OK, so I’ve been MIA for a few days, it seems. But now I am back. Between family gatherings for the Easter weekend (I forgot it was Easter), tax time, and having a relapse on “the cold from hell,” I’ve taken some time away from writing. Easter has passed, taxes are done, and the cold still kickin my backside, but I’m back no less.

Today we’ll dive into raising. We all know I am not a fan of “calling,” generally speaking. Anyone who’s been on the tables with me knows I am not a “cheap date.” In general, I endorse the “raise or fold” approach. That’s not to say that a raise is to always be put in, nor is it saying that we should blindly raise. Let’s take a moment for you, my cold medicine, and I to ponder why one raises and by how much, generally speaking.

Why Raise?

There are a few different reasons why one raises a pot. First of all, putting in a raise is the act of putting in a bet that is at least double the size of the big blind. A raise typically says “I have a good hand.” But should you raise just because you have a good hand? One would be inclined to say yes, however this is not the case.

We are dealt our hole cards, and we identify what kind of poker hand we have and then we take a look at what position we’re sitting in. I also recommend whether playing live or playing online you make yourself familiar with the chip stack size of everyone at the table prior to doing any of the above. I like to know how many chips everyone else has, as well as how many I have before making any decisions. Once we’ve checked the stack sizes, identified what hand we have and what position we’re in, we reflect on how this hand best plays.

Beer Guy, what do you mean by reflecting on how this hand best plays? Don’t all hands play best when you flop the nut? HaHa… no that’s not at all what I am talking about. What I mean is, are we holding a playable hand or not? If no, fold… If it is playable, does this hand play out better against more opponents or fewer opponents (recall the conversation regarding speculative hands, top pair hands, and powerhouse hands?) Speculative hands play better multi-way. These are hands such as 8-9s. They do not typically hold up when top pair flops. They do, however, pay dearly when 7-6-10 hits the board. Depending on my position the blind levels and my chip stack, I might be inclined to either raise, call or fold with this hand.

If I am sitting in the early position with 8-9s in the middle of the poker tournament with an average chip stack, I’m throwing this hand away. However, middle of the tournament, sitting on the button with 8-9s and 1 caller, I’d be equally as likely to call or raise preflop with this hand. Let’s suppose for argument’s sake I get 1 person to limp preflop from the middle position. He can be making this limp with pretty much anything, a small connector suited or not, ace small, deuces, etc from his middle position. After his limp, action folds to me. I have two choices, neither of which are “incorrect” but I like to mix play up.

I’m playing this hand, the question becomes, do I raise or do I call and what are the benefits of each? If I call, I most likely will get a completion from the SB and a check from the BB and will see the flop four handed. If I put in a standard raise (3-6 times blinds), I have a few different things going on. First, I am showing strength. Second, I might be able to steal the pot right there. Third, I may get a caller or two, which I have the benefit of acting last and have shown strength before the flop. A raise here would be put in for steal potential (preflop or on the flop), to coax more chips into the center which gives me and my hand better odds to draw after the flop providing two or three of them are calling, and protects the value of my raises down the road with monster hands.

I’m going to wrap this post up, as I need to go lay back down (cold medicine is kicking my ass). In closing the reasons I put a raise in:

1. To get more chips in the center of the table, sweetening the pot,
2. To attempt to steal when appropriate,
3. To isolate 1-2 callers with a strong hand that better holds up 1-2 handed,
4. (in the above situation with 8-9s, 1 caller mid position and I’m on the button), to protect the future value of my raises with premium hands.

I apologize that this post is not detailed further. Perhaps I will add to it later today. Otherwise, we’ll continue on this topic tomorrow.

Mike

Poker Strategy
Small Stakes Holdem

Originally, I was planning to write on betting. However, upon further reflection, I decided I needed to focus more on hand selection, and can maybe start on betting on Monday next week.

As usual, these posts are not meant to replace any book that we discuss, but instead its meant to supplement these books. I highly suggest running to the store or ordering online “Small Stakes Hold’em” by Ed Miller, et al. from twoplustwo publishing. Additionally, the posts are meant to be read in order, so I suggest first reading the post on basic poker hand groupings, and then on position.

The two biggest mistakes one makes before the flop is playing weak hands and calling raises with mediocre and potentially dominated hands. One needs to identify what kind of hand they hold when looking at your cards. Is it a hand that plays well with many opponents? Is it a hand that can stand on its own, and likes few opponents. Is the hand just straight up crap?

In the early positions, you should avoid playing hands that are not among the best hands out there. Specifically, this means avoid playing Ax (suited or not), kt, kj, q10, small pocket pairs, etc. Additionally, one should avoid “calling” with these hands. A raise typically says, “I have a strong hand.” Unless you’re in the big blind, you should be playing only hands that a normal skilled player would be comfortable reraising with. Hands such as kj, Ax are easily dominated and often make second best hands (especially when the raiser is holding AK, AJ, KK, JJ, etc. Don’t just think about what you’re holding next time you face a raise, think also about what your opposition is holding and how badly you could be dominated. You want to speculate (cheaply) with your speculative hands – which means throw them out to a raise and in the early positions. You’ll selectively play your “top pair” hands when facing a raise – varying with calls, and reraises. Same will stand true with the powerhouse hands, generally speaking.

