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The
G-Spot: Check Your Ego at the Door
By Tony
Guerrera
Poker hand analysis
and poker playing can be an ego-driven enterprise, as will any setting
involving competition, money, glitz, glamour, and the chance to eviscerate
and crush one’s foes. Our egos swell when we bluff successfully, and
they shrink when our opponents bluff successfully. We feel like kings
of the world when opponents make losing calls against us, and we feel
like donkeys when we make losing calls. Ego pitfalls are everywhere.
Example
of Ego Running the Show
Suppose you’re in
a shorthanded game and just crushing it: raise, continuation bet, everyone
folds. Next case! Suddenly, a new player arrives, and he starts preempting
all your bully behavior and bluff runs. At this point, it’s natural
to feel thwarted. Frustration blooms, and you find yourself thinking,
“Who the hell does this dickweed think he is? This is my game, not his.
I’m gonna show this bitch what’s up!” Next thing you know, you’re making
decisions that are purely ego-based. All strategic thought processes
have halted and then, well, you’re doomed. Especially since you’re playing
shorthanded, where the pace of play amplifies small errors and turns
tiny leaks into flash floods.
Avoid Value
Judgments
A big part of ego
in poker is assigning labels to players. Player A is a donkey. Player
B is a fish. Player C is horrible. These labels do nothing to help you
while you’re playing. Identifying a player as good or bad doesn’t tell
you how to play against that person. All it does is inflate your ego
when you’re against an opponent you perceive to be bad, and possibly
prompt you to process with unwarranted caution against someone you perceive
to be as good. Instead of using ego-based value judgments, shift your
thoughts to focus solely on betting patterns and ways you can profitably
exploit the game you’re in.
No Ego Ever
To play poker hands
profitably, we must check our egos at the door. Let others take the
glory road. Strive to be the emotionless assassin whose only interest
is to kill as efficiently as possible. Treat all bets, bluffs, and confrontations
as mere points of information: information you can feed back into your
game to improve your performance and your results. It will help you
detach from ego, and from emotional investments of all kinds, if you
stop thinking of outcomes in terms of good and bad. Just think of what’s
going on without assigning value judgments because value judgments are
bad. And once you leave the tables, continue to leave your ego behind,
so you can perform clear-headed post-game analysis away from the tables.
Tony
Guerrera is the author of Killer
Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com
The
G-Spot: Sizing Your Preflop Raises
By Tony
Guerrera
When it comes to
preflop raises in no-limit hold’em, many players look for rigid guidelines.
They want rules such as “raise to three big blinds if you’re the first
to enter the pot and add an additional big blind for each limper.” With
only 169 possible starting hands, such guidelines for preflop play are
seemingly possible. However, no two games are the same when playing
poker hands. You should have some basic guidelines for when you’re facing
unknown opponents. But once you get a better feeling for how your opponents
play, you should optimize your preflop play accordingly.
What’s the
Going Rate?
As soon as you sit
at a table, your only job is to acquire as much information as possible.
One key piece of information will be the going rate for preflop raises.
See how much other players are raising to and how the players at your
table respond to raises of different amounts. In many online games,
opening for a raise to three big blinds will usually win you the blinds
uncontested or leave you shorthanded postflop. Meanwhile, in many live
games, opening to three big blinds may result in you being in a multiway
pot postflop (the $100NL, $200NL, and $400NL games at Commerce, LA’s
Friendliest Casino, immediately come to mind).
What Do
You Want to Accomplish?
Knowing how your
opponents respond to raises of varying sizes, you can then focus on
answering the question you should always ask yourself before taking
an action at the poker table: “what do I want to accomplish?” Whenever
you do anything at the poker table, you need a reason.
If you want to take
the pot immediately because you have a good hand and the pot is already
large, but you don’t like the postflop playability of your hand, then
make your preflop raise large enough to make everyone fold. If you have
a big pocket pair, you’d usually prefer to be heads-up or three-handed,
meaning that you should make the raise that will get you one or two
callers. By thinking about your preflop raises through this filter,
you’ll be focusing on goals first and raise sizes second instead of
solely focusing on raise sizes.
Be Flexible
and Take Everything In
Many people complain
about certain tables, saying things like, “I raise to three big blinds
with my aces, get six callers, and someone always seems to suck out
on me.” My response to these people is always, “change the size of your
preflop raises so that less people call.” Properly sizing your preflop
raises, like pretty much everything else in poker, is ultimately about
being flexible and being aware of all the variables at play.
Tony
Guerrera is the author of Killer
Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com
The
G-Spot: How Much Should You Buy in for in a No-Limit Game?
By Tony Guerrera
Most online poker
rooms give you the option of buying into a new no-limit hold’em game
for anywhere from 20 big blinds to 100 big blinds. If you play in brick-and-mortar
casinos, you’ll encounter games with similar buy-in restrictions, but
you’ll also encounter games in which you can buy-in for as much as you
want.
Poker writers have
traditionally advocated having as many chips on the table as possible
if you’re better than your opponents. In fact, I’ve been one of those
writers (check out my book, Killer Poker By The Numbers for
example). I’ve also been a poker writer with a reputation for preaching
flexibility and the willingness to adapt to the perpetually changing
poker climate, and staying true to that philosophy, my thoughts regarding
buy-ins have evolved.
What’s Your
Goal When Playing No-Limit Hold’em?
When playing no-limit
hold’em poker hands, your goal is to optimize your hourly win rate.
Fine, playing should also be fun, but it’s definitely more fun when
you win. Winning is about making good decisions, and after table selection,
your next choice is determining how much you should buy-in for.
