Okay, lets start this blog off with a poker heaven story.
I'm playing a $10 rebuy turbo and have $40 invested to win a seat in another Sunday game: I seem to be on a roll with these satellites, but I've invested twice as much as usual, and turbos turn into lucky all-in crapshoots, so I;d like to cash in my investment. Blinds are huge with 20 left, 1500/3000, and I'm in 4th with 30000 chips and KK in fifth position, wondering how I'm gonna have to play KK to get paid, when UTG (15k) hits the bet pot button (8000) and #4 (25k) goes all in in front of me. No way #4 has AA...I'm all in too!. UTG calls and THEY BOTH SHOW AK.
My K draw is dead (long live the king), but these two can''t catch their 1.5 live A (no I won't do the math) with 78k and 1 locked, I cruise through to the final table and let the shorter stacks battle it out....7 pay out, so no problem....I only ran into a fellow (sister, really) big stack I limped in A10 with with the shortest stack in the blinds, and she didn't know she was supposed to call and check down, so my A10 went in alone with 22 and couldn't catch...no matter, the game was over the next hand, and I ironically, we all throw in on the last, meaningless hand with me holding...you guessed it....KK....and see AA on the flop and lose the meaningless monster pot to AQ. LOL, as they say in cyberland....
Phil Gordon actually has an amusing and instructive anecdote in his red book on tourneys involving a hot female player as to why you should check down in that situation in a satellite....he's not all bad, he's just simple poker for the masses...he must be saving his tricks for himself. I think I'm just jealous because I'm short.
This is perhaps a good time to provide my musings on check downs, especially in the context of early middle play. In the vast majority of the time in a tournament. CHECKING DOWN THE SHORT STACK in a 3 or 4 handed pot IS STUPID AND A BAD IDEA. But PokerMonster, you say, I bet into a dry pot once and the other guy yelled at me! Checking down is good etiquette!
CHECKING DOWN IS BAD POKER:
- The only player who wants the check down is the other guy, who has a draw on the flop.
- To your surprise, he will bet on the river against your flopped set, and you'll find yourself all-in and beat by a flush or a straight.
- If you've put shortie on a weak A, and you've hit top pr, you have shortie beat. If he flopped a set himself, or came in with AA or KK, he's going to win anyway. Let's keep in mind that if short stack called a big stack's raise all-in, big stack may have been just a bully with trash or a trouble hand, and maybe you should have pushed him out of the pot in the first place, because shortie made his call with a hand that can beat the bully or has some "showdown value" like a small pp hoping to race with A high
- If you've made a BIG hand on the flop, a value bet might just piss off your "etiquette first" opponent for breaching etiquette and get you paid off.
- If the flop is miserable (recall how I got AJ and AQ to pay off my KK in an earlier blog) and it looks like you made a bad move, you may need to bet large to protect what is left of your chips (especially if you've called with a stack who has you well covered...he will be happy to build a side pot with you)
- Truly evil and sneaky players (aka ME) will happily make the "just call" with AA just to get a side pot going by giving another person good odds for their money to enter the pot. This is, in fact, a good idea. I HAVE OFTEN BEEN GLAD MY AA HAD A SIDE POT when the short stack sucks out for the main pot. (like I said, shortie may have done a fair share of trapping himself, and may have the best of it).
- If you have a monster preflop hand, and you make the right size here the big stack who initially called (lets assume he's the loose and lucky type, and he thinks pot odds first) may have to call a raise which will commit you both to the pot on the next bet.
- Shortie is a very good player who suffered a bad beat to get short and is down on his luck (aka ME, the suckout magnet): better to gang up and get him out than triple him up and make him dangerous again, and these players, brought back to medium stack life, can and will come back to haunt you, often brilliantly, and for all your chips. Make sure you and your fellow caller are of the same opinion and this isn't a double trap, if you can.
