Questions about the fine art of smallball.

It seems that smallball is all about postflop play, and it's something that I'd love to learn. That said ... what are some smallball concepts?

In general, I'd guess this means avoiding raised pots for smallball and also playing trashy hands with potential (SCs, gappers etc) in position or moving beyond sethunting with 77 88 99. Is this correct?

A cardinal sin in NLHE is to give cheap or free cards. How do you reconcile this with say, flopping middle pair, unraised pot, on a coordinated board? How about something like TPWK on a 2-flush board? Would you for instance give a cheap turn and speed up on a safe turn?

Thanks for any thoughts or concepts.

Originally Posted by Blinky

A cardinal sin in NLHE is to give cheap or free cards.

Giving a free card is only a mistake when:

o The pot is big relative to the stakes and/or future rounds of betting.
or
o You will pay-off lots of money when your opponent sucks out and are unlikely to draw a comperably sized bluff.

Small ball is fun.

None of that huge raising and cont bet stuff that TAGS do in ring games.

ie: 25nl game: two people limp in front of you and you have T9s. You decide to raise 1.50 and then cont bet the flop.--> that's EWWWWW.. =)

atleast.... I think that's ewww...

raise more, bet not as big. dont worry about cont betting everything either.

For some reason I rather "cont bet" with 22 than with unmade hands too... perhaps I"m ...ODD :P

Originally Posted by sunfunbunch

ie: 25nl game: two people limp in front of you and you have T9s. You decide to raise 1.50 and then cont bet the flop.--> that's EWWWWW.. =)

atleast.... I think that's ewww...

It depends on a lot of factors. Certainly it's an option to consider.

Originally Posted by sunfunbunch

For some reason I rather "cont bet" with 22 than with unmade hands too... perhaps I"m ...ODD :P

If that bet is unlikey to get you a free river card when you want it, then it's really good poker.

Yes, i agree about the T9s... however the point I was trying to get across was different.

I think what I was TRYING to state was *if you are going to play more hands, and raise more hands, then you should not make them like the example I gave with T9s ALL the time.*

There.. Better?

what is smallball? is it a ball thats smaller than normal sized balls?

The poker I consider smallball is the poker I play in shorthanded games... to me it's just being more aggressive with lesser hands than your opponents are willing to be aggressive with. I play smallball when games get down to 4 or 5 players, and I tend to dominate them.

One key aspect is that you respect it when your opponents are agressive. When the pot gets big enough to be a danger to your stack, you revert to playing solid "good fold" kind of poker.

It is a breakable strategy, but when your opponents figure you out (and most wont, believe me) you just switch it up.