I flopped the nuts!

This may be remedial, but I swear I just bought a DVD by Howard Lederer called "Secrets of No-Limit Hold’Em" wherein he explained how there are blinds instead of antes.  Oh, and tournament chips aren’t real money.  DURRR!

I hope that I can walk you through the possible winning hands in hold’em and how I think about them.

One Pair: obviously, it’s always possible that someone has a pair.  No matter what’s on the board, a pair is always possible in someone else’s hand.  (Don’t laugh: I’ve seen A9 bet a 9-high flop like the pot was just theirs, and run into JJ.  Wait, that was me, and I rivered another 9 to win the hand.  Anyway.)  And again, almost as obviously, a single card on the board higher than your pair should cause you worry.  I figure an A is about twice as likely to have hit someone than a K, and a K will have connected with someone more often than a Q or a J.  (If you’re trying to gauge how safe you are with pocket tens, nines, or lower… I don’t know what to tell you.  Bet and find out.)  So what does that mean?  If you’re holding QQ, and the flop came AK8, and you’ve got four opponents who did more than just limp in, you’re toast.  Toast!  But TT on a Q85 flop might be safe.  Again, you’ll have to bet and find out.  If you’re not sitting on a pair, scoring top pair is great, but you’re only going to be able to bet out confidently if you’ve got that top pair and that top kicker.  (I’ll catch up to this point later.)

In Phil Gordon’s book, he says he bets out 1/4th of the pot when the flop is paired (like AA2, KJJ, or 885), and 1/2 the pot when it’s got a pair and two of one suit.  That’s whether he’s hit it or not: only five cards could have been dealt that were hit by that flop, and if you’re called, you’re beat.  Often enough, you won’t be called.  I really like this play.

Two Pair: Clearly, almost any flop can give players two pair.  Any holding can become two pair, but it’s the quality of those two pairs that make AK more valuable than QJ.  (Okay, it’s more than just that, but it’s important to remember that any two cards can make two pair.)  Two pair can give top pair headaches, but I see people get into a lot of trouble with their two pair holdings.  It’s not a lock: top pair can pair their kicker on the next card, or any of the other cards you haven’t paired, and you can end up with the worst hand in poker… three pair, no kicker.  I feel a little sick just thinking about the times my BB hand made two pair, and I stuffed a bunch of money in, ahead, and got outdrawn by better cards that just hadn’t made their second pair yet.  Ah well.

Three of a kind: I read the other day that there are actually two words for this in hold’em: if you’ve got two cards, and you catch another on the board, that’s a set.  If the pair is on the board, and you have one of the other two cards, then they call that trips.  And now you know!

Trips is obviously a more dangerous situation: Your A9 might have caught an AAJ flop, but you don’t have any idea if AK or AQ are out there, and you’re in real trouble no matter what comes if you’re outkicked.  There’s also the minor concern that JJ might have hit a dream flop, but that’s worrying perhaps a bit too much about things you can’t control. 

At times, a set has only to worry about bigger sets.  In fact, a set as low as queens (I think) can be the absolute nuts on a specific board.  (I’m trying to eliminate any straights.  Anyone know?)  I’m much more concerned about flush draws than I am straights or overpairs / bigger sets when I flop a set.  Then again, I’m trying to stuff cash into the center of the table, so my concerns get sort of drowned out.

Straight: This used to give me fits.  Once I went all-in with a set and didn’t see a real obvious straight on the board.  Oh, once I thought I’d landed the nut straight and bet into the real nut straight.  Good times.  I try to put together likely holdings (two face cards on a flop always get me thinking about straight draws), and see if a straight might be out there, but here’s a trick I figured out on my own.  While connected cards and one-gappers should get your attention, remember that a straight requires five cards, and only seven are coming.  That means two, at most, are not going to participate in the straight.  If I’m holding J8 and I see the flop of 964… sure, I’m thinking that it could straighten up in two cards.  But basically, I’m thinking, the 6 and 4 don’t participate in the J-high straight, and the 9 doesn’t participate in any straight that the 4 is part of… so even though that’s my only out, it’s a bad one, and I’m wondering how quickly I can fold.  Pairs make this even easier: my JJ on a QQT flop already contains two cards that can’t participate in any possible straights.  If I’m hoping to improve to beat flopped trips, I’m going to have to do it with my two J outs. 

Flushes: these are the donk-easiest thing to look for in Hold’Em, and I have no idea why they’re so poorly played in the games I see.  If there are two of any suit on the board, with any more cards to come, the corresponding suited holding is one card away from a flush.  The all-in calculators will tell you that you’re 2:1 to improve to a flush in this situation, but you’re only 4:1 on the turn and 4:1 on the river, so make sure you’re getting those odds to play.  If your opponents have any clue, you won’t get those odds, but… ah, who am I kidding?  You’ll probably get them anyway.  I’m not sure if people have flopped middle pair, or they’re testing the waters, but on a two-flush flop, betting half the pot is almost a necessity.  (Against a single opponent, you only have to bet 1/3 of the pot to make it a mistake to call, but again, if you think the donkey manual says "fold your flush draw against a pot sized bet", you’d be way wrong.)  And another bad play: when the turn completes the three-flush (or three of one suit have hit on the flop), you absolutely have to protect anything worth chips with another half-pot bet.  Now the situation is worse: if that fourth heart comes, pocket Aces, straights, trips, sets… they’re all worthless, because anyone with a heart just picked up a flush.  Put another way: AA just became a drawing hand (with the right A), and you don’t want to give that hand the odds to call.  When I see someone stick 50 into a pot of 500 with two spades on the board, I assume he’s on the draw himself, and wants to prevent someone else from betting first.  I’m so often wrong: they’re frequently value betting top pair, two pair, or a set! 

