Lesson One: You are not as good as you think (Part 1)
So you can wreck your home game. And when you hit the local card room, by playing super tight against the degenerates, you can scrape out a buck or two. But what happens when you sit at a table and can’t find the fish?
Do you stubbornly sit there trying to beat the game or will your ego let you admit YOU are the fish that these sharks have been waiting for?
A big, big, HUGE part of poker is game selection. It’s probably the second thing you need to learn after hand selection. So what are some tell-tale signs that you might be in over your head?
1. There are lots of deep stacks. Say you’re at a 2/5 NL table with a $200 buyin. You look around and see the majority of the folks with $1500 and above. It’s probably a sign that you won’t be running this table any time soon. And the key to any truly lucrative session is the opportunity to RUN the table not just win a hand or two.
The problem with deep stacks is they can afford to take more risks to crack you. This comes through a combination of aggressive plays that put you to the test and some padding to chase you down. I find that I often don’t bet properly against big stacks since I’m doing two things that sometimes counteract each other. One, I’m trying to double through on them. And two, I’m trying not to lose all my chips in one hand.
You can see how these two impulses contradict. You can only double up if you risk all your chips.
This is something I’m working on but I notice I often bet small, and in effect, fail to protect my hand, when I’ve got a hand to try and induce a bluff and maximize value. And then I overbet my marginal hands to try and take them down right then and there. Well, when you’re deep stacked and you’re good, this is nakedly transparent. So what happens? The deep stacks’ll linger on your big hands and crack you at cheap prices. And come over the top on you on your overinvested mediocre hands. Whoops!
I tried a different move this time in Vegas where I was short stacked for around $90 at a 2/5 NL table with a lot of deep stacks. I got dealt pocket kings in early position. Instead of limping which would totally neuter my hand, and instead of coming in for a reasonable raise of $25-30 which I think would’ve broadcast its strength (i.e., I’ve already committed 1/3 of my stack so it’s obvious I’m willing to go all-in), I simply pushed all-in there hoping to get a single caller anticipating a race situation with either a smaller pocket pair or A-10 or higher. That seemed to me the best way to ensure a double up opportunity.
The play worked out. I was called by AQ on an eventual monster board of KQQJJ. Some may say I could’ve earned even more money from this play but I was happy that short-stacked, playing aggressive, it looked like I had something marginal instead of the monster that I did. Remember someone was calling me from being zero dollars invested in, to 90 bucks cracked.
2. You can’t put anyone on a hand. Chances are the table’s been going for some time, and hand selection has become more liberal. Now if you have the patience to pick your spots (if for instance you can take Jon’s advice from an earlier post and wait for at least 1/2 an hour before you play a hand), you may be able to work yourself into this game. However, if you’re like me, and you want to get into the action immediately, and don’t appreciate the aggression of big stacks constantly attacking your blinds and limp-ins, you can get into all kinds of trouble with so many disguised hands.
For instance, you’re dealt JJ on the button. You raise the limpers $35 and still get 5 callers. Flop comes out 9 high. What do you do? There’s more than $150 in the pot, you’ve got about $300 back. How much do you want to protect your hand, one, and, two, how much do you want to get invested? By the way, if anyone can answer this question, what’s the proper bet in this instance, I’d love to know. Because I’ve been cracked in this situation more than a couple times.
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You're fucked in this situation. If I have zero table image at this point, and it's early in the game, I will check and fold and wait for a better situation. You're only sunk for $35 bucks and pushing all in (the only move I could imagine at this point) would be critically stupid. I like to start with small pots and build up to bigger ones, so if I still am 300 back, I'm cool with that and will hang tight for better weather. The sharks can keep my $35 bucks.
Also, if you show weakness here, you can utilize that down the road when you flop the nuts. Here I would check and fold to any bet over $35 to see what the turn brings. Land me trips? Spike the shit out of it and get paid. But again, I'm of the "pot progression" school of thinking in terms of time management and applying value to hands. When you're weak on the table and short stacked, the value of your hands drop and you're in no position to think of trying to maximize that value. I feel like the aim here should be building up chips in relative safety.
Once I'm deep stacked, it's an entirely different situation though and you'll see me spike that flop without hesitation.
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I'm more of a micro-stakes player so that may be coloring my thinking, but with $300 behind, what's wrong with a $70-80 continuation bet? With five callers, a 9-high flop is likely to have hit at least one of them. Why not see if we can't narrow the field and then slow down on the turn if it gets scary? I suppose it also depends on the draws possible on the flop, but I usually get burned more often than not when I don't protect my hands. We're in position so if the bets come flying now, I'm willing to shut down and wait for a better spot where I'm not trying to figure out what more than one player is doing.
That said, very good post and it makes me want to get out and play.
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You can reply to posts by replying to the email notices, sick.
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I think it's the callers that are more concerning than the raiser. A min-raise (based on no other information and the levels I'm used to playing at) screams A9 here thinking they're "raising for information". The callers are now based on all the action probably getting the right price for their draws. So it's fold-or-push time, the exact situation we were trying to avoid. Now I'm ready to let go and live to fight another day. The only good thing that comes out of this situation now is it's probably going to showdown so we'll at least get some insight for our investment.
But I'd pose back to you: suppose everybody folds but the last to act puts us in, are you still folding?
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That said, they don't call me Dong Khee for nothing.
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But, I think I'm generally a more aggressive player than JG, and I certainly don't see anything wrong with his "wait for a better spot" perspective.
I've laid this exact hand down in a similar situation, though the preflop action was a little different, and combined with a physical tell I had on the guy in question, I was able to make the right read. At the Borgata I was dealt JJ in the button, HJ raises, I call, early limper calls. Flop comes 9-high with two clubs. Checked around, I bet out, early limper folds, HJ raises. I get away, he had QQ. Fortunately his raise preflop gave me somewhat better info than you have here, plus his hands shook as he reached for chips whenever he had a big pocket.
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