Example 2 – Betting Draws for Value

We are on the button in a standard loose-passive game.  4 players limp to us and we have KhQh.  What should we do?

Answer – raise.  Again, even though we are behind Ax and small pairs, a hand like KQ suited plays so well multiway that we need to raise here for value.  With 4 other players in the hand and the BB likely to call close to 100% of the time, that means that we are basically guaranteed to have 6 players in the hand.  As long as our hand has more than 16.6% equity (1 in 6), then we should raise.  KQs has well over the 17% equity we need 6 handed versus wide ranges.  If you don’t believe me then pokerstove it yourself.  We raise here because we have a pot equity edge and we want to maximize it.  The fact that we will lose with our hand over 75% of the time does not mean that we should not raise with it.

Both the SB and the BB call our raise as well as the remaining 4 limpers (which we expected and is why we raised).  So on the flop we are 7 handed and the pot has 12.5 SBs.

The flop comes 4hThJs.  The SB who plays almost every hand preflop, but does not lead out postflop unless he has top pair and a good kicker or better, leads out.  3 players call, 2 players fold, and it comes to us on the button.  The pot is now 5 handed and there are 16.5 SBs in the pot.  What should we do?

Answer – raise for value.  We know that we are behind the SB right now, but we don’t care because our draws are so good.  We have 9 outs for the flush, and 6 more outs for the open end straight draw (we only have 6 instead of 8 outs for the straight because we can’t count the Ah and 9h twice), and it is possible that our K and Q will still win the pot for us if they were to hit as well.  Because it is also possible that someone has the nut flush draw and it’s possible that we are drawing dead with the K and Q outs, I will be conservative and say that we have only 15 outs.  But 15 outs will win the pot over 50% of the time (from our outs times 2 per street rule we know that a 13 out hand on the flop wins right around 50% of the time by the river).  So we want to raise here for value.  Even if the worst outcome happened and the SB was to 3-bet and show everyone that he had flopped a set of tens and all the other players folded, we would still be fine with that result because we would still have about 40% equity in a huge pot which we had contributed well less than 40% into.

We raise, the SB calls, and the 3 other players call as well.  The pot is 5 handed and has 22.5 SBs which means it has just over 11 BBs on the turn.  The turn is the 8d.  The board now reads 4hThJs8d.  Everyone checks to us.  What should we do?

Answer – Bet.  The first thing we do is figure out where we are at in the hand.  The SB just calling our raise on the flop and then checking this turn likely means that s/he had a hand like AJ or KJ rather than 2 pair or better because he likely would have 3-bet those on the flop.  He still could have 2 pair and have been scared that we have a set, but we shouldn’t be overly concerned about that.  We also know that someone could have hit a straight with Q9 or 97 at this point and with just K hi we don’t have the winning hand right now.  But with 4 other players in the hand and with our still current 15 outs we should still bet here.  Betting serves two purposes: 1) it maximizes our value when we do hit our hand because it adds bets into the pot – with 15 outs we know we have about a 30% chance of hitting our hand on the river using the outs times 2 rule; so as long as 4 players call our bet then betting here is correct because we have a pot equity edge; 2) betting could easily get a better hand to fold and can increase our likelihood of winning the hand if a K or Q hits – if we check here it allows everyone to stay in the pot for free; but if we bet we can get hands like AK, AQ, TQ, and TK to possibly fold.  If we bet and get those hands to fold now, we win when a K or Q hits the river.  If we check and allow those hands to stay in, we lose to them on the river.

No matter what happens at this point we know that we have played our hand correctly.  If we bet and someone raises then we just call and hope to hit our flush or straight.  If we bet and everyone calls, then we just check back the river unless we hit one of our outs.  If we bet and hit our straight or flush, then we bet again on the river.  The point here is that in multiway pots, when you have a pot equity edge, you need to keep betting even if you don’t have a made hand.  So with huge draws in position you want to keep betting.  Betting maximizes value, and it gives your opponents the opportunity to fold a better hand.

Example 1 – Betting for value.

Our table is pretty standard loose-passive.  You are in the BB with AsKs.  7 players limp to you (yes only 1 player folded and this is not uncommon at all).  What should you do?