- Often at the money bubble a VERY SHORT STACK has finally limped down to little more than the BB, and has hit the blind or is about to be anted out with the BB on his tail, getting that money bubble OVER WITH SO WE CAN PLAY SOME POKER AGAIN (with a cheap call) will lead to a genuine check down. Same thing applies at the final table in the same circumstances (because at these stages every player out means more for you)
I define "early middle play" as this vague time frame between when the blinds reach 1/10th of the starting stack through the period when antes kick in (for a typical 1500 or 2500 game, 150/300 will level up to 150/300 with 25 ante), and up to the point where the AVERAGE stack creeps ever closer to 10-15 times the BB (Crisis time---late middle play).
Okay, you survived to the first break. Have a good look around the table. To your left is the lucky monster who seemed to lure everyone all -in when he flopped the nuts, and has a crushing stack....several people who doubled and tripled up...and a smattering of short stacks with 2000 chips or less. Some of the bigger stacks were patient, some aggressive, some sucked out with mistakes and haven't pushed their luck since. Some of the short stacks may be good players victimized by bad beats, some may be careful, tight players who simply didn't have the guts to know when to bluff or when second pair or the low pp was good...and have taken down only small pots because they don't know how to be a monster/magnet, and simply squandered small gains seeing a flop and then folding at the sight of any over card.
You have seen the pros on tv, playing final tables, playing middle pair like it was top pr A kicker, and calling an all -in without hesitation and with the best of it. You may have seen Antonio Esfandiari play KK in position against Michael Mizrachi with 2 hearts and an A on board in a raised pot and correctly put MM on the flush draw, but no Ace, and push his chips in to double up.
THIS IS THE TIME TO PLAY WITH THE HEART OF A LION AND THE MIND OF A PSYCHIC.
This is tighten up time for the average player with the average to better stack. Middle stacks don't want to squander what they've earned. And both big stacks and short stacks will exploit the middle stack's tightness.
Let's put you in the shoes of the triple -pper. You found one fish early for all his chips (tasty!), and used your economic leverage to grind up 6 or seven pots without any serious payoffs.
As the blinds slowly rise, you will notice that with 2 or 3 limp ins, that pot increases to a value that would have been a damn big pot an hour ago. For a short stack, 3 limpers is a goldmine of weakness waiting to give up a meager investment for a pot which will give him time to find a real opportunity. Expect shortie in late position to steal, probably with an all -n move: only the trappers out there have enough value in their hand or the big stacks enough equity, to justify the gamble. Big stacks will do the same thing to you Mr. Tight Limp: "you want to see a flop? for cheap? Why don't I put you all in and see how you like your hand?"
Big stacks will raise often to 450 or so with 50/100 blinds because a stack with 3000 chips needs a very strong hand to call and a monster to raise. They are more than happy to randomly push off short stacks, and the good ones have found their targets.
You may be a middle stack. THINK LIKE A BIG STACK.
Start with a simple rule. If this is a hand you would only limp in in early or middle position, RAISE IT or FOLD IT. You can no longer limp in safely, and 3 limps = one big bet steal.
If you raise it, you have a few advantages:
- You are representing a stronger hand than you have, which will be very useful if you get called;
- suddenly short stack is scared off unless really desperate or was begging for the raise to showdown a hand.
- You are protecting your hand from a BB special flopping huge against what you would normally expect to have been your flop.
- You have to understand your table. You know who the tight, predictable middle stacks are. They may not be all that experienced, and not realize that limpers will be prosecuted (and persecuted) at this level.
- Short stacks who are all-in frequently will avoid you, and so will patient ones, but if they are in the blinds, be cautious. If one limped in early position, be cautious. A limping short stack in early position either he forgot he was short and limped a hand he would normally limp, or he has a premium hand and is begging to spring the trap (I have been both). These players either have invested or are about to invest a significant portion of their stacks into the blinds, and can be easily pot committed.
