Category: English

Aces, kings and queens before the flop, although great to have, can sometimes present problems in terms of playing them optimally. Queens in particular are another classic Hold ‘Em trap hand which many inexperienced players tend to overplay. If another player raises before the flop, it is OK to call with two queens, but re-raising is asking for trouble in a pot-limit or no-limit game. If the raiser has aces or kings, you are a big underdog and if he has ace-king, a likely hand for him, you are only a slight favourite. In a tournament, if you were down to a short stack (i.e. had very little money or chips left) or your opponent had a short stack re-raising wouldn’t be wrong but I don’t encourage it. Everything I have said about queens applies with even more emphasis to a pair of jacks. Those players who are desperate to get all their money in before the flop with a pair of jacks are putting their bankroll in serious jeopardy.
Kings are safer, but can still be a tricky hand to play. A raise from another player normally merits a re-raise to shut out the rest of the field but what if he then raises again? Unless he is a maniac, he probably has aces, or maybe ace-king. If you are playing a tournament, especially a freeze-out tournament, it is questionable play to commit all your money early on before the flop with two kings against an all-in raiser.
My own experience of holding two kings has been mixed. Four times in two years in tournaments and cash games, I re-raised with two kings and was immediately re-raised. None of my opponents were particularly tricky players. In each case, I was about 90 per cent sure I was up against pocket aces. But two kings is a tough hand to throwaway. All four times, I called, against my better judgement, and each time my opponents had aces. Of course, maybe I’m just unlucky. You sit there all night never being dealt two cards that hang together. Finally, after four hours, two kings come along. You raise, he re-raises. You put all your money in and, sure enough, you end up looking at two aces.
So it is an option to pass or fold two kings, just don’t tell anybody you’re doing it! Just throw them in quietly without making a fuss. If you show your hand to your opponent, you are telling him that you are giving credit for aces, which he might not have had. Also, the other players at the table might think you are playing too cautiously or conservatively (to use poker vernacular, ‘too tightly’) and start bluffing you out of pots.
What about aces? It is wonderful to be dealt A-A as your two hole cards, but do you put all your money in or not? Remember that, in a tournament, staying in is the most important thing, so I’d be more inclined to play A-A aggressively. For example, if one player raises and another calls, I would almost always re-raise, but against only one player, I’d be more tempted to just call, which is a deceptive play and will lead your opponent to think you have a lesser hand. Aces usually want only one player to play against. If you’re against three or four, there is every chance one of these players will hit something on the flop to beat you.
Some of the best players I’ve seen are players who have just called with aces behind a raiser. They are hoping the raiser gets a little help on the flop. Say he might have a king-queen. If a king or a queen comes on the flop, the raiser will probably bet. The player can now raise with the A-A and hopefully win a big pot. If the player had re-raised immediately before the flop, the original raiser (if he’s a half-decent player) would probably have thrown his hand away.
The drawback here, of course, is that the original raiser might get too much help on the flop and hit the front. If the flop came king-queen-three, in the above example, probably only a world-class player would be able to get away from A-A without serious damage.
But really the main ‘purpose’ of having two aces in Texas Hold ‘Em is to have them beaten, so that you can have a ‘good’ hard luck story (called a’bad beat story’) to tell your fellow players at the bar!

Previous

What to Do after the Flop’s Out

1.lf you have nothing, get out.
This simple rule will save you a lot of money over your poker-playing lifetime. But a lot of players violate it. If you have queen-jack of hearts, a good starting hand, and the flop is the king of diamonds, and the 6 and 3 of spades, get out. Throw your hand away and wait for the next hand.

2. If you don’t have much, get out.
This is a harder rule to follow than the previous one but it’ll probably save even more money. For example, you have a 9D, 8D and the flop is QC, 8H, 3D, i.e. all of different suits (called a ‘rainbow flop’). The optimist in this position sees a pair and a back door flush draw. But if someone bets the pot, representing a pair of queens, or better, where are you? You need to hit a 9 or an 8 for an immediate improvement, which still may not win. If a diamond comes, that gives you a four flush, but your opponent, if he’s a quality player, is likely to bet the pot again. Do you want to call a pot-size bet with only one card to come? I suggest not.
After the flop, you have seen five cards out of seven or 70 per cent of your hand. It is usually a weak play to call on the flop, only to pass on fourth street if there’s another bet.
As a general rule, then, inside straight draws, back door flush draws, second or third pair, or even top pair with a weak kicker, are better off in the muck (that is, you are better to pass them). Of course, if you have a strong suspicion your opponent may not have a solid hand or is attempting a bluff, that’s a different matter.
David Sklansky introduced the concept of semi-bluffing into the language of poker and it is now part of the lexicon of table talk. This is a hand that you are betting with which you hope will not be called, but if it is called, still has a chance to win. So, in the hand above, for example, you might bet your pair of 8s as a semi-bluff if your opponent checks to you, showing weakness. You hope he folds, but if he doesn’t you still have a number of ways to win. This is better than a pure bluf( where you have no hand at all. If your opponent calls in the latter case, you know for sure you have lost your chips. Note that a semi-bluf( by definition, can only be made if there are still cards to come, as you are hoping your hand will improve.