Answer – Raise.  We have what is likely the best hand preflop, so we want to raise for value.  While it is true we only have a “drawing hand,” our hand still has the most equity versus our opponents’ ranges, so we raise here because we are likely ahead and we want more chips in the pot for us to win.

You raise and everyone calls.  There are 14.5 SBs in the pot.  The flop comes AcKd2h.  The SB checks to you.  What should you do?

Answer – Bet.  This is as close to the safest flop possible for us.  However there is no reason for us to slowplay the hand.  The pot is now very big and your opponents will find any reason they can to stay in the hand.  Hands like TJ, TQ, QJ, 43, 54, 53, Ax, Kx, and 2x will all very very likely call your bet.  You were the one to raise preflop so your opponents will expect you to bet, so just bet while you are ahead.  Your goal here is to get as much money in the pot as possible, and you can’t build a pot unless you put money in the pot.  Bet.

You do bet and 3 of the remaining players call.  There are now just over 9 BBs (Big Bets) in the pot on the turn.  The turn is the Ah, giving you the absolute nuts.  You are first to act.  What should you do?

Answer – in most games the answer is to keep betting.  Anyone who has the last A is never folding here and may even raise you, the Kx hands are likely to keep calling and, because the pot is so big, the gutshot draws and anyone who picked up a heart draw is likely to call you as well.  If  you have a strong read that if you bet here everyone will fold, but if you check you are likely to get one of your opponents to bluff, then you might want to check.  But in general, even with the nuts, just keep betting.

Instead of the turn being the Ah it is the Th.  What should you do?

In this case the answer is a clear cut one.  You should bet.  In this case we bet because we likely have the best hand and we want to keep having people call us, but we also bet here because we don’t want to give a free card.  We don’t want someone who picked up a flush draw getting to the river for free and we don’t want someone with a J or Q in there hand getting to see the river for free and spiking the straight on us either.  Some people check in this situation because they are afraid that the gut shot straight hit and they don’t want to pay off a raise.  But don’t be afraid of raises when you have no real idea that they are actually coming.  Being afraid of the QJ that just spiked a straight or the TT that spiked a set is simply a case of being afraid of the Monster Under the Bed.  Bet and see what happens.

You do bet and everyone folds.  That’s fine.  You just won a pot worth over 9 BBs without having to show your hand down.

You do bet, 2 players fold, and the button raises you.  The pot now has just over 12 BBs.  What do you do?

Answer – it depends.  At a minimum you need to call here.  Getting 12:1, that means we need to be ahead only 1 in 13 times for our call to be correct here.  Because our opponents’ range should include smaller two pair hands like AT and KT, and could even include some semi-bluff hands like KhJh or KhQh, we simply can’t fold here.  Moreover, even if we have a rock-solid read that our opponent has QJ, we still shouldn’t fold because we have 4 outs to a boat and a better hand.  And getting 12:1 we need only 7.7% equity to break even. With our 4 outs and using the general outs times 2 rule we know that we have about 8% equity (using pokerstove later we will discover that we actually have just over 9% equity against QJ).  So even if our opponent were to show us QJ here, we should still call just based on pot odds.  If we have a read that our opp makes loose turn raises or tries to bluff in weird spots, then we can actually 3-bet here.  But the main point here is just don’t fold unless you have the best read ever.

Result – we call.  The river is a blank.  We check, our opponent bets, and we have to call.  He shows us QdJc and scoops the pot.  The important thing to remember about this hand is not the result that we got bad beat or that we lost a big pot and a lot of chips.  What you need to focus on is that you played the hand well.  Paying people off in big pots where your likely chance of winning the hand is much greater than the pot odds you are given is just part of the game.  Smile, tell your opponent nice hand, and move on.  Even though it is hard not to show a bad beat, try not to show your hand since it really gives you no edge.  No matter what, do not berate your opponent for his idiotic play.  We want him to continue to keep chasing his gut shots.

In the next post I will keep the examples coming.

In a previous post (part 9 to this guide), I defined pot odds as the ratio of the amount of money already in the pot to the amount of money you have to call to stay in a hand.  Thus if the pot has $40 and you have to call an $8 bet then you have pot odds of 5:1.

