Okay, so we’ve discussed the basics with Hand Odds, Pot Odds and Hand Strength. You should now be able to see that poker is no more than a series of probabilities playing themselves out and the topics that I covered basically give you a good toolset to use. Unfortunately, however, if you attempt to play the game by only using this toolset you will not be able to compete with the more experienced players that also understand these principles but have a huge advantage – experience.I cannot stress strongly enough the importance of experience when it comes to learning not only how to play the game, but how to win at it. “It takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” We’ve all heard that quote and there’s really no better way to put it. You can study the various playing methods, tricks and techniques for as long as you want however, once you take a seat at the table, you will quickly discover that – although poker is the game being played – the actual “game” of poker often becomes merely an activity going on in the background. The real game is the interactions between the players – the “action”.
If you don’t believe me on this subject, here’s something I want you to do – the next time you’re sitting in on a Texas Holdem game see if you can take a pot without even looking at your hole cards. This is something that I will do time and again (not often, mind you … it is NOT a strong play) just for the confidence that a move like this can give you. It’s even better when the last guy folds and is stupid enough to show you that he was holding some sort of made hand that you were able to get him to lay down. If this happens, you can then make it known that you never even looked at your cards (if you want to play a bit with your table image) and rake in the pot. Not only have you boosted your confidence but you may have put the guy that folded on tilt. Now don’t read that the wrong way – as I said, play like this is not strong. You really need to understand the situation and make sure that you keep these plays to once in a blue moon. The adrenaline shot it gives you is sometimes worth the risk…
But we’re not going to discuss silly (and often dangerous) plays today; we’re going to talk a bit about action. When you hit your set of ducks (ducks, of course, are deuces) on the river, the player to your right bets the pot (In a no limit – or pot limit – game, a pot-sized bet is rather common. It’s a strong bet that usually represents a made hand but is also a strong bet as a bluff.) and the action then comes to you, how do you play your set?
The answer to this question is “insufficient information”. The only thing that I’ve told you is that you hit your set of ducks on the river. I never mentioned the other cards on the board, how many deuces you were holding in your hole cards, the actual size of the pot versus the size of your chip stack nor any previous action that occurred to bring you to hitting the set on the river. All of these aspects need to be considered before you jump to any conclusions about how strong your very small set actually is. Let’s look at these various facets one by one…
First, there are the other cards on the board. Are there any pairs on the board? Let’s assume that there is one pair on the board – a pair of deuces (this, of course, means that your hole cards would be one deuce and one possible kicker). The other three cards on the board are an ace, a jack and a five. No more than two of the cards on the board share a suit. How strong is your set? If this were the case, I would re-raise the pot-sized bet. The odds are that the original better would call (he might even re-raise but that shouldn’t be of too much concern to you) because he’s probably holding either an ace or a jack (perhaps both) and he might find it hard to believe that you would “stay in” to the river playing what was merely a pair of deuces prior to the river. If he calls the raise then the hand ends. He would need to be holding either a pair of aces, jacks or fives; a deuce with an ace, jack or five as a kicker; or a deuce with either a queen or king as the kicker (assuming that your kicker is smaller and hasn’t been paired on the board) in order to take the pot – if he’s holding anything else, the pots yours.
If, however, the board had a pair other than the deuces; three or more cards of the same suit; or three cards that are missing a straight by one card (or even two cards) then the situation is quite different. Each of these situations is dangerous to you because each of these situations increases the number of hands that will easily beat your dinky little set. Depending on the size of the pot and the size of your chip stack (I’ll explain this later…), I would limit my options here to either a call or a fold. The odds are still pretty good that your hand is the best; however the chance of losing has increased enough to justify calling the pot and taking the smaller amount rather than attempting a “value raise” on a hand which may very well be a loser. This is often referred to as “cutting your loses” since you will lose the least by not putting any more money in the pot than necessary (and remember, you can always cut your loses to the highest extent by folding).
This hand is much stronger if you are actually holding a pair of ducks in your hole. Let’s assume that this is the case and your third deuce comes on the river (also, that this river is the only deuce on the board). This completely changes the situation where the board is showing a pair – rather than a danger to you, this pair becomes an advantage. Now if the remaining player is holding a card matching the pair on the board then he could be in some trouble. Unless he was able to pair his kicker as well, all he would be holding is a set. Granted his set would most definitely be better than your set of ducks; however you’re no longer holding a set of ducks – you’re holding a full house. Not only that, but it’s an extremely well disguised full house and you can use this hidden aspect to your advantage.
Okay, so that covers the board cards as well as your hole cards. The next thing to take into account is the size of the pot (which, in this case, is also the size of the bet you are being asked to call) versus the size of your chip stack. The thing to remember here is that you always want to make sure that you don’t let one instance of “bad luck” ruin you. Whether it means that a loss will require you to shell out more money in order to buy more chips or that a loss will decrease your chip stack enough to make continued existence in a tournament much more difficult, you want to avoid this. Always take this into account when deciding how to act on all of your action. Remember though that the size of your chip stack has absolutely no effect on the cards – they’re going to be what they’re going to be. Whether or not you chose to risk everything on a possibility is nobody’s decision but your own.
On the flip side, however, if your chip stack is large enough and losing the hand isn’t going to cause too much hardship; you should be more willing to make the call. You’re best play with a large enough chip stack is to always play the odds to your advantage. If you do this correctly, your chip stack will grow and the small losses you might take from a few unlucky situations will easily be recoverable by the multitude of times that you will win on the straight probabilities.
This now brings us to the main topic of this post – the action. What I am referring to here is exactly what had transpired to bring you to the point where you hit your set of ducks on the river and got confronted with a pot-sized bet. Or, to be more precise, exactly who bet how much and when these bets were placed. Since my little example has you hitting a set of deuces on the river, it should be obvious that nobody was betting too much along the way – it wouldn’t behoove you to call any large bets whilst holding at best a pair of twos (there were, in the best case, at least two over-cards on the board right from the flop). No, the reason you got to hit your set on the river is because the other players did not play their hands correctly (or nobody else is holding anything). It’s also possible that somebody was slow-playing their hand (most likely the guy that bet the pot) although this is a pretty good example as to why slow-playing is dangerous. (I’ll cover slow-playing a bit more later…)
Any action that a player makes is a representation of the hole cards he is holding. And you need to remember this – it is only a representation. In reality, the cards that this player is actually holding could very well be something other than his action suggests; his representation, however, is still being made. Unfortunately there is no way to know whether he is actually playing his hand as it stands, playing some sort of draw or playing a bluff or semi-bluff. You can use information gathered in previous hands as a way to gauge the player’s honesty; but remember that even your constant bluffer gets a real hand at times. The key here is to pay attention to the representation and chose the correct action accordingly.
To better explain this, let us once again use the hand that I mentioned above. We’ll put you in position 3 on a five person, no-limit table. Position 1 posts the small blind (let’s say $500) and position 2 posts the big blind ($1000). The cards are dealt and you pick up a Brunson suited in spades (10-2 of spades). Since you’re currently sitting with a chip stack of a bit over $100k, you attempt to limp in with your rather weak hand and hope for the best. You call the $1000. Positions 4&5 also limp in; the small blind calls the $500 and the big blind checks.
Okay, so there is now $5000 in the pot and the flop gets dealt – 2 of hearts, J of spades and 5 of spades. Position 1 checks and position 2 bets half the pot ($2500). You quickly call the bet followed by a fold from position 4 and a raise of $5000 (a $7500 bet) by position 5. Position 1 folds and the action is then on you. You’ve got a pair of ducks which loses to position 5 if he is holding either a J or a 5. You’re also holding a four-card flush and we know the hand odds for this hand to be about 1/3 with two cards to come. For a $15000 payout on a $7500 bet (2 to 1 pot odds), this call is not easily justifiable (even considering that you can add 2 to the number of outs as not only will any of the nine remaining spades help you but you also make a pretty strong hand with either of the two remaining deuces). You reluctantly call the $5000 knowing that position 5 loves to bluff.
It now becomes a heads-up battle between you and position 5 and there is $22500 in the pot. The turn is shown and it’s the A of diamonds. This doesn’t make you happy, but you are first to act. You decide to bet $4500 (1/5 of the pot) on your slightly better than 1/5 hand odds.
Since I am making this story up, I think this is where I am going to let position 5 make his mistake. Position 5 is holding the A of spades and J of diamonds – he hit top two pair on the turn and is considering slow-playing them. He notices from your action that it appears you might be playing a flush draw and decides to just call and take the 4/5 odds that no spade will hit on the river. It is his intention to make a play for the pot only after the spade doesn’t hit. He also realizes that by merely calling he is hiding the strength of his hand which will make you more likely to call his bet on the river. This of course is unfortunate for him as he could have easily raked in the $27000 pot by placing a value raise. I don’t think that you would be too willing to call much of a raise with your itty bitty pair and flush draw… Position 5 calls bringing the pot up to $31500.
The 2 of diamonds hits on the river. You missed your flush however you’re now sitting with a set of ducks. Since position 5 didn’t raise on the turn, you begin to wonder what he might be holding. He didn’t raise however he did call your bet. Is it possible that he too was hoping to make the flush on the river? From his play it looks like he’s probably holding a J-something. He raised on the flop where the pair of Js would have been top-pair but didn’t raise the turn. This makes you think that the A may have scared him and conclude (wrongly) that he’s probably just holding a pair of Js (which also rules out the possibility of him looking for the flush on the river as the J of spades is on the board…). His ill-advised call on the turn has actually made you even more confident that your hand is the best so you decide to check and let position 5 try to steal the pot with his pair of Js.
This, of course, is exactly what position 5 was hoping for and he quickly makes a pot-sized bet of $31500. The action returns to you and – as described above – you call. You’re a bit surprised when position 5 shows you his top two pair but not nearly as surprised as he is on seeing your set of ducks. You rake in the $94500 pot ($50000 of it profit).
Another interesting thing about this hand is that position 5 actually made his biggest mistake by limping in with the A-J pre-flop. This happens far too often and the only reason for it is pure greed. The correct play on a five handed game with an A-J pre-flop is to raise. I think you can easily see why this is as pretty much any raise pre-flop would have been very difficult for you to call with you pathetic little posh Brunson.
Now these silly little hand examples that I am coming up with are exactly that – silly little examples. Each new hand dealt has its own little intricacies that make it unique. What you want to be getting out of this is the concepts. Although the hands will vary, the concepts remain the same. If you keep all these concepts in mind as you gain experience, the experience gained will be that much richer (pun completely intended).
bis später,
Coriolis
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