Mailbag is tomorrow, as is the CheckRayz Leaderboard Challenge, where we’ll be giving away $100 and a free activated copy of pokertracker courtesy of the Beer Man, CheckRayz, and River Belle Poker. See you there!

Mike

Poker Strategy
Small Stakes Holdem

As a quick note, tomorrow I’ll be blogging on the championship at River Belle Poker for the CheckRayz Leaderboard Poker Tour first quarter 2006 season. The championship event is scheduled for 11pm EST tonight, and pits everyone who finished in the top ten in points against one another. The event will be a quarterly occurrence and is sponsored by River Belle Poker. The championship match is a $200 free poker tournament, and is one of CheckRayz and River Belle Poker’s ways of saying thank you to all our members for a great first quarter. It should prove to be an exciting event. The new quarter’s poker tour has just begun, so join us and play our free poker tourneys & money added poker tournaments today! Signup for the CheckRayz poker tour is free.

No that that’s out of the way, we’ll move on to our talk we began yesterday. These posts are not meant to replace any book that we discuss, but instead its meant to supplement these books. I highly suggest running to the store or ordering online “Small Stakes Hold’em” by Ed Miller, et al. from twoplustwo publishing. Additionally, the posts are meant to be read in order, so I suggest first reading the post on basic poker hand groupings.

Position

When I speak of position, I am referring to where one is sitting, relative to the button or the dealer. This is important to me for a few reasons, when hearing a story about a poker hand. The poker table works in a clockwise manner. The person to the immediate left receives the first cards, and the person to the right of the dealer receives the last cards (before the dealer does, of course). The two individuals to the immediate left of the dealer are known as the “blinds.” They’re “forced” to place bets, with the small blind typically placing a half bet, and the big blind placing the full bet on the table. Despite their “punishment,” they are the last to act in a betting round before the flop comes. This is a reward in a sense, as they get to observe how everyone else views their hand before making more of a decision. However, this reward is more so in the form of a double edged sword, as they already have money on the table. If someone “acts” like they really like their hand, the blind’s money is already out there, in the pot. Additionally, the blinds are the first to act after the flop. They will act before everyone else and will not have the luxury of first seeing everyone else’s actions once the flop comes.

Why is it important to know how everyone else acts prior to making a play, you ask? Simply put, if you have 7-6s and I have aces, and you act before I do. Wouldn’t you like to know that I am going to play as if I have aces? I know I’d want to know this. If I were holding the 7-6 suited and knew that someone who bet after me was playing like they have aces, I’d probably want to lay down the seventy six suit (unless I had “evil intentions” and could extract more money from them overplaying this hand – much later topic). In fact, if I were acting after aces guy, I’d lay down that hand without second thought. For this reason, one should play their hands according to position. Said another way, one should play based on the amount of information they have now and the amount of information that is still unknown.

The earlier we act in a betting round, the better our hand should be and the higher our standards must be. That being said, hands in the early positions (preflop) should be among our best hands, generally speaking. Hands played from the middle position should be medium to high quality, and hands from the late positions can be medium quality hands, all generally speaking and assuming a raise has not come in yet.

How do I know which hands are high quality, and which are not? I use three simple criteria:

1. Do they fall into the “top pair” category? (remember yesterday’s blog entry?)
2. Are they suited?
3. Are the cards connected?

Essentially, I am first asking myself if the hand can hold up on its own if my highest card hits the board and ends up being the highest card at the very end. Hands like A-J have “top pair” capability, while hands such as A-4 may not. Hands like KQ may, and K6 may not. The “top pair” question is the most important of the questions I ask myself on a “non paired” preflop hand.

When reflecting on the suited and connectivity, I’m asking if I can make a flush by having three “like suited” cards on the board (are both my cards of hearts, clubs, spades, or diamonds, or are they different suited?). Can I easily make a straight out of these cards? I can with King Jack, but cannot with King eight. I can with 10 nine, but cannot with ten six.

In summary, the more logical ways I have to win, the stronger my hand is and the earlier position I will play it in. So, I’d be inclined to play Ace Jack when I am first to act, but would refrain from playing ace nine when first to act. I’d play king queen suited, but not king seven suited. I want cards that will win if I make top pair, flop a straight, and/or a flush. If I do not have those three ways to win, generally speaking, and I am the first person to act in the preflop betting round, I throw my cards away.

If I am first to act in the preflop betting round, look down and see 3-3… To make things easier on my chipstack and I, I throw them away. But BeerGuy, they’re a pair! Yea, I know, but I need a third three to hit the board if I expect to win, so knowing that I pretty much have to I’d rather not. I would play them if I were in the mid to late position (most likely the late position though), and would be willing to play them pretty much only if the pot was not raised preflop (we’ll discuss raises and betting on Wednesday). Additionally, I’d be prepared to throw them away after the flop if my hand did not improve to three of a kind.