Pot odds are helpful because they can tell us whether or not it is profitable to make a call to see the next street.  For example, if we have an 8 out open end straight draw on the flop then using the rule of 2 we know that we have about a 16% chance of hitting our 8 outs on the next street and we know that we need about 5:1 pot odds to make a breakeven call.

But pot odds don’t account for future betting.  And in most poker games there is often going to be betting on future streets.  Implied odds takes this future betting into account.  So your implied odds are your pot odds with the estimated future betting taken into account.  For example if we have the same 8 out open end straight draw on the turn so we know there is only one more round of betting to occur, we know that we need about 5:1 pot odds to make a breakeven call.  But if we are up against an opponent who we feel is very very likely to bet on the river no matter what card comes and will almost always call when we raise the river when we hit our hand, then we can getting less than our requisite breakeven pot odds because we have implied odds to do so.  E.g. if we are playing a $4/8 game and the pot has $32 on the turn after our opp bets then we have only 4:1 pot odds and we don’t have the 5:1 odds that we need to make a breakeven call in terms of strict pot odds.  But we know that our opp has a big hand and will bet $8 more on the river almost always, and we know that he will often call another $8 more when we hit our hand and raise.  So we can estimate that our opponent will often add another 1.5 BigBets to the pot which is $12.  Therefore instead of a $32 pot we can safely estimate that the pot will have over $40.  Since all we need is a $40 pot to make a breakeven call, then we should still call in this case due to our implied odds.

The one caveat with implied odds is to make sure that you don’t go crazy with them.  Many players, when they first learn of implied odds use them as an excuse to chase any draw.  They will chase after a 4 out guttered straight getting only 4:1 pot odds when they need closer to 11:1 because they have the “implied odds” to do so.   But implied odds will never increase your chances by that much.  Implied odds will often make it profitable for you to stay in a hand where strict pot odds will say that you will be a slight overall loser if you make the call; but they will rarely make a clear overall losing hand turn into a winner.

In my next post I will go over a bunch of example hands and try and bring it all together.  I will demonstrate how I use pot odds, implied odds, pot equity, counting outs, my position, and table images to determine whether I will call, fold, or raise.

The final ten players consisted of amateurs and long-term grinders.  With a guaranteed score of $1400 for going out in tenth, no one was going to leave the final table too devastated.  With everyone at the final table starting on equal footing with 5,000 chips, it is not surprising that it would take a bit of time for the first elimination.  However, with the turbo structure having blinds increase every 5 minutes, it was very surprising that the first elimination did not occur until the 9th level, almost 50 minutes into the match.  With blinds at 150/300, MrNegreanu pushed his last 15 BBs of 4400 chips into the middle with A8o, only to cringe when czlol woke up with AKo in the SB and had him covered.

10 minutes later, with blinds now at 250/500, the biggest hand at the final table occurred.  -shameLi-, an internet grinder, shoved from UTG with just under 10 BBs with AhJh; josunabot18 called with his last 7 BBs with 9d9h; and twirlpro reraised all-in from the SB with ThTs.  twirlpro was already the chip leader at the table with almost 30 BBs and had the other two players covered.  The flop came Ad5h4s putting -shameLi- well in front, but twirlpro spiked the Tc on the turn and had both his opponents drawing dead.  With that hand twirlpro cemented his chip lead and took out two players leaving only 6 left in the field.

Those 6 players were quickly whittled down to 3 due to short stacks and increasing blinds.  When the dust settled the three remaining players were all internet pros.  JeanGrae, a Canadian pro; czlol, a Czech pro; and twirlpro, the Hungarian superstar.  These three battled for quite a while until a shortstacked JeanGrae finally succumbed in third place when his AQo could not beat twirlpro’s AKo.

On the last hand on the tourney with blinds at 400/800 and stacks at about 20k for czlol and 30k for twirlpro, twirlpro minraised to 1600 and czlol 3-bet to 4000.  twirlpro responded by shoving with Ac5c and czlol made an easy call heads-up with 9h9s.  czlol was an almost 2:1 favorite to take a commanding chip lead, but unfortunately for him twirlpro’s horseshoe on this day was stuck in a place that no one could find and when the flop came As3c6s czlol’s day was as good as done.  The turn and river were blanks and twirlpro went home the winner.

In my last post I gave a very cut and dry example of counting outs when you have an open-end straight draw and it is very unlikely that anything else will win you the hand.  In that case you have 8 outs.