- Big stacks come in various personality types. Most will call a modest raise with an interesting hand in the BB or in position. Very aggressive ones control middle stacks with reraises with or without a hand. Some are very patient and reasonable with their play (they play good hands very well and maximize payment with huge hands, instead of relying on bullying and bluffing). Ideally, your have position on the table big stack, and he has folded, because often the only way to outplay the big stack post-flop is with a bet he can't call (which usually commits your stack to the pot, all in or not)
- Rather than go into detail, Sklansky and Miller's book on hold'em theory, as well as a million hits on google, discuss Sklansky-Chubokov numbers which are ratings for all in hands. I won't bother you with the math, but it is worth understanding these numbers. You may have seen big stacks make calls with awfully bad hands. I am not advocating these donkeys' ultra-loose play, only illustrating a point. If you must raise a flop-seeing hand, raise with something that will most likely have showdown value or two live cards based on the range of hands, especially, you expect short stacks to call in case one re-raises you.
- The classic desperate short stack has a limited range of showdown hands, since he expects a "pot odds" call most of the time. ANY ACE. TWO MIXED PAINT. ANY POCKET PAIR. For the truly desperate, TWO RANDOM CARDS, usually one is PAINT
- (sorry, PAINT refers to face cards, and I use the term MIXED PAINT to refer to the whole mix of K down to J (and sometimes 10) when they are unpaired in the hole)
- Naturally, you don't want to raise ANY ACE other than AK or AQ (maybe AJ) if you feel it is likely to be called by a short stack, but you DO if this is not a large risk. Playing two large cards on a limp in invites the SB and BB to make a hand on any medium-low flop, sometimes a huge 2 pr with 2 random cards to go with your kicker-high flop You will note I have given two examples of raising AJ and A10 in early position. It is for this reason that I do so, as well as force other plays to define their hand preflop a bit)
- Given that any pocket pair will be raised by a short stack, often vastly overbet for its actual value: the smaller the PP, often, the bigger the raise sometimes. This is because they are difficult to play post flop, and the short stack is the short stack because he doesn't have those skills. This chapter intends to discuss those skills. Generally speaking, the hands we are talking about are ones I have already discussed: Q10, K10 KJ, J9 (rarely, if you like a gamble: I like a gamble) QJ can very likely be two live against a PP or ANY ACE, offering you 40% to 50% to win your screwed up raise.
- Similarly, raising a PP which you would normally just limp in earlier has 50% odds to beat any two random overcards, and it's never terrible to win a small pre-flop pot raising them. While I raised 44 in middle in my turbo satellite late to knock out a final 20 player on a coinflip, I am generally speaking of 99, 88, 77, maybe 66. DEFINITELY RAISE 10 10 and JJ. Feel free to limp your smaller PP,s and you can decide, if a short stack pushes against it, whether the size of his stack justifies the guaranteed coin flip or worse. 10 10 to 66 have the advantage of dominating the majority of A-x combinations, all of which get pushed by short stacks, and, ideally, your 77 just got called by A7.
- Raise and call these hands the same way as you raise with AK or QQ. Your opponents will have to respect that you may have such a premium hand. Ideally, you can outplay someone on the flop without showing down the hand, and maintain the illusion, but the reverse is also true. Exposing the odd "questionable" raise might just get your AA re-raised later.
- Make these raises in any position, keeping in mind that the earlier your position, and the more desperate the field in front of you, or the wilder the table, the more likely you will get a playback you do not like.
- Using these hands in late position as a "blind steal" is intended to defeat the Phil Gordon generality "Push back with any Ace when a raise opens the pot on the button or the cut- off( the seat just before the button)" because these hands are not garbage, and can defeat "any ace", and your hand selection tries to minimize the prospect of being dominated. I am not a garbage blind stealer, but I have been known to do it rarely when required or opportunity strikes.
- Keep in mind that it is sometimes the case that everyone folded to you in the cut off, where you have 88 or AJ waiting, because all the good hands were concentrated in from of you. I have done the AK all-in here (or in the SB) on more than a few occassions to have AA and KK look me up.
- Mix up your bet sizes, and focus that size on your intentions: if you want heads-up action, raise a limper 3-4x the blinds, and you will likey get the field to fold to the one limper. This is ideal for the hands we are discussing. If you are stealing the blinds, the best people in the blinds are medium stacks and tight, patient players. Only raise a truly pot committed BB or SB with a hand that has some real showdown value against a desperate player, because you will be called and garbage exposed will mean no respect for your next steal. At least a decent ace, two mixed paint, or a pocket pair. If you want to push a big stack out of the pot who is in the blinds with a short stack, your raise may have to be enough to commit you to the pot, which says, "If you coma knockin' I'll coma rockin".
