren’t worth much more.
Finally, trash hands, like Q-3, J-2 or 9-4, should only be played in a few very specific situations, for example, when you’re trying to steal a pot with a pre-flop reraise.  When attempting this play, however, you must have the discipline to take your one shot before the flop and play with caution thereafter. 
Only look to play small pots with trash hands and lose the minimum if you are beat.

Excerpted from Daniel Negreanu’s newest book, Power Hold’em Strategy, from Cardoza Publishing, on sale now at www.CardSharkPokerStore.com.

 © 2010 Card Shark Media.  All rights reserved.

217

Thinking About Strategy In Rush Poker*

Brandon Adams

March 16th, 2010

Rush Poker* is an innovative new form of poker offered by Full Tilt Poker that allows players to see up to four times as many hands as they would see in a normal game.

There is not much of a learning curve with Rush Poker*; it plays pretty much like a regular poker game, but faster. There are, however, certain idiosyncrasies to Rush Poker* that suggest a slightly different style of play.

In a normal poker game, your personal speed of play has little effect on the number of hands you will see in an hour. In Rush Poker*, this is far from true; it’s possible for a very speedy player to see twice as many hands per hour than the average player.

Rush Poker* has an innovative feature that allows a player to fold out of turn: the Quick Fold button. If you are dealt, say, 2-3 offsuit on the button, you have the option of folding the hand well before the action gets around to you. Once you fold, you will immediately be taken to a new table and dealt a new hand. The players will not know that you opted to fold the deuce-three offsuit out of turn, because they will not observe your fold until the action gets around to you.

Most of the unique strategies associated with Rush Poker* stem from the Quick Fold feature. Although players can’t see that you have opted to fold out of turn, they can reliably guess that you have done so based on the speed in which you act. A very quick fold is a reliable indicator of an out-of-turn fold. Both recreational players and experienced pros are folding out of turn: the recreational player so he can see more playable hands per hour, and the experienced pro does so in an attempt to increase his hourly win rate.

The pro is willing to take a small drop in per-hand win rates in exchange for seeing many more hands per hour. Folding out of turn, by my estimation, causes only a small drop in per-hand win rates. Some pros will play many hands of Rush Poker* each day and will become somewhat familiar with the player pool. These pros might know who is folding out of turn a lot, and they will recognize that these players are probably making few moves and are probably paying minimal attention to the actions of the other players.

You should only fold out of turn when you know for sure that your hand will be unprofitable. Suppose you have 5-6 offsuit on the small blind. The first instinct is to fold and quickly move to the next hand. You might have a situation, though, where almost everyone at the table limps; in this situation, you should call and try to hit your hand.

If you play at these tables, you will realize that most players are folding out of turn quite a bit. To me, this suggests that some strategies that are bad or terrible in a normal ring game might be good for Rush Poker*. For instance, in Rush Poker*, strategies involving limping go way up in value. Sometimes you will limp and everyone at the table but the big blind will have folded out of turn! A good strategy for Rush Poker* might involve limping from early position with a mix of super premium hands and speculative hands that you would normally throw away.

With Rush Poker*, as in every other form of poker, your best strategy is to go against the flow of the table; play fast when everyone else is super tight, play super tight when everyone else is playing fast. Rush Poker* seemingly gives players the opportunity to play only super premium hands without being easily detected by other players as a super-tight player. If it seems like players in your player pool are doing this, you should go against the grain. You will be able to achieve high win rates by simply stealing blinds. Against a super tight Rush Poker* player pool, you should have a strategy of min raising a lot of different hands, especially when you are in late position. You will steal a lot of blinds this way. The caveat to this strategy is that, if you are raised, you should only proceed with your very best hands, and, if you are just called, you should only become active on the flop if you hit it especially hard.

Best of luck at the tables!

I can haz? Challenge 2

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Poker Challenge Update

216

Keeping The Pot Small

Jennifer Harman

March 2nd, 2010

Poker is a game of decisions. Some decisions are very easy to make, while others will keep you awake all night if you choose poorly. In my experience, the larger the pot size, the harder the decision you’ll be faced with.

On the other hand, the smaller the pot is, the easier the decision. Which is why, especially in tournament play, you want to keep the pot small when you’re holding a marginal hand. You don’t want to be facing a decision for all of your chips in a situation where all you’ve got is something like top pair with a medium-strength kicker. You want to avoid that scenario as much as possible. It’s better to keep the pot small by checking and calling rather than building a huge pot, even if you do hold an advantage in that hand.