Having as many chips
as possible is never a bad idea if you’re a skilled player. However,
when buying into a game, think less about your own skill and more about
how your opponents play. As the years have passed, people have become
better at playing deep-stacked no-limit hold’em.
Primarily, players
have become stingier; it’s tougher to find players who’ll pay off large
bets on the turn and the river with top pair and no kicker. By having
less chips in front of you, it may become much easier for you to get
value from your made hands on the turn since your opponents will no
longer fear the prospect of facing a tricky decision on the river.
Experiment
and See What Works Best
Of course, many
valid arguments exist for preferring to be deeply stacked. In the end,
your preferred buy-in will be situational. Ultimately, you need to experiment
and see how your foes respond to you as a function of your stack-size.
Since you can’t
take chips off the table, consider starting off shortly stacked. If
the table is more profitable to play shortly stacked, then you’re set.
If you think that you’ll make more by being deeply stacked, you always
have the option of adding more chips. Whatever you do, always remember
that you have a choice when deciding how many chips you have in front
of you, so make it intelligently based on prior experience and information
about your opponents.
Tony
Guerrera is the author of Killer
Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com
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The
G-Spot: Some Merits of Calling
"If it's good enough
to call with, then you should raise," cry the pundits. This advice is
from poker's
hands past...saying this is like saying that the best way to start
a fire is to rub two sticks together! Most games will require you to
trend aggressive, but completely ignoring the potential merits of passive
play in certain circumstances is a big mistake.
Calling
Is Sometimes the Best Way to Extract Maximum Value
Suppose you're in
position against a highly aggressive and observant opponent who has
the tendency to fire two bullets when he bluffs. He raises preflop,
and you call in position. You flop top-pair/top kicker.
If you have a somewhat
tight image, a raise on the flop might induce your opponent to fold
immediately, meaning that you won't get any further value from your
hand. By just calling, you risk the possibility that your opponent will
catch up on the turn. But since your call on the flop keeps the pot
small, losing the occasional pot when your opponent catches up isn't
a disaster. In the long run, calling and inducing certain aggressive
opponents to bet into you on later betting rounds can be more profitable
than showing aggression immediately.
Calling
Keeps Pots Smaller
In limit hold'em,
the size of bets and raises is constrained. In no-limit hold'em, they
aren't. Your bottom line will improve dramatically if you keep the following
in mind: play big pots when you know you have an edge, and play small
pots when you're uncertain as to where you stand. By calling in dangerous
situations, you keep pots smaller.
Calling
Allows a Hand to be Played Across Four Betting Rounds
When you reraise
preflop or on the flop, you set-up a giant pot...one in which any mistake
is disastrous because of the quantity of chips involved. And because
players usually won't have sufficient chips to make it to the river
without going all-in during such large pots, you're forced to make big
decisions without having four betting rounds in which you can gain information.
As a skilled player,
the more information you have at your disposal, the better. Sometimes,
the way to maximize your available information is to have a hand play
out across four betting rounds instead of only one or two.
Balance
is the Key
It's usually no
good to be incessantly aggressive, just like it's usually no good to
be perpetually passive. Some situations will exist in which you'll get
lots of value, and possibly more information, by 3-betting your foes
on the flop. Others will exist in which check/calling all the way to
the river is best. As always, be flexible, and don't literally abide
by every one-liner poker edict you encounter.
Tony
Guerrera is the author of Killer
Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com
g(16668326)a(1105993))
The
G-Spot: Ragged Aces
Whenever you make
a decision, you need a clear map of all the possible ways a hand can
play out after your decision. Preflop, you need to project how action
will traspire across all betting rounds for every type of possible board.
You need to take your opponents’ playing styles and poker hands into
account, and you need to be aware of the type of information you’ll
need to acquire as the hand progresses.
Ragged aces look
deceptively good to many players. In Killer Poker By The Numbers, I
talk about hit-to-win poker, a style in which you're looking simply
to hit hands and extract maximum value when you do so. It's important
to master many styles, but in loose fullhanded games, hit-to-win is
typically the winning style. If you're playing hit-to-win poker, ragged
aces aren’t playable.
What Do
You Do When You Hit The Flop?
Suppose you flop
a pair with a hand like A5. If you flop a pair of aces, then you have
to worry about being outkicked. If you flop a pair of fives, you need
to worry about being against a higher pair.
Suppose you flop
trips with your A5. If you flop trip 5's, you might win a sizeable pot;
however, if action gets too heavy, you need to consider the possibility
that you're against a full house. If you flop trip aces, heavy action
can mean that you're against a full house or trip aces with a better
kicker.
Besides the few
times in which you flop a monster, the only time you'll be happy with
ragged aces postflop are if they're suited and you flop a flush draw
in a passive game that'll allow you to draw cheaply.
Ragged Aces Are
Generally Bad Unless You're Not Playing Hit-To-Win Poke
Some players call
raises with hands like A5 and then fold when they flop an ace. These
players correctly identify postflop playability problems, but they do
so when it's too late. Preflop raisers almost always bet on the flop,
so calling preflop raises in the first place is just a waste of money
if you're playing hit-to-win poker.
Does that mean that
ragged aces are never playable? No. They become playable hands if you
have lines of play outside the realm of hit-to-win poker. Of course,
at that point, any two cards become playable. If a lucrative bluffing
opportunity will present itself to you, it doesn’t matter if you’re
holding A5 or 23. Avoid abusing such lines of play, but be willing to
employ them when profitable opportunities arise. The key to playing
ragged aces, and really, the key to playing all hands, is considering
all applicable variables before deciding to act.
Tony
Guerrera is the author of Killer
Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com
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