In many cases your outs won’t be so cut and dry.  For example if you have a hand like Ac5c on a flop of 2c9cJd it is obvious that you have 9 clean outs for the flush (any one of the 9 remaining clubs in the deck would give you the nut flush), however you also could very well win the hand if one of the remaining 3 Aces hit as well.  So in this case you could have anywhere from 9 to 12 outs.

Likewise in many cases your outs will either be counterfeited or they could even be non-existent.  For example, lets say that you had the same Ac5c as my last example but this time the flop comes 2c9c9d.  Now it is still very possible that you have 9-12 outs in the hand, but it is also possible that someone has already flopped a boat or could get a boat even if another club comes and counterfeit your hand.  So in this scenario you have anywhere from 0 to 15 outs (the 9 clubs, the 3 As, and the 3 5s).

So how do we count our outs in these cases (which come up so often)?  All we can do is guesstimate.  Here is my guesstimation which I use in most cases:

nut flush draw = 9 outs

one over card (meaning you have one card which is higher than all the cards on the board) = 1.5 outs

two over cards = 3 outs

the nut straight draw = 8 outs

the bad end of a straight draw = 3-4 outs (e.g. you have A7 on a 89T flop)

backdoor flush draw (means you have to hit both the turn and river to make your hand) = 1 to 1.5 outs

backdoor straight draw = 1 out

paired board, or a very co-ordinated board can often mean that you need to subtract 2-4 outs.

Some Examples

1) AhKh on a flop of 2h7hJd = 9 outs for the nut flush draw, 3 outs for the overcards, and 1 out for the backdoor straight draw (need to hit a perfect running Q and T on the turn and river) for a total of 13 outs.

2) 9h8h on the same flop of 2h7hJ9.  Now I reduce our flush outs to 8 since it is possible someone has a better flush draw out there, we have no outs for overcards and it is unlikely that an 8 or 9 will win us the hand in most situations, but we do have 3 extra outs if any of the non-heart tens hit because that will give us a straight (you can’t count the ten of hearts as an out because we already counted it as a flush out).  So in this case we would have a total of 11 outs.

3) 9h8h on a flop of 7h7dJh.  In this case we have only 1 secure out and that is the Th for the straight flush.  If our opponent has 77, 7J, or JJ we are drawing dead; further if our opp has say 7A and we hit the A of hearts then we still lose to his boat.  But just because we might be drawing dead doesn’t mean we always are, in fact usually we are not.  So in this case I reduce our flush outs even further because it is possible that unless we are drawing dead and say that we have about 6 or 7 flush outs, and that we still have about 3 straight outs.  So in this hand I would say we have around 8 or 9 outs and I using the rule of 2 I would think that I would hit my hand by the next street anywhere from 15-20% of the time.  So I would need at least 4:1 odds to continue.

Pot Odds

In the preflop section, I wrote about the importance of always knowing how many bets are in the pot.  This remains true postflop.  One of the main reasons we always want to know how many bets are in the pot is because we want to know what our pot odds are as well as what odds we are giving our opponents.

Pot odds are simply the ratio of the pot to the bet you have to call.  If the pot has $40 and you have to call a $4 bet then you have pot odds of 10:1.

Pot Odds and Pot Equity

Pot Odds are important to know because they will usually determine how we play our hand.  If we have pot odds of 3:1 and there will be no more betting that means that our hand must have at least 25% pot equity to continue to at least breakeven.

To demonstrate why this is so I’ll use the following example.  If the pot has $3 and I have to call a $ 1 bet and we know that there will be no more betting, then that means if I put $1 in the pot, the pot will have $4.  If I win the pot 1 out of 4 times then I break even (3 times I lose $1 for a net loss of -$3 and 1 time I win $3 profit).

So to determine your breakeven pot equity you divide your bet by the pot plus your bet.  For example if you have 9:1 pot odds then 1 divided by 9+1 is the same as 1/10=10%.

Outs and Equity – the general multiply outs by 2 rule

“Outs” are a poker term which mean the number of cards left in the deck which you need to hit on a later street to win you the hand.  For example, if I have 87 on a board of 56QA and there is no possibility of a flush then I have 8 sure outs to win the hand because I need any of the 4 remaining 9s or 4s in the deck to hit the nut straight and win the hand.

