Solid Foundations - Part 1 / By: Lou Krieger / Part 1
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Patience
This concept is certainly related to the "be selective" portion of the "be selective; be aggressive" mantra. Just how selective you should be can vary, however, depending on the texture of the game and your current table image. More on table image later. For now, let's talk about selectivity as it relates to "be selective; be aggressive."
Although few players you come in contact with will dispute the need to play selective poker, what most players consider selective and what you should consider selective are two entirely different things.
Many players are fond of hands like K♠ T♦ or Q♥ J♣ from early position, regardless of how aggressive the game might be. They'll every raise with neither hesitancy nor trepidation. After all, in their value system, any two cards ten-or-above are powerful holdings, and worth getting involved with regardless of the circumstances.
Trust me on this. If you're holding either of those two hands, and someone raises, do you think you have the best hand and are a favorite? I don't think so, and I'd throw away those hands before cold-calling a raise for two bets. I wouldn't be any more confident either, if I called one bet, was raised by a player to my left, and had to call that raise before seeing the flop. I'd do it, but I wouldn't like it.
When you call a raise and the flop misses you entirely, that's not much of a problem. While it might cost two bets, it's a hand that's easy to get away from. The real problem arises when you catch part of the flop. Suppose you called a raise with K♠ T♦ and the flop contains a king. Now the raiser bets. Do you like your hand? It's a tough call precisely because you really don't have much to go on when you try to decide whether you have the best hand.
When he came out betting your opponent may have been bluffing with a hand like A-Q, or semibluffing with J-J, but he might also have a hand like A-K. You can't be sure what he has, and consequently no idea about where you stand in relation to your opponent.
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While cautious play will minimize any loss, it will also minimize any winnings.
If you play aggressively, as you would if you knew you had the best hand, you'll
win more in the long run, even though your big hands would occasionally be run
down by players who are prone to chase you.
If your opponent holds a king, his kicker is likely to be better than yours, since you can be fairly sure he didn't raise before the flop with K-9. If you have a hand like K-T and your opponent holds K-Q or A-K, other than some odd flops that will result in a split pot or a miracle flop that gives you a straight, there are only three cards in the deck that can win it for you.
Yet many players in your game probably treat K-T as though it were a top-notch hand. It's not. Sure, it's a hand you should see the flop with if you're in late position and no one has raised. In fact, if you are in late position and no one has called the blinds, it's frequently a raising hand. But it is not a hand you can cold-call a raise with, nor is it a hand you can comfortably play from early position if you are in a game where frequent raises are the rule rather than the exception.
It is a troublesome hand. So are hands like A-J, A-T, Q-J, Q-T, J-T, and A-x suited. While they have their place in your repertoire of playable hands, they are hands that have to be played carefully. This is where patience is a virtue. If you play these hands indiscriminately, they will put a dent in your bankroll. I know these hands look good to many hold'em players, but believe me, when you are dealt these hands in the wrong position, or in a ram-and-jam game, you need the patience and discipline to throw them away.
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Position
In poker, position means power. It is almost always advantageous to act after you've had the benefit of seeing what your opponents do. Their actions provide clues about the real or implied values of their hands. This is true in every poker game, and is particularly important in fixed position games, like hold'em and Omaha. In these games position is fixed for the entire hand, unlike stud, where it can vary from one betting round to another.
Suppose you're sitting in eighth position in a fixed-limit hold'em game and raise before the flop with a pocket pair of jacks only to see A♥ Q♦ 6♠ flop. Now the player in seat three comes out betting and is raised by a player in seat five. What should you do? Unless you have good reason to believe that the bettor and raiser are both bluffing - and that's very, very unlikely - you no longer have the best hand and should release your pair.
Let's examine another scenario with the same cards. Suppose it was checked on the flop, and again on the turn. Now you can probably bet your pair of jacks and take the pot, or simply check behind your opponents and give someone with a hopeless hand a chance to bluff at the pot on the river.
But suppose you were first to act with the same hand. What should you do with your jacks? You can bet, and probably take the pot if no one holds an ace or queen, but remember this: In many lower limit games players will play any ace, regardless of the kicker.
Betting gives you a chance to steal the pot, but if someone holds a better hand you can be sure you'll be called - or maybe even raised. Because you were forced to act first, with no advance knowledge or what your opponents are holding, or any clue as to how they might play their hands or respond to your actions, you are forced to guess what the right play might be. Even if no one holds an ace or king, you might wind up throwing your hand away if someone bets and you are forced to consider calling in the face of two overcards.