Full house: any board with a pair on it can be hiding an opponent’s full house.  At the same time, no board without a pair can be hiding a full house, so you can pretty much bet away with the nut flush on an unpaired board.  (I’ve seen nut flushes call instead of raise to finish hands.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.)  Full houses are the one hand that still makes my head spin a little bit.  Here’s an example.  I called a raise with A2, and got all-in with a guy after a K22 flop.  The turn was an ace, and the river was another ace.  He turned over KK.  Now he got me all-in with a full house, even though I was feeling pretty invincible with my trips 2s.  I’d already made every mistake I was going to make by this point, so there’s no sense getting mad at me when I hit one of the four cards that can save my bacon.  (I need a pair of aces, or that last 2 would also be nice.)  I’m still a 93/7 underdog, but I’ve got a full house, and so does he, but his is Kings full, and mine is Twos full.  Then the Ace comes, and while he’s improved to Kings full of Aces, I’m now Aces full of Twos, and I scoop the pot.  (Actually, the pot is shoved towards me, and while I try to sort out the happenings, a man in Amsterdam is telling me I’m the worst he’s ever played against.)  But see how crazy things can get?  If you flop a full house with K8 on a K88 flop, JJ still has two outs against you, where 77 has none.  Not defending a full house (treating it like the everlasting nuts, when other hands are certainly live) is a mistake I see plenty.

Four of a kind: I picked up this hand today (55 on a J55 flop), and I totally forgot Phil Gordon’s tip about the pair on the board.  (Actually, we had a small stack all-in, and I was really hoping that I could get action from a jack.  When the turn came a jack, I got my wish.)

There’s absolutely nothing you can do about four of a kind.  (I’m not sure if there’s different terminology for having the fourth card on a board with three, or pairs in your hand and on the board, but maybe it’s so rare they don’t have to specify.)  Obviously, be on the lookout for pairs, but it really doesn’t matter if they’re high or low cards, since you’ll see your donkey opponents fold 55 about as frequently as AA pre-flop.  I wouldn’t go all-in with KK on an AAA flop, but maybe that’s because I’m a weak, timid coward.  I’d certainly give it some action after the turn and river had given my awestruck opponents a chance to make poorer full houses (see above).

Straight flushes: not much to do about these, either.  I’ve never seen it happen that the nut flush was beaten by a straight flush, but I’ve landed one or two, and I have seen the "ignorant end" of a straight flush beaten by the top side of it.  If I’m holding the AK of spades, and the board comes up T98, all spades, I’m not at all concerned about the Q, J, 7, or 6 coming up and completing a straight flush for someone else: I’m doubling up or going broke, and I don’t care how it happens.

If you take poker seriously and you haven’t read The Theory of Poker yet, you have a strange definition of the word "seriously".  It’s important.  Anyway, the theory applied to Hold ‘Em is basically that you are trying to make the move you would make if you could see everyone’s pocket cards.  Do that, and you win long term.  The flip side is that you should be trying to get your opponents to make a decision that they wouldn’t otherwise make if they knew what your cards were.  It seems simple, but it’s very tough to put into practice. 

I think of it because people here have been reading my previous entry about limpers, and I’ve come across another solution to that problem which I hadn’t considered.  At a cash table, someone with a pile of money in front of him started talking about not having raises respected, and how bad play was winning out recently.  His theory was a sort of wrestling-with-a-pig concept: "you can’t possibly raise enough to make dumb players not chase their straights and flushes, so just make your normal bet with top pairs or overcards and hope for the best.  They’re bad players, and you’ll take their money eventually."

This was really appealing to me for a while, until I realized that his "normal bet" was a minimum bet, or maybe twice that, no matter what the pot was at the time.  Now, by the principles of avoiding frustrating beats, this is absolutely correct: risking almost nothing at a weak table might chase away a poor player with a flush draw, and if it doesn’t, you’ve made up your mind that you couldn’t have chased him away anyway, and you only risked a tiny bet to do it.  But when you factor the theory into it, it’s clear this is an awful move.

Giving your dumb microlimit player an almost free card is actually long-term suicide, because you’re actually giving him appropriate odds to call.  That’s the awesome thing about no-limit: you can set the odds for your opponent, and you can exploit the theory all day long.  Let’s pretend you’re past the turn with a nice top pair, and your opponent is drawing to a flush with one card to come.  If he has to call a $1 bet to see the next card, and the pot is $10, he should take this bet every time.  His odds are 4 to 1, and while you might like to chase him away with a bet like that, a smart player will happily call you there.  You’ll survive the next card about 80% of the time, but you aren