A quick rule to use is that you can multiply your outs by 2 and this will give you your percentage chance of hitting your outs on the next street and thus winning the hand.  In the example above, where we had 8 outs to hit our straight on the river, that means that we would have about a 16% chance to hit our outs on the river.  This means that the pot needs to be laying us at least 5:1 to continue with the hand because 1/6 = 16.6%.

When we count our outs from the flop we have two streets remaining to hit our hand, so we need to double our percentage.  Thus an 8 out hand on the flop generally has about 32% to win the hand by the river.

I need to emphasize that this is a very general rule.  In the example above, 87o has 34% equity versus AQo on a rainbow flop of 56Q but it only has 26% equity versus QQ.  However, it is still a pretty useful rule which means I don’t have to memorize any sort of table of outs.

Putting it all together with an early example

Let’s say that we are in a pretty normal $4/8 game where there is a lot of passive play.  5 players limp, the Small Blind completes and we check our option with 8s7c.  After the rake + our presumed tip the pot has 4.5 Small Bets.  The Flop comes 5s6cQd.

The Small Blind leads out on the flop.  So the pot has 5.5 Small Bets and we have to call 1 Small Bet.  We have pot odds of 5.5:1 meaning we need to win approximately 1 in 6.5 times to continue with the hand.  We immediately see that we have 8 outs which means that we will hit our outs approximately 16% of the time on the turn.  So we call here because we have about the right pot odds to do so and we think more players might call behind us.

4 of the remaining 5 players call behind us (this is very common in a passive game).  The pot now has 11.5 small bets, but on the turn the bets double in size so the pot now has just under 6 Big Bets.  The turn is an Ah which is a bad card for us because it is very likely that someone has the A or the Q and that none of these people will fold at this point.  So we can’t bluff and win this pot.

The Small Blind still leads out at this pot.  So the pot now has 7 Big Bets and we have to call 1 Big Bet giving us 7:1 pot odds.  1/8 =12.5% so we need to have at least 12.5% equity to stay in the hand.  We still have 8 outs to win the hand.  By our general rule 8*2 = 16%.  Since 16% is more than the 12.5% chance we need to win the hand we call.

Many limit players just don’t get these odds.  They know that since passive players don’t often lead out into multi-player pots it is very likely that he has 2 pair or better here.  They also know that they will only hit their straight on the river about 1 in 6 times.  But what they don’t get are the odds.  Some will make the mistake of folding in a pot like this because they know that they will miss their straight 5 out of 6 times and have to fold on the river.  Others will make the mistake of calling with a hand like this in a heads-up pot when the pot has only 2 or 3 Big Bets and they just don’t have the odds to call.

What we want to make sure is that we aren’t one of those players.  We call here because we have the odds to do so.  If we didn’t have the odds to do so we would fold.  And when we lose this pot, which we will the vast majority of the time, we are still happy with how we played the hand even though we lost money.

The river play in this hand is pretty unimportant.  If we miss our straight then we just check or fold.  If the river gives us our nut straight and the Small Blind checks, then we should always bet.  If the river gives us our straight and the SB leads again then we have a decision to make about whether to raise or just call.  Raising will increase the probability of the players behind us folding so if raising gets us only the one more bet from the SB, but calling could likely get us more than one call from the players behind us then we should just call.

In my next post I will continue with more thoughts on postflop play.

1) Tight is Right

The biggest mistake most small stakes players make is that they just play way too many hands preflop.  Your only objective preflop should be to play hands that have a positive expectation.  It is very easy to fall into the trap of playing too many hands because so many of your opponents will be playing so many hands and you will see them win a lot of hands.  But even though hands that have a negative expectation preflop will still win sometimes postflop does not mean that you should start playing wider too.  So tighten up preflop – very rarely should you be playing more than 20% of hands.

2) Raising vs. Limping preflop

At a passive table where few players are raising preflop and many players are coldcalling raises, it is often fine to openlimp marginal hands from EP (hands like small pairs or suited broadways).  And when people have limped in front of you it is often correct to limp behind with hands that play well multiway but don’t have a clear preflop equity advantage (again small to midpairs and suited connectors).