All in all, this is not a good situation to be in, regardless of position. But you are certainly safer acting last. All early position offers is an opportunity to steal the pot by bluffing at it. This, however, is a high-risk strategy, since you might be up against a better hand, and find that you've been raised for your troubles.
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Coping When All Goes Wrong
I get mail from poker players all over the world. Most don't write to celebrate
their successes. To the contrary, much of the e-mail I receive recites some
variation of the following tale of woe. "I did everything right," they begin. "I picked the right seat in the best game, and played quality starting hands in proper position. And you know what, my aces got cracked. Not only that, I'd flop a set and lose to someone who caught two running cards to a straight. That happens time after time, and I lose when I really should have won. It seems like the fates are conspiring against me. What can I do about it?"
Unfortunately, I have no magic elixir that eliminates the short term fluctuations everyone experiences when they play poker. But it's little consolation when you've been buffeted by the vicissitudes of fate to realize that you're not the only poor soul tossing about in the same boat. You want out, and you want out now. But when all seems lost, you need to remember this: There is opportunity in adversity. In fact, losing provides the best opportunity to examine and refine your own game.
Most players do not spend much time in careful self-examination when they are winning. It's too much fun to stack the chips and revel in the money that's rolling in. Ah, but when we lose, that's when we tend toward introspection. We go over and over each decision we made, wondering how we could have improved it. "What could I have done differently," we ask over and over. Losing turns us from expansive extroverts into brooding introverts whose inner-directed thoughts dredge us back over the same ground time and time again, in search of reasons and strategies that will prevent losses like these from ever happening again.
While no guarantees about future losses are available, there is one course of action I'd recommend to any player mired in a losing streak. Just change gears. We all change gears during a poker game, sometimes consciously, as a planned strategy, and sometimes we just wind up playing differently than we began. When you're losing, consider gearing down. Way down. This is a time for lots of traction and not much speed; a time for playing only the best starting hands. Not marginal hands, not good - or even very good - starting hands, but only the best hands. That means you'll be throwing away hand after hand, and it takes discipline to do this, particularly when some of these hands would have won.
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When losing, most players want to minimize fluctuations in their bankrolls and
grind out some wins. Gearing down accomplishes this, since you are not playing
any of the "close call" hands you normally might. By playing hands that have a greater chance of winning, you are minimizing the fluctuations that occur with speculative hands. Of course, you're also cutting down your average hourly win rate, but it's a trade-off, since you are less apt to find yourself on a roller coaster ride. You can still win as much; it will just take more hours at the table.
Gearing down also prevents your opponents from kicking you when you're down. When you are winning, your table image is quite different than when you're losing. Win and you can sometimes bluff with impunity. You simply can't do that when you're losing. After all, your opponents have watched you lose hand after hand. They believe you're going to keep losing. When you bet they'll call - or even raise - with hands they might have thrown away if you had been winning steadily.
Since every hand is totally independent of hands played before, this kind of strategy has absolutely no mathematical validity, but try telling that to human nature. In many games, especially low limit games, players are heavily influenced by what they've experienced lately. Never mind that you may be the biggest winner in that game over the past year. If you've lost the last two times they've played with you, and you're losing now, they're going to take a shot at you.
In the eyes of the beholder your table image is shattered, and it doesn't pay to begin rectifying this image until you've won a few big pots. Once they begin to perceive you as a winner, you have once again opened up the door to the psychological ploys in your arsenal. Then you can bluff, and begin to play some borderline hands, because to a certain extent it is the way your opponents perceive you that provides the necessary face validity to these ploys that enable them to work often enough to show a profit.
Summary
Learn the basics and know them cold. That's job one. Lay down a solid foundation for strong play. Be selective about the hands you play. Build a set of starting standards you can rely on, and stick to them - even when your intuition is loudly shouting to do something else. Regardless of the game, if your goal is to win money, then don't look for reasons to play hands or you'll talk yourself into playing too many of them. Instead, stay away from troublesome, marginal hands. But when you do get involved in a hand, play aggressively. If you've got the best of it, make your opponents pay to draw out on you. Sometimes they will, but most of the time they won't - and that extra money in the pot will wind up in your stack of chips.
Be patient. Wait for good starting hands and then play them aggressively. But avoid getting trapped because you played a troublesome hand from early position, and then are forced to call a raise with a hand you suspect might not be the best hand even if the flop hits it. If you lose or lack patience you'll stray far afield from your goal of selectivity.
Play position. Remember: Position is power. Take full advantage of it. And when all is going wrong, hunker down, play solid cards and nothing but solid cards, and wait for the storm to blow over.
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