So, when acting early, you must have higher standards, when acting later, you may have lower standards, but you really want to get into the habit of evaluating your hand for top pair strength, suit, and connectivity each and every time you look at your cards. In fact, start practicing that now, asking yourself how likely you are to win with each hand if you flop top pair, or if you can easily flop a straight, or a flush. Doing that will help begin your evolution as a poker player.

As I said, tomorrow we’ll have a report on the CheckRayz championships, and we’ll continue this series on Wednesday with discussion on betting.

As I had mentioned yesterday, my “target audience” is the new to inexperienced poker player who is looking to improve and organize his or her game. That being said, I am going to help that person all week long organize their game through a series of “beginner” posts. Today, we’ll go over hand groupings, tomorrow we’ll do position, Tuesday and Wednesday betting, and Thursday pot odds.

For starters, for each starting hand, there are characteristics that a hand has. Can… or does this hand win often without improving? Does this hand typically win as top pair? I ask myself what kind of hand I have every time I look at my cards. Identifying the characteristics your hand has is of paramount importance. David Sklansky broke the starting hands into groups. While I like his hand groupings, it can sometimes be too difficult, especially when you’re either new to the game, or new to the “organized game.”

Ed Miller, in the book “Small Stakes Hold ‘em” (twoplustwo publishing) attempts to simplify this.

Top Pair Hands

Top pair hands consist of two big off suit cards, such as Ace Jack, ace ten, king jack. These hands play better against fewer opponents, can often win with top pair and sometimes win without improving when heads up. Typically these hands will need to improve to win when facing three or more opponents. Keep in mind, it takes a better hand to “call a raise” with than it does to initiate a raise with these hands.

Speculative Hands

Small to medium coordinated cards, pocket fives, seven six suited are speculative hands. Thse hands MUST IMPROVE in order to win. By their nature they require a cheap flop and several opponents to hold up and be long term profitable. The speculative connectors are not hands that one plays out when only flopping one pair.

Let me repeat that. If you’re five way going into a flop, holding an eight seven and you flop king eight three, you’re wise to fold if bet into. I don’t care how many times you see the seven come on the turn or another eight, you’re wise to fold (unless situationally planning to make a play on a later street) – nuff said.

Powerhouse Hands

Large pocket pairs – AA, KK, and large suited cards such as AJs. These hands have several ways to win (flush, straight, set, two pair, etc), and typically play better against few opponents but also stand up well against several.

Its important to know what kind of hand you have, how the hand “works,” and what you can or cannot profitably (long term) do with each type of hand in each type of situation. Tomorrow we’ll build upon the hand types with talk on position. Keep in mind, these posts are not meant to replace any book that we discuss, but instead its meant to supplement these books. I highly suggest running to the store or ordering online “Small Stakes Hold’em” by Ed Miller, et al. from twoplustwo publishing.

In talking to a friend (“SuperDonk”) a few days ago, we were engaging in poker talk. Of course, I’m always trying to help out, similar to the manner that Shark often helps me out (we talk poker, and he shoots me out helpful nuggets of information, which I later see how they are both relevant and imperative to improving my game).

“SuperDonk” was describing a hand he was in a few nights earlier during one of our tourneys. I stop him, asking what he had, where the blinds were, how was his stack relative to other people’s stacks, where were the loose players, the weak players, etc. Pretty much typical information that one needs when getting the context of a hand.

Unfortunately, I had to stop him when he answered the “what he had,” asking him what the hell he was doing playing the 3-6 UTG. His response “they were suited and I was sick of seeing my folded hand hit the flop hard.”

I’m not sure why people cannot divorce themselves from their hand once they lay it down. Yet, so many people tease themselves (and later trick themselves) by rabbit hunting or mentally continue in the hand after they’ve folded. I told him if he’s trying to do more playing and less fishing, he cannot play shit like that, first of all. Second, he cannot worry himself with what he correctly threw away after the flop comes. This is a primary reason a knowledgeable player turns into a bad player (there are a few, but this is a biggie for the newbie).

When the flop comes, and you’ve thrown your hand away, DO NOT SECOND GUESS YOURSELF AFTER THE FLOP. Don’t remember that 3-6-6 came down when you discarded your 3-6 preflop UTG. The cards don’t remember, so neither should you. Instead, focus on more important and profitable things, such as who does this flop help? How do those still in the hand act? Try to anticipate everyone’s actions, guess their hands, break down their play, figure out who is weak, who is aggressive, who is tight and who is loose in their play. Study the things that matter to improve your game, as oppose to corrupting it via “card memory inclusion.” Remember, when you’re not busy sweating yourself, there are lots to learn from others. You profit most from people making mistakes after the flop. Don’t enter making a mistake, as you’ll start off in the red.

Nuff said…