However, we should always be raising our value hands from any position when the pot has not been raised.  This means that we should always be raising TT+/AK everytime from every position in unraised pots.

Moreover, when we are in mid to late position and the pot has been folded to us, if we enter the pot we should almost always come in for a raise.  We want to do this for a couple of reasons: 1) everyone might fold and we will take down the blinds with no show down which is fine; 2) limping from late position means that we will often be screwing ourselves due to the rake – if we limp from the button in a 4/8 game which takes 1.5 Sbs in rake and the SB folds then we will be playing only for the 1 SB that we put in the pot preflop.  This means for our limp to be profitable we would need 100% equity (putting in 1 SB to win 1 SB = 100%).  We will never have this equity so our limp is always wrong.  So when you are the first to enter a pot from MP on, you should almost always raise.

3) Don’t Bluff Preflop

Because you can only raise in increments of 1 bet in limit poker, bluffing preflop is just a waste of money in almost all cases.  Passive players who play too many hands are going to coldcall your raise anyways and they won’t fold postflop when they hit any piece of the flop.  So just stick to playing your cards and playing them correctly.

4) Don’t Go Apeshit When You Don’t Win a Hand Forever

Because so many players are seeing so many flops, you are going to get bad beat over and over and over again.  Limit is a game for masochists.  If you are prone to tilt, it is not the game for you.  However, if you play well both preflop and postflop, in the long run you should be able to capitalize on your opponents mistakes and show a profit.  So hunker down, play well, but be prepared to grab your ankles and smile because those AA and KK hands are going to get beat over and over again.

So that’s basically it for preflop play.  As with any game, the more hands you play, the more comfortable you will get.  A good preflop game should patch up most players biggest leaks and should ensure that you become a breakeven or even a modest winner.  In my next posts I will begin talking about postflop play which should take you from being a breakeven to small winner to a longterm consistent winner.

Playing from the Blinds

Many players make mistakes from playing the blinds.  Most players continue to play too many hands from the SB and will excuse their play because they are “getting a discount” since they already had to put 1/2 of a Small Bet into the pot.  Whether we are in the blinds or not, the only thing that should be determining our preflop play is whether or not playing the hand has positive expected value.  If it does, we should play the hand; if it doesn’t we should fold.

From the blinds, our hand’s chance of winning does not need to be as great as it does from out of the blinds because we have already been forced to put chips into play.  For example, when a hand is limped all the way to the big blind, and the big blind has the option of raising or checking, then the big blind will always have a positive expectation to check his hand.  Mathematically the big blind will always have to put in 0 chips to win however many chips are in the pot.  Because he has to put nothing in and his hand always will have a greater than 0% possibility of winning the hand, the big blind will always have a positive expectation.

In general our rules for playing from the blinds are that we can loosen our starting hand ranges significantly from the blinds.  The more players that are in the pot, the wider we can loosen our range.

FROM THE SB

The more people that have entered the pot in front of us for a limp means the wider we can loosen our range from the Small Blind.  This doesn’t mean that you should play any two cards including 72o but it does mean that you can complete with any two suited cards; most connected cards; and any two cards that are over a 7 if there are at least 3 limpers in front of you.  However, if someone has raised in front of you from the small blind then you should be coldcalling this raise about as often as you would cold-call from MP, which is almost never.

FROM THE BB

Obviously if the pot is limped to us in the BB we are going to play every hand that we have since we can do so for free.  As I said previously, we should still raise our big hands for value from the Big Blind, but every thing else we should just check.  In raised pots we will often still have the correct odds to call with a pretty wide range since we are getting the biggest discount possible in the BB.  For example, even in the worst scenario where the pot is raised preflop from a tight player and everyone folds and it comes to us in the BB, then we will still only need 33% equity to call even in a game that rakes 1.5 SBs from every pot that sees a flop.  The more players there are in the pot in a raised pot, the wider your starting hand range should loosen.

FIGURING OUT STARTING HAND RANGES – PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

As I said earlier, the only thing that should be determining our preflop play is whether or not playing the hand has positive expected value.  If it does, we should play the hand; if it doesn’t we should fold.  Figuring out what hands to play really depends on how many players are in the pot and how loose those players are.  Let’s use an example just to figure out how to determine if playing a hand is + EV.