- Mix up where you raise in terms of positions.
Now, every time he made the same early play, which was often, we all either called or raised, and he was forced to fold or play a draw out of position. He wasn't raising with trash, he was raising with interesting drawing cards and using his early position raise to control the next round of betting and undermine the benefit of position his opponent had. He could represent a made hand while bluffing or drawing. This is Gus Hanson stuff, but Gus don't show his stuff unless he shows down the draw with the nuts for all your chips.
Ironically, when he did this UTG raise with AA, he was called by short stack with 66 and got sucked out on, and eventually was forced to gamble with hands all in preflop just to play, because he refused to mix up his play. His stack went up and down. Sometimes he sucked out on QQ himself. This guy, none the less, became a target for short stacks to double up (including me at one point...I didn't exactly say I won the damn thing) all because of one display of what he was raising with and a lack of creativity or a real poker face (he always grimaced when he was raised and folded until he start to just resign himself to a show down suck out attempt preflop on every hand)
I have already discussed raising PPs in the early middle rounds, but don't always raise them. Two prime examples of how to play a small PP in an unraised pot.
Blinds are 200-400, the table is still tight, very little theft, there is one limper and I, in a moderate stack of about 12,000 (we started with 5000), see 55 in the hole. I limp this in. Two later positions call and the blinds call or check.
The flop is 10-7-7 rainbow.
No one looks enthoused, but I am interested. This is a trouble flop. the only person likely to have a 7 is the SB or BB, who both got cheap looks. The only one likely to bet has a 10, and then only moderately, as the BB special is a huge risk. I have a solid image. The blinds and limper check, I check, and the later positions do the same. No 10 came out betting.
The turn is a 2 of spades, making a spade flush draw, Check Check Check. The big stack in late position looks DISGUSTED with this board. Good. He is the one most likely to play back. I am satisfied there is no 7 out there, and no 10, and bet out 2200 confidently. I get all folds.
I was probably best hand there, but more importantly, I had a read of the full table. And I represented A7 suited, whose limped-in flush expedition had caught a huge hand, and the trap needed protection from a free flush for someone else on the river. Only the big stack was likely to pay that price for 18% left on a flush draw with a board paired and a bet that looks like I spring from a trap.
With caution, precision betting, and solid image, I took down a pot on a very scary board. This is how a low PP needs to be played.
Another prime example.
Last Saturday, again 200-400 blinds, I'm chipped up and table captain, in the SB. UTB and #4(Early Man) both limp in (does he ever get a hand in late position?). The rest of the table folds and I check my hole cards.
88. Nice hand. Terrible position.
I limp in too, and the BB checks
Flop is 733, two diamonds.
I like this flop. Nice flop for 88 with the overpair. I look up. I seem to be the only one with a "nice flop" look on his face. I reach for chips, and watch my opponents (I should mention I am at seat 2 at the time , on the same side as the dealer and a little offset from the edge. This, and 9 are great seats because you can see most of the player's facial expressions as they are across the table). I calculate my bet, and decide roughly pot size will do: 1800 get dramatically splashed into the pot (I love real chips. Play for real, folks) I get 3 folds, and Early Man says, "You must have had the 3. You were representing the 3"
"Nope, two eights" I tell him, and show it.
"I had you beat, but I couldn't call. You had the 3."
The player to my left, a spunky 32ish female with a lot of game, wonders why I didn't raise it.
"I didn't want to get caught in a trap" I respond.
This was a lie.
I LOVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO LIMP A SMALL PP THROUGH THE SB OR BB.
My hand is completely disguised. If I flop a huge set, I can act the part of the disappointed SB or BB holder and set up a huge check-raise trap, especially at this 200/400/50 ante stage, where short stacks make their moves, and pots start to be taken down post-flop with larger bets.
