| By Andrew Brokos How much would
you pay for a program that allowed you to see your opponents’ hole
cards? Wouldn’t it be even better if you had a program that gave
your opponents whatever hole cards you wanted them to have? And if
you had such a program, you wouldn’t just give them all garbage so
that you could steal their blinds; you would want to give them
second best hands and then value bet them to death. In other words,
you would want to create situations where your opponents held
slightly worse hands than yours, because these are the most
profitable situations in poker.
Well here’s the thing: you already have this ability. To some
extent, you are in control of the cards that your opponents hold.
Whenever an opponent enters the pot, he is doing so with some range
of hands that is determined by the action in front of him, his
position, his stack size, table conditions, his mood, etc. As the
hand progresses, however, you will have the ability to narrow his
range depending on the line that you take. Unfortunately, you can’t
make him throw away the nuts, and in general it will be hard to get
him to pitch any of the hands at the top of his range. This is why
you should play your big hands fast most of the time: there is
little danger of shaking Villain off of a big but slightly worse
hand, which means that you are primed to win a large pot.
Conversely, playing a medium strength hand too fast is generally bad
because it allows Villain to throw away everything you beat and take
your money when he’s got you beat.
Different games have different types of profitable situations,
some more obvious than others. In NLHE, there is set over set, set
vs. overpair, set vs. top pair, overpair vs. top pair, etc. In
Omaha, there is the nuts with redraws vs. the nuts without redraws.
In O/8, there is the nut high vs. two opponents going low, the nut
low with a flush draw vs. the nut low, etc. In 5 card stud, there is
a concealed pair that allows you to beat the open pair your opponent
is showing.
The important thing is that a profitable situation is more than
having a good hand; it is having a good hand while your opponent has
a slightly less good one that he nevertheless has reason to think is
best. Ideally, you would want his hand to be exactly one ranking
below yours (i.e. K-high flush when you hold the A-high flush), so
that you can apply maximum pressure.
Obviously, there are many other types of profitable situations,
such as those where you can bluff Villain off of the best hand a
large amount of the time, but right now, I’m concerned only with
those where you are trying to get maximum value at showdown.
To cash game regulars, a lot of this may seem obvious, because
cash game play is all about creating profitable situations. In
tournaments, especially at the lowest buy-ins, you can usually study
some starting hand guidelines, memorize a push-bot chart, and get by
alright, because a lot of your profit will come from players who
fail to adapt to tournament-specific bubble or short-stack
situations. But there is a lot more money to be made if you know how
to get full value out of your hands and not just how to play an
unexploitable short stack game.
Fundamentally, good players make money at poker because they know
how to recognize and/or create profitable situations. They win the
most from second best hands because they know how to keep those
hands in the pot and win bets from them.
Creating profitable situations
Whenever I have a made hand (i.e. one that could potentially win
unimproved at showdown), I consider my opponents’ possible holdings,
and then I categorize them into hands I want him to have (because he
can/will pay me off), hands I don’t want him to have (hands with a
lot of outs that won’t pay me off unless they catch; hands that are
already beating me) and hands that don’t matter (those that missed
the board completely and are now hopeless; those so good that he
will never get away from them, and that I will have to pay off).
The key to making the most of profitable situations is thinking
about the hands that are most likely to pay you off and how they
will respond to a bet, check, or raise at any given time. In other
words, you shouldn’t be betting just because you have a decent hand
and there is a flush draw on the board. Your move should have a very
deliberate purpose: “I am betting because I expect the following
hands to call and the following hands to fold.” Or, “I am checking
because if I bet, Villain will fold the following hands that could
pay me off later.”
In order to create a profitable situation, you need to take a
line that will allow you to win the most from the hands you are
beating. If your hand is big enough that it can beat a lot of other
hands that Villain may mistakenly think are best (i.e. I have 77 or
AJ on an 7JA flop), you can just bet out. If it’s checked around to
you with A5, I recommend checking it through simply because no
reasonable opponent is going to make a mistake against you on that
board. Checking behind creates a situation where Villain may take a
stab with a worse hand, or may be more inclined to check/call middle
pair on the next street, as a bet will look more like a steal.
In the first situation, you hand is already disguised, so you can
go ahead and play it fast, because Villain is likely to come along
with a hand like top pair. In the second, your hand is slightly
worse than the one you are representing by betting the flop. It’s
not bad enough that you need to bluff, but it is not good enough to
bet for value. The only reason to bet (though this is often a
sufficient reason) is that the pot is large enough already and/or
the board is draw-heavy enough that you want to win it right now, or
that you opponent may make the mistake of drawing with bad odds.
There are three key principles at work here:
- On balance, the more money an opponent puts into the pot, the
better his hand is likely to be at that time; however,
- The larger the pot, the less good an opponent’s hand is likely
to be at all future decision points.
- Betting or raising ranges tend to be wider than calling
ranges.
In other words, many players will put 3-4 BB’s in the pot with a
wide variety of hands when stacks are deep. Once 12-15 BB’s per
player go in pre-flop, many people’s ranges narrow considerably
(though it matters how the money goes in). However, once the flop
comes out, a player who would check-fold a whiffed AK in a 12 BB pot
might semi-bluff all-in at a 40 BB pot. Certainly, he is more likely
to semi-bluff push than to call an all in.
Variance and Profitable Situations
Often, you will have a choice about what kind of profitable
situation you would like to create. For instance, on the first hand
of a NLHE tournament, you are dealt 99 UTG. You could play this
fast, hoping to get value from lower pocket pairs or top pair on a
rag board or win it with a continuation bet on the flop against
overcards. Or, you could limp in, trying to flop a set and win a big
pot against two pair or top pair.