Let me give you an example from a hand I played at a World Series of Poker event last year. We were still fairly early in the tournament, and I was in the cut-off (the seat before the button) holding K-J. The action folded around to me, I put in a raise and was called by the button. Both blinds folded, and we were heads-up going to the flop.

The flop came J-9-3 with two diamonds. Yes, I had top pair with a strong kicker, but with straight and flush draws on the board I was in no mood to go crazy with my hand. So I checked, and the button bet about two-thirds of the pot.

A check could also tempt my opponent to bluff in this spot, especially if he put me on something like A-K or A-Q. With a bluff or a drawing hand being the button’s most likely holding, I made the call.

The turn was a harmless 5, not a diamond, and very unlikely to help out the button in any way. Once again, I decided to control the size of the pot and keep it small by checking. If I’d bet and the button had a monster draw, there’s a good chance he’d come over the top of my bet to try and push me off the pot. I liked my hand there, just not enough to go broke with it.

After I checked, the button put in another bet, which I called. The river was a non-diamond 2, meaning that neither the flush draw or the straight draw got there. Confident that I had the best hand at this point, I still decided to check the river.

Why? Well, there was a small chance the button had made a set or two pair somewhere along the way, and it’s better to check-call in that spot rather than face a tough decision for a lot of chips if he raises. Also, if he did have nothing but air, checking might induce a bluff on the river.

As it turned out, the button checked behind me and I took down the pot with my K-J. I didn’t win a big pot with that hand, but I also didn’t lose a huge pot. The decisions I faced on each street were made much easier by the fact that I kept the pot small.

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker -- Part 1

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker -- Part 1

by Daniel Negreanu

The world’s most successful tournament competitors, like me, Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth and countless others, like to play small ball poker.  It’s a style that we use to steadily increase our stacks in no limit hold’em tournaments without having to assume significant risk.
The first thing you’ll notice when you watch a player who uses the small ball approach is that he appears to be in total control of the table, yet at the same time, seems to be playing with reckless abandon.  It also might appear as if he’s giving little thought to the strength of his own starting hand.
Indeed, that is the case.
That’s because the theory of small ball poker dictates that you need to focus more on what your opponent doesn’t have rather than the strength of your own hand.
That being said, let’s take a look at some basic starting hand guidelines that should be considered before entering a pot.
Obviously, you’ll want to play big pairs like aces, kings, queens or jacks from any position.  Also note that pocket aces and kings are good enough to play for all of your chips.
That’s not necessarily the case with pocket queens or jacks, though.  Play these hands a bit more cautiously before the flop.  Don’t feel compelled to reraise with these hands, either, especially against a player who already raised from early position.
Playing middle pairs like 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, and 7-7 can be difficult but only if you overvalue them and mistakenly play them as you would premium hands. 
If you are the first to enter the pot with any of these hands, make a standard small ball raise – that is, bet slightly less in hopes of winning a lot more.  Your goal with middle pairs is to win a big pot by flopping a set.  Use caution, though, if you miss on the flop.  In that case, be prepared to muck your middle pair if the action gets too hot and heavy.
Treat small pairs much the same way as middle pairs.  Some players like to reraise with these hands before the flop because it suits their style.  That, however, is not what small ball players do.
Now, A-K and A-Q might be sights for sore eyes in low buy-in, fast-paced tournaments but not in big money, deep-stack events.
While Big Slick is clearly more powerful than A-Q, trust me, you still don’t want to get all your money in pre-flop with this hand.  More often than not, you’ll be on the wrong end of a coin toss.  You can certainly raise pre-flop with A-K but it’s just not the type of hand that plays very well after the flop.
Suppose the flop comes A-9-6 and you bet your A-K.  Frankly, you don’t want even one caller!  Any player who tosses in chips could easily have A-9, A-6, 9-9 or 6-6, and you’d be dead on arrival.  Unsuited A-K is simply a hand that will win small pots but is generally a dog if there is any significant action.
A-Q is much worse in every way possible.  Not only are you almost certainly beat if you decide to play a big pot before the flop, there’s even more to worry about if you do get to see the flop.  You’ll have the same worries you’d have with A-K except, in this case, you’ll have to worry about an opponent’s A-K too!
Stay tuned as I’ll cover additional small ball starting hands in upcoming columns including aces and paint, ace-rag suited, king-rag and queen-rag suited, suited connectors and trash hands. 

 

© 2010 Card Shark Media.  All rights reserved.