If the flop is nasty, there is no risk. I was paying the blind anyway.
Early Man didn't say, but he must have limped 99. Had I raised here, he calls at least, and maybe I can outplay him on that 7 high flop, maybe I pay off, but I can't represent that 3 protecting a flush draw, can I?
At this stage SNEAKY AND EVIL with hands that can bust out a huge pot for you GETS YOU PAID.
These are tough, 4- and 5-handed examples of playing a small pocket pair well without hitting the set. We have already discussed hitting the set and using your read of a strong over-pair to get paid in full.
88 and 99, raised, can represent a huge range of hands. They won't always hit, but you don't want to give up a pot just because you see an overcard. Here's where your well honed hand reading psychic abilities will either win you the pot, or get you killed.
And here's where a reputation as a SNEAKY AND EVIL player WHO GETS PAYS pay off most when in fact what you want is a clean take of a reasonable pot post-flop and not a showdown.
Okay, you raised 77 early and got the one caller in position you wanted. Lets say you didn't like the call. The guy is tight and must have a hand.
The tight guy is cautious and you must use his caution against him.
Lets put him (accurately) on JJ.
Lets give us a nasty flop.
A -8 - 4 two hearts.
If you continue your bet here (lets hope you have him stacked) with a solid 3/4 pot bet reasonably quickly and confidently, (again, use that chip counting exercise to buy you time to read, live or on-line, and then make a PRECISION BET (not just press the bet pot button in a hurry, that is the wrong bet. It always looks like a bluff).
If your read was dead right, JJ has to fold.
OR
Check that flop.
If he makes a timid bet, consider a big check-raise. But watch out. The timid bet disguises a monster hand from the tricky player. But don't play this hand this way against Mr. Tricky. Play it against Mr. Tight and Predictable. See what I did against QQ with the K on board holding QK as an example from an earlier blog. The fact that I made my hand is irrelevant.
Lets put Mr. Tight on AK or AQ now. This guys so tight he folds AJ all the time against any resistance! And he must catch a flop or he caves, routinely. He is not pot committed.
Here's your flop.
J -8 -2 rainbow.
Play the same hand the same way as if you put him on JJ and the flop caught the A Just don't ALWAYS check raise or ALWAYS bet in these situations, or you suffer the fate of Loose and Lucky and all predictable players. You will walk into a trap.
Now, here's how to do it wrong, to end the chapter.
Its last Sundays big money on-line game, and I suffered through the slowest, tightest starting table in the early going. These tables suck. No chips move, and the play is so slow you can't see enough hands to find one worth playing yourself. I have "chipped up" to 3000 from 2500 after an hour of dull play.
So, its early middle play and I have employed the above strategies to out play some tight players and grind up to a reasonable 5500 chips. Blinds are now 75/150
Its so tight I can still limp, and UTG I have 77, and limp it in. There are no raisers. The BB is the biggest stack at the table. I don't know how all that tight action chipped her up to 11k, but it did.
Flop is 9-6-2 and BB makes a bet of 200. I put her on a weak 9, and decide to test her by playing back. I raise to 875 and get the call.
The Turn is a K which creates a flush draw, and she checks.
I decide to represent the early bluff which caught the K, and make a bet, but I sized this bet poorly. I bet 1200 into a pot of about 2200.
This is a poor bet. Because this is a good player, a tourney I had to earn my way in, it was too cautious. The right bet here is all in.
I am called, and on the river (its not a 7), my opponent makes a PERFECT BET. I have 3200 left. Her bet has nothing to do with the size of the pot. It is 1600. I am left with a choice. I have a playable 3200 left, having squandered strong grinding play, and can fold to try again, losing table image in doing so, but alive, or I can commit 77 and my tourney with several overcards on the board, and having made my lady on the 9 in the first place. If I go all in, she is priced in and will call. She clearly has me overplaying my small PP and is begging the all in.
This is the message she communicated. "I dare you to make your move, but you can't bluff your way of this mess. I will be calling."
NB, I typed, and mucked. I never made a pot again.
We will discuss strong play out of the blinds, like this, when I continue this chapter.
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