In the former case, you’ll win a smaller pot a lot more often,
you’ll occasionally win a huge pot when you make a set versus top
pair, but you’ll occasionally lose a large pot against a better pair
or get bluffed off of the best hand.
When you limp, you let a lot of worse hands outflop you. You
might even fold the best hand on the flop to a semi-bluff. When you
make your set, it will be harder to win a huge pot, because players
are less likely to fall in love with top pair in a limped, multiway
pot. However, you rarely lose a big pot, and with more players
seeing the flop with you, it is more likely that someone will make
something to pay you off.
Raising 99 UTG and limping 99 UTG are both profitable situations,
the central difference between them being variance: how often do you
want to win/lose the pot and what size pot do you want to play? In
my opinion it varies a lot based on the stage of the tournament you
are in, but my purpose here isn’t to debate which line to choose.
The point is that however you choose to play it, you need to think
about what kinds of hands you want your opponent to have and how to
win the most when he has them.
I am also suggesting that sometimes it is correct to pass on
small edges in order to set a trap and possibly create a profitable
(sometimes very profitable) situation down the road. You are
undoubtedly giving up some value by limping 9’s UTG, because you are
not charging worse hands for the chance to outflop you. However, it
is much harder to have a profitable situation after the flop holding
99 out of position in a heads up pot than it is to have one in a
multi-way limped pot.
A very similar situation occurs when you limp A5 behind a couple
of limpers on your button, and the flop comes A89. If you bet here,
the best case scenario is that someone correctly folds their draw
and you win a small pot. Someone may “make a mistake” calling a 2/3
pot bet on a draw, except that you are going to have check the turn,
giving Villain a free look at the river and turning his call into a
good one. A bare 8 or 9 will almost certainly fold, and better Aces
will call. Granted, you give up some value by giving someone with
middle pair a free chance to catch five outs on the turn, but
hopefully this will be compensated for by winning a turn and/or
river bet from an unimproved middle pair. If the turn is a scary one
like T, then you can get out cheaply, with little harm done. Once
again, this line enables you to lower your variance by trading one
profitable situation (top pair on a draw-heavy board) for another (a
somewhat disguised top pair).
Using Your Reads
Setting up a profitable situation requires estimating an opponent’s
range and how he will play various hands within that range. The more
you know about an opponent, the more inclined you should be to play
pots against him, especially when you are in position. In
particular, you should focus on the mistakes different players at
your table, especially those to your immediate right and those in
the blinds when you are in late position tend to make. Do they
overvalue top pair? Stack off with weak overpairs? Never giver
credit when a draw hits? Give up too easily when scare cards hit?
Remember how we agreed that you would pay quite a bit of money
for a program that allowed you see your opponent’s hole cards? Well,
you should be willing to take some risks anytime you feel you can
put Villain on a very narrow range. As long as stacks are deep, make
some speculative calls pre-flop with suited connectors, small pairs,
etc. You can do the same on the flop with a gut shot, middle pair,
etc. if you know that a lot of cards will allow you to take the pot
away later or that Villain will pay off big when you hit.
Similarly, if you are confident you are ahead AND you have a very
good idea of what Villain has, you should be less inclined to end
the hand, even if you are out of position. Building a pot is good
when you know about what your opponent has, but fold equity is worth
very little.
Reverse Implied Odds
It’s the first hand of a NLHE tournament. You have AA UTG. Villain
has 22 on the button. Who’s in a profitable situation? Villain is.
You are never going to win a big pot unless you make set over set,
but you will lose a big pot virtually every time he makes his set.
This seems obvious, but it’s an important thing to think about
when you have a big hand. Just because you have the nuts doesn’t
mean you want any and all action. You want to play big pots against
second best hands, not against speculative hands that will either
lose small pots or win big ones. I see so many players making tiny
raises and re-raises with their rockets, seemingly giving little or
no thought to what kinds of hands they want in the pot and what
kinds they don’t. Conveniently enough, the kinds of hands that will
pay you off big on the right flop are also the sort that can take a
fair amount of action pre-flop: other big pairs and broadway hands
that can make top pair good kicker.
Profitable Strategy
Against decent opposition, you can’t just play medium strength hands
slow and big hands fast. This will hurt your ability to make value
bets and give up too much in the way of reverse implied odds. As you
move up in stakes and face increasingly solid opponents, you need to
think about profitable strategy and not just profitable situations.
This entails cultivating an image that will enable you to get your
big hands paid off and that will make you less predictable, so that
calling your UTG raises with 22 will not be such a profitable move
for your opponents.
By a strategy, I mean the range of hands that you have in a given
situation and your plan for future action. A fairly basic strategy
would be raising a wide range from the CO and continuation betting
any time you flop big or miss completely but checking behind on
especially scary boards or with weak draws.
Naturally you’ll want to adapt your strategy to the opponent you
are playing at a given time, because you need a strategy that is a
successful counterpoint to the Villain’s counter-strategy. Many
players adopt a counter-strategy of calling light against aggressive
late position raisers, check-folding when they miss, and
check-raising when they hit. Even when they mix in the occasional
check-raise semi-bluff, this is not a difficult counter-strategy to
circumvent.
Becoming familiar with the types of counter-strategies that
players commonly adopt against your strategy will help you make
better reads and create more profitable situations.
Conclusion
If had to summarize this novel in one sentence, it would be:
“When you have a big hand, think about what could pay you off, why,
and how.” |