Let’s say we are in the small blind with Q5o.  Q5o is a junk hand that should be folded immediately when you are not in the blinds from any position.  However in this case we are in the SB so we have a discount.  Two loose players who play abut 50% of their hands and have ranges of any pair, any ace, any suited cards, any broadway, and some other offsuit hands like K9-89o have limped in ahead of you.

You are playing in a 4/8 game where the house rakes $5 from every pot that sees a flop ($4 for the rake and $1 for a jackpot drop) – you will tip $1 if you win the hand so we will deduct 1.5 SBs from every pot.  The BigBlind has not raised a pot yet preflop so we don’t expect him to raise behind us.

This means that if we complete and make the call for .5 SBs preflop the pot will have 2.5 SBs.  So we need to put in .5 Sbs to win 2.5.  .5/2.5 = .2.  This means that our hand needs to have 20% or more equity to win the hand in order for us to continue with the hand.  Many players would say that you should complete here with any 2 cards against two super loose opponents and a big blind who could have any two cards since you are getting a discount.  But mathematically we should only call if our hand has at least 20% equity.

In this case when we plug Q5o into pokerstove we discover that Q5o actually only has about 19.4% equity against these ranges and even for just 1/2 of a SB more we should fold preflop.

The first thing to note with all of these hands is that suitedness really increases their playability.  All of these hands are good hands to play in multi-way pots because they can win occasionally just by hitting top pair; they also will often win because they have the ability to make excellent two-pair hands and straights.  As I said earlier, when they are suited they increase because when you hit a flush you will almost always have the best hand.

Most players limp these hands from every position.  I don’t particularly have a problem with that strategy.  However, in general I tend to raise all these hands if they are suited from MP on, and will sometimes openlimp them from EP and sometimes raise them depending on the players at the table.

When these hands are offsuit, I just open-fold them from EP, and will just call behind from late position.

Against a raise, these hands should almost always be folded.  The only time to do different would be if you had position and wanted to 3-bet a loose aggressive player; or if you were in late position and you were assured the pot was going to be at least 4 or more players – in which case you could join the cold-calling party.

5) The Small Pairs (66-22)

Small pairs should be the easiest hands to play in limit poker, but invariably they are the hands that are misplayed the most often.  There are two options we want with small pairs: 1) to get the hand heads-up or 2) to get the hand with a ton of players and hope to hit our set.  Where limit players often make huge mistakes is that they see a pair and decide that now is the time to raise preflop even though they are in MP and have already seen 3 limpers and at least 2 other players are sure to join in on the pot now that you have bloated it; they then compound the error by chasing their miserable 2 outs postflop in pots where they have little to no chance of winning.

To avoid this mistake you need to understand that small pairs value comes almost exclusively in hitting a set.  You will only do this about 1 in 8 times when you have a pair.  This means a vast majority of the time you need to be prepared to get rid of your hand postflop.

At your standard, loose-passive game, I suggest limping these hands from every position.  The only time I would tell you to do anything different would be if you were in the HJ, CO or button and it folded to you.  Then, and only then, would I suggest that you raise your small pair.  The reason we would raise then is that we would expect to either get the blinds to fold (it does sometimes happen) or get the hand heads-up and we would have position.

When facing a raise with small pairs we again want to ensure that there will be at least 4 players to the flop.  In which case we can profitably cold-call.  Otherwise, just fold them.

6) Everything Else (Suited As, Small Suited Connectors, other random hands)

I am actually not going to go into great detail into all the other hands that you can play.  I would urge you once again to get pokerstove and use it.  Find out what hands play well against certain ranges and what hands do not.  Discover for yourself that hands like A4s play marginally well against 4 other players with wide ranges.  Discover that hands like T9o which you thought were playable because they are connected are actually marginal losers against these same 4 wide ranges and thus should be folded preflop in almost every situation.  Discover that when T9 becomes suited it then becomes marginally profitable and should be played.

In other words, get pokerstove and use it.  Any hand that has an equity advantage preflop against your opponents ranges should be played.  Any hand that has an equity disadvantage should be folded.  The biggest leak most limit players have is simply that they play too many hands.  Hopefully pokerstove will teach you that many of the hands you think are playable, are actually losers.  It also might show some of you that some of the hands you think are bad hands might be better than you think.