3.lf you’ve hit something, and you like it, bet it.
Say you’ve played a small pair and now you’ve hit trips. You should usually bet here. For example, if you’ve played pocket 4s (two 4s in the hole), and the flop comes 10-9-4, I would definitely bet. This applies particularly if two suited cards come on the flop which means somebody might have a flush draw. If you checked this type of hand and the next card is, say, the jack of the same suit, your three 4s don’t look so good any more (the jack could have made your opponent a flush or a straight). It’s always tempting when you flop a big hand, to check and hope somebody else bets, or check and hope somebody catches something on fourth street that gets them involved. But unless you are against a very aggressive player, who nearly always bets if he is checked to, it is usually safer to bet to protect your hand. If you get raised, of course, you have to re-evaluate your hand – it might be second best, but don’t let the fear of being raised stop you from betting.

Position means how far round the table you are in relation to the dealer. The nearer the dealer you are (on the dealer’s right), the better off you are. The dealer has the best position of all as he gets to act last on each betting round (except the first).

Having to act first is a major disadvantage in Hold ‘Em. Say you have raised with an ace-jack, and have hit nothing on the flop. What do you do if you are first to speak? If you bet out, you take the risk of being raised by those behind you who have made good hands. If you check, those behind may bet forcing you to fold. However, if you had that same ace-jack on the button things are vel)’ different. If you make a strong hand, you are forcing the others to ‘bet into you’ (i.e. bet before your turn to act) and if you flop nothing, and somebody bets, you can then pass, risking nothing.
Generally then, the earlier your position, the better your hand needs to be before you should enter the fray. In a tough game, with many people raising before the flop, expect to’pass’ (i.e. fold) nearly all your hands in the first two seats in a full game. Ace-jack and ace-10 offsuit, for example, are definite non-starters here. As are ace-small suited and small pairs (say 6s and below). If you call with two 6s and somebody raises you, what do you do? If you call him, you are seven to one against to make trips on the flop. Anything else and you’ll have to check (unless you attempt a bluft), thus handing the initiative to your opponent! He does not even need a pair to bet. He has position and this is all that is needed.
If you do call with, say, ace-jack suited or ace-queen, in an early position, and a solid player raises you, I would recommend folding because there are too many uncertainties. If an ace comes, do you bet into him or not? He might have ace-king. Better not to get into this dilemma in the first place. I am not advocating tight or conservative play here, just solid, sensible play, which is something completely different.

The Flop and Beyond

The person who invented Hold ‘Em came up with a fantastic idea in deciding that the first three cards should be dealt at the same time. This means that the flop is the defining moment in the hand. In five or seven-card stud, where cards are dealt one at a time, the value of your hand changes slowly. In Hold ‘Em, a strong hand before the flop can be made almost worthless on the flop, while an innocuous-looking hand before the flop can turn into a monster. Hence the expression often heard around Hold ‘Em tables, ‘any two cards can win’. So, 7-deuce? (Deuce is a term for 2.) No problem, but only if the flop comes 7-7 -deuce. In reality, any two cards can win, but it is much more likely that A-A will win than say 7 -4 and it is on the likelihood or chance of a win that you risk your money.

Part 2

Gambling is as old as the human race, and as all encompassing as passion, anger and joy. But in many places around the world, casino gambling brings with it a different feel and experience to other forms of gambling. In the UK, it currently involves small, private, “members only” casinos, free-standing machines in pubs, restaurants, clubs and on ferries, a wide selection of betting shops and extensive Internet gambling when players can bet on anything and everything. There is currently a proposal before Parliament that would expand the scope of casino gambling to make it much more like the Las Vegas experience in the US and other parts of the world.

So what is it that makes gambing so pervasive in human nature? Every choice you make in life is a gamble. When you are finally old enough to make your own choices, you gamble with your future with every decision you make. The choices you make each day in real life are easily translated into the choices you make at the casino.

