Stumptown Poker

by Sterling Conway-Jones

Whether or not to enter a pot is probably the most important decision a player can make, yet so many do it without really considering the implications. Here’s an example gleaned from tonights game: A good, but wild (and creative) player at tonights game decided to limp with the 27s with the blinds still at 100/200 and with a bit over the starting stack, roughly 7000 in chips. The player directly to his left raised to 500 (another bad move), the players in the blinds called, and the player with 27s was, at this point, FORCED to call (the pot at this point contained over 1800 and it cost him just 300 to play, laying him 6-1, which is an easy call for most any hand as he doesn’t figure to be dominated by typical preflop raising hands). The flop came 2QJ, with two of the same suit as his hand. Many players aren’t aware of the odds here, but they are extremely important to know. He checked, the player to his left bet, the other players folded, and our hero raised all in and the other player happily called, tabling pocket Kings. Here’s why it’s important to know your odds: 27s was a slight favorite against the Kings holding both a pair and a flush draw with two cards to come, and not having a card of the same suit in the Kings. Was the player holding 27s forced to play his hand that strongly? Perhaps. The fact is, once he entered the pot, calling that first two hundred, he was condemned to play that hand for all of his chips against a much stronger starting hand, given the poor play of his opponent. Should he have avoided that situation? Perhaps. Remember, if you think that you are better than another player, you should strive at all costs to avoid close all in situations, as you completely cease to have any sort of playing advantage against that player, once all in.

Let me state this again–A good player wants to avoid coin flip situations AT ALL COSTS against inferior players, as it erases their edge. There is an old adage in poker–never give a sucker an even break. And that’s exactly what our hero was forced to do once he committed those first two chips into that pot preflop.

Passive calling is a sure fire way to court disaster with marginal hands. A player limps, hoping to catch a flop, make a hand, have it hold up, and take down a pot. A GOOD player seizes iniative by raising an amount which places the other players in a difficult situation, and with the use of skillfull betting compounds the problem for their opponents, forcing the OTHER player into guessing games, forcing the other player to make a hand.

Why was the pre flop raise made by KKs in the last example so bad? Because he took a hand like KK (the second best starting hand in all of hold em) and created a situation where a garbage hand like 27s had a forced call considering the implied odds. This is a game of mistakes, and the objective is really pretty simple–force your opponent to make them. The player with KKs made a weak raise and ended up in a coin flip situation with a garbage hand for all of his chips. Is that a positive outcome, disregarding the result? When you have pocket Kings do you want to give 27s a profitable draw against you??

Here’s the lesson for today–if you are the first person into the pot–DO NOT CALL. This move is called “Open Limping” and is a very advanced play only possible under very special circumstances. If your hand is good enough to play it should be good enough to raise. If it’s really a hand too good to fold, how much should you raise? Start with 3 times the blind. This will always be your base raise. It is important to be consistent with your preflop raises so that you don’t give away the strength of your hand. Your raise with A10 should be the same size as your raise with AA. As your position at the table falls closer to the big blind however, you should increase your raise. We will discuss position in more depth later, but basically you are at a disadvantage in the earlier seats, and so should charge your opponents in better position more money to play against you. In the first three positions at a full handed table you should consider raising 4 to 5 times the big blind to counter your bad position. Conversely, in late position you can raise less, say 2.5 to 3 times the big blind because you have excellent position and are better able to handle post flop action with your hand. Notice we aren’t talking about hand strength at all–the size of your raise should not relate to the strength of your hand, at the risk of making it transparent to other players!

What if there are limpers in front of you? Well, we’ve already decided that our base raise is 3 times the blind. For every limper, add 1 to that multiplier. Many players fail to adjust properly to other players entering the pot. Imagine you are in the small blind with QQ and four players have limped with blinds at 100/200. Raising to 600 is a horrible mistake here, can you see why? The big blind has 200 invested already, and the pot contains your 600, the limpers 800, and it only costs him 400 for a chance to win all of that– or 400 to win 1600 for odds of 4-1. You have given pocket 22s correct odds against your hand! It would actually be a mistake for the big blind to fold them! So now imagine that he calls. The first limper now has to call 400 to win 2000, for odds of 5-1. You’ve now given 89 offsuit the right odds to call you. And the odds continue to grow better for every successive player and before you know it you’ve created a statistacal catastrophe for your hand where it should normally be a favorite to win the pot but is now an underdog against the collective force of your opponents holdings. And it was all your fault!

So how should we do it? We can resort to our formula for a clue. Start with 3 times the Big Blind. But wait, there were 4 limpers. So add 1 to the multiplier (3) to reach a raise of 7 times the Big Blind. And don’t forget to account for your poor position. It turns out that 8 to 9 times is about right for that position, and a raise of about 1800 is in order. Seems like a lot? It is. But it’s justified by the size of the pot as it stands and compensates for your poor position. Remember, do you really want to force 5 players to play against your pocket QQs with position on you?