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In the last post I talked about the pot odds and betting. Today’s topic has a direct correlation to that. As you start to play a bit more, you may have heard the term small ball poker and wondered what it was. It basically means winning a lot of smaller pots with smaller bets. Home run poker, on the other hand, is about winning pots with bigger bets. Skilled players tend to play small ball, while for beginners it’s a good idea to go for the home run. The reasoning is very simple and has a lot to do with the pot odds. As I said in the previous post, poker is a very mathematical game and when used correctly it can make you win or save you a lot of money. If you listen to Mike Caro (and you should), quitting when you’re supposed to will make you money too. Below are the reasons to play each one:
Small Ball Poker: As I said earlier, the most skilled players tend to play this way. I know he’s heavily endorsed by Daniel Negreanu and he’s got some videos on YouTube that talk about that as well. They tend to keep the pots a bit smaller, but then they win more pots on the bets. Pre-flop raises tend to be 2.5-3 times the big blind (BB) with an extra BB unit per person who may have limped before you. For example, you are playing $1/2 and you know you are going to raise. Your raise will usually be $5-6 total. If a limper is in front of you, you will win $7-8, two limpers, $9-10, etc. Now a flop comes out that you don’t think helped your opponent(s) and you want to bet (as most players do after raising preflop, triggering the continuation bet). How much do you bet? In the last post on pot odds, I talked about how half or two-thirds is enough to make it the wrong call to pursue most draws. Hands like open straight and flush draws are one of the exceptions, as those draws are mathematically favored against most hands. So, let’s say you bet $6, one person calls you, and both blinds fold. That’s $15 in the pot (your bet + opponent’s call + $1SB + $2BB = $15). A correct bet would be between $8-10. You will get a surprising number of people calling most of the time and that is because many players are ignorant of the pot odds. Don’t be that person! I mean, sometimes if you’re the one drawing you’re going to call because not everyone has the hand they’re representing. Everyone and their dog bet C on the flop now and sometimes you’ll have the best hand even with your draw. If you have KQ of spades, the flop is J 10 2 with two spades, and your opponent has 7 in hand, guess what? You are the favorite to win on the river because if you hit a 9 spades, 3 aces, 3 nines, 3 kings and 3 queens, you will take the lead. So, you can’t leave it all the time. You don’t want to make it look like you might get run over. You could call once and if they missed their hand, they can check the turn to you. You can semi-bluff (a bluff that could become a great hand and another posting topic for another time) and win the pot either if he folds or if he calls and you hit your draw.
OK, so I’ve gone on a bit of a tangent there. Where was she? Oh yeah. You have bet $10 into a pot of $15, which makes the pot $25. $10 to call in a $25 pot is 2.5-1. If you’re folding to an open straight or double, you’re 8 outs and just over 3.2-1 to connect your hand. You are not getting the right odds to call. If you get raised and you think you were raised somehow, you can fold and lose your $10. What happens when you don’t play a small ball, you bet the pot, you get raised, and you fold? You’ve lost another $5 on top of that that you really didn’t need to lose. Betting half to two-thirds of the pot will generally yield the same information as betting the size of the pot. Now, since I recommend being the tight/aggressive small ball player, you’ll win a lot of small pots with your image, and as you build your stack, you can open up your range a bit later and really confuse the table with where you’re at. And that’s exactly what you want. A table of confused players who don’t know how to play with you. So remember, keep the bets small and don’t worry if you get called. Like I said, many don’t take pot odds into account. All they see is their hand and what they think they can win if they hit their hand. What they don’t realize are two things:
1) They are going to lose to that long-term chase. Oh yeah, long term. Remember, the numbers are taken over a period of time, but the more you play, the more you will see that you win in these cases.
2) Even if they do get your hand, they’re not necessarily going to win more money from you. What if they’re chasing a flush, just checked/called the flop and turned to hit the river, and now lead a bet? They most likely won’t get any money from you because you can put them in that hand and fold. But most of the time their letter doesn’t arrive and they have lost all this money in a raffle that they should have thrown two blocks ago. They’ll cry about their bad luck and you’ll just smile as you rack up some chips.
Home Run Poker: Definitely the style to employ when facing someone you know is a very good player or if you are just starting out yourself. I also recommend playing only a few select hands and playing them fast when you get them. In Phil Hellmuth’s book “Play Poker Like the Pros,” he advises beginners to play his “Ten Best Hands.” They are: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10’s, 9’s, 8’s, 7’s, AK and AQ. I like this idea. Yes, it’s a very strict way to play, but until you get some experience, see what hands are good to play in certain situations, get better at reading opponents and things of that nature, I would recommend this style as well. However, I don’t necessarily agree with playing 9, 8 and 7 too fast. If you have a raise and a raise in front of you, it’s still a good idea to fold those hands and the same with AQ. As you may have read in my Most Overrated Hands post, AQ is a dangerous hand to get too involved in and while you can raise and reraise it with position, be careful on the flop if someone comes at you hard. Also, what are you going to do when the flop comes AQ 10 and you have two 7s? Probably throwing them in the mud at any sign that an opponent wants to play the pot. Or if you have KK, you raised before the flop, two people call, and an ace flops? You can bet, but proceed with caution if you are raised or just called. One probably has an ace and you should be ready to fold your hand.
So how should you raise before the flop? On small ball I suggest 2.5-3x the BB. Now, I would suggest 5-7x the BB. Looks a lot like? Well it is. You’re going to take out those holding hands like QJos, maybe KJos and maybe even some medium or smaller pairs. Your adjusted image plus the larger bets will help you win a few more pots before the flop. It is a fact that the most skilled players do not want to play poker with big pots, especially before the flop. They want to see flops in position and try to beat you later. They like to be the ones putting you to a decision, not having their own decisions taken away from them. If you bet $10 before the flop and get a call, how much do you bet on the flop? Right now you have $23 in the pot (your bet + his call + the two blinds = $23) so right here I would bet $20-23. If you didn’t have a pair before the flop, remember that the chances of hitting a pair on the flop are around 33%. In other words, they are likely to have been lost. If they had a lower pair than you, they will hit their set 1 out of 8 times, or 11%. If they do, you will probably lose some money. That happens and unless you get a great read on the person when he raises, you’ll probably end up paying him. But for the most part they will fold when they ruff and you’ll walk away with a decent pot. (Warning: when you walk into a land-based casino to play the $1/2 games, you’ll notice there are a lot of preflop raises to $10, $15 and even over $20. I don’t get it and when I ask people at the table it’s because they say they want action. Now to me that seems almost an oxymoron because if you want action you bet less. Or they say they want to bet. It’s not gambling, it’s just dumb betting and if they really wanted to get in action or bet those stupid bets, they’d go up to $2/5 where the bets make sense. And a lot of people call those stupid bets with marginal hands. I don’t get it. I’m not throwing $20 with KJos when my hand might as well be dominated, but that’s me I guess)
Well there you have it. Home run, or larger bets for the less experienced player until he gets that feel for the game, his opponents, and especially his own game. As he starts to learn and get that experience, he can start to see a few more flops with a few more hands (playing some suited connectors, suited Ax, etc.) while betting a little less. Remember, you still get the same information with those smaller bets and you still make it wrong to make your opponent call. As I’ve pointed out before, your main goal in poker is to make the right decisions but also to capitalize on your opponent’s mistakes. Getting them to do the wrong thing is making money for you.