In my next post, I will talk about how you should play your blinds and then just some last general concepts about preflop play.

2) The Big Broadways and a note about suitedness (AQ-AT; KQ-KJ)

Our big broadway cards are profitable because most limit players are playing way too many hands, so when we hit top pair with these hands we will often have them dominated.  For example, if we have AJ and our opponent is playing J8, then we will have our opponent drawing slim on a flop of J52.  Whether or not our two big broadways are suited makes a pretty significant difference in how profitable they are.  In general, your equity value will increase by about 3% when your hand is suited versus being non-suited.  This may not seem like much, but when you are talking about a hand that has only 30% equity to start with, this is actually increasing the hand’s value by 10%.  So being suited does matter… just don’t become one of the players that plays any two suited cards.

Ok, so back to the nitty gritty.

AQo and AQs should be raised from any position when there is no raise in front of you.  When there is a raise in front of you, then how you play will depend on your specific game.  If the raiser is someone who never raises unless they have JJ+/AQ, then you will often want to either simply fold preflop or coldcall (depending on how many people you expect will see the flop – the more who will see it, the more you should coldcall).  If the raiser is someone who is raising 20% of hands, then you should 3-bet.

AJo and AJs is a raise for me from any position when there is no raise in front.  Some people open limp these hands.  Some people raise the AJs and limp the AJo.  I don’t really think it matters that much what you do.  These are playable hands and should show you a marginal profit, just don’t go crazy with them – i.e. If there is a raise and a re-raise in front of you in a generally passive game preflop, then these hands are pretty obvious folds.

ATs and ATo is where I start to differentiate.  I will raise ATs from any position when there is no raise in front of me.  I will often just fold ATo from Early Position.  If there are a lot of limpers in front of me and I am in the CO or button, then I will sometimes raise with ATo and sometimes just limp behind.  This really depends on knowing your opponents and their tendencies.  If the players in front of me are playing any two cards, then I have no problem raising ATo for value.  If the players in front of me are tight, passive players (many older men play this way) who fold hands like A9- but limp everything they do play preflop, then I will either limp behind or occasionally just fold.

KQo and KQs play very similarly for me to AJ.  Obviously suited is better and I am fine either open-limping or open-raising these hands depending on the game.

KJo and KJs play similarly to AT for me.  They both have the potential to win hands as a top pair hand; but they both also can be dominated and hard to get away from postflop when you do flop top pair (i.e. KJ vs KQ on a K hi flop).  So again KJs I will always raise from any position as long as I am the first one to raise.  KJo I will either raise, call, or fold depending on the game dynamics.

Except for occasionally AQ, none of the hands in this section will very often be worthy of 3-betting a raise in games that are so often passive.  However, whether or not to coldcall will depend on whether your hand is suited, what position you are in, and how many players you expect to see the flop.  The better your position and the more players you expect to see the flop means the more often you should coldcall.

3) The Medium Pairs (99-77)

Medium pairs are some of the hardest hands to handle mentally in limit poker.  You often know that you have the best hand preflop, but with so many players entering so many pots, you also know that you will often lose the hand unless you hit a set.

99 is a hand that is good enough that you should be raising it from any position when there is no raise in front of you.  Many live players will tell you this is hogwash.  They will say that you should basically play this hand like a small pocket pair and just play it for set value by openlimping it from any position.  But just like the TT example from my last post, 99 has enough of an equity edge against the field that you should be raising this hand for value from any position when there is no raise in front of you.  Against a raise, 99 should either be re-raised or called (only if the game is tight and the raiser is tight should you fold 99 facing a raise) depending on your game’s characteristics.

I play 88 almost the same way I do 99.  However, 88′s equity value is more marginal then 99′s so I have no problem with players who open-limp 88 or limp behind with 88 instead of raising it.

77 is where I make my cut-off.  From EP I will open-limp 77.  From MP on, I will raise 77 as long as I am the FIRST ONE IN THE POT (i.e. everyone has folded in front of me).  If there are limpers in front of me, I will just limp behind with 77.  Against a raise I will coldcall with 77 as long as I am pretty sure that there will be at least 4 players to the flop and it is unlikely that the remaining players will raise behind.

In my next post I will continue to go through my preflop guidelines.