Luck is, of course, the essential element in casino gambling. Sure, you can mitigate that factor by understanding the odds and the most favourable ways to play the games, but you can’t eliminate it.

Similarly, luck plays an enormous role in your life. You can get a good education and be totally prepared for your career but, if you don’t meet that one key person in your professional life, or you don’t get an unexpected break, you may only be moderately successful.

Unlike gambling, where the decisions on the various games will break even over the long run, you can’t depend upon real life to “even up”. Bad luck can dog an individual his entire life, for reasons unknown to anyone except for a higher being. Don’t expect things to turn around because you are due for a break. You have to make your own breaks.

CHANGING YOUR LUCK
When you’re gambling and losing, the natural inclination is to try to do something to win. That can often be the worst strategy. By continuing to gamble, you’re risking more of your money, and you have a greater than average chance of losing. Why? Because now you’re playing with “scared money” – that is, money that you never planned to risk, but now believe you must. Because it’s more than you planned to risk, your decisions will often be suspect, you will play more emotionally than rationally and expose yourself to some very harsh results.

The same is true in life. If things aren’t going well for you on a particular project, for instance, you can get angry. Anger never makes it better, it can only make things worse. And when you get angry, emotional, exasperated or you feel that you simply don’t care, you are going to lose … and that also applies to gambling.

It doesn’t matter how much time or money you’ve invested, either. If you’re playing blackjack, and you have to make a difficult decision, don’t think about how much money you’ve lost already. It doesn’t matter, and it certainly won’t affect whether you win or lose that particular hand. If it affects how you play, you’re in bad shape.

Let’s take the stock market as an analogy. Suppose you purchased stock in a particular company for £5,500. Now suppose that company suffered some downturns that no one anticipated, bringing your stock down to £2,750. But another investor is willing to pay you £4,500 for that stock. You don’t want to take that offer because you believe you’ll be losing £1,000. But if you accept his offer, you’d actually be picking up £1,750. It doesn’t matter what you paid for the stock initially; it only matters what it’s worth at the moment you get the offer. Make the decision on that basis, not on past events.

After everyone remaining has exchanged there is another betting round, which proceeds along the same lines as the first, except that the rule is that the player who has opened the betting before the draw always speaks first. At the end of the second betting round, the remaining players show their hands and the person with the best poker hand wins the pot. (This will be the first time in the playing of the hand where players get to see any cards other than their own.) If one player has made a bet that nobody calls, he wins the pot without showing his cards.
In the previous example at the start of the second betting round there is £106 in the pot and the betting might proceed as follows:

Here player C was first to act (because he opened the original betting) and checked, player F bet and player B folded, player C then raised, even though he had already checked (this is called a ‘check-raise’). Some people consider a check-raise to be unethical and some home games prefer not to allow it, but it is allowed in all games held in casinos. Player F then chooses to call player Cs raise although he had the option to raise again. Indeed if both chose to they could have continued raising until one or other ran out of money. Once the last bet or raise made by either player has been called by the other, they then show their hands and the one with the best five-card hand wins the pot, which has now reached £146. This is called the’ showdown’. There are often more than two players involved in a showdown. Note that at any stage if one player makes a bet that the others do not call th~n that player would win the pot without having to show his cards. 

That’s the mechanics of the betting dealt with. In the above example, all of the bets were in units of £10 but the limits you place on the game you play is up to you. You might allow units of say £5 before the draw and £10 after or simply allow any amount between £1 and £10 to be bet at any time (but bear in mind that a raise must always be at least as much as the original bet). Usually in a fixed limit game there is a constraint of one bet and three raises per round to prevent two players constantly re-raising each other and trapping a third in between them. To show how this could arise let’s look once again at our example.

 Player                 B                  C                F

Betting Action:                        Bet £10          call

                        raise              re-raise         call

                        re-raise          re-raise         call

                        re-raise          re-raise         call

                        call                call

Total bet            £70               £70               £70

Put yourself in the position of player F. It is probable that he would have been happy to just call the first £10 bet and have a showdown. But because the other two players are constantly re-raising each other, player F has to continue to meet the extra bets or fold, losing any chance of winning the hand. On this occasion, player F has had to put in £70, but with the restriction on raising described above, the most he can be forced to put in to have a showdown would be £40, i.e. a bet of £10 and three raises of £10 each. Of course, when only two are left they can raise and re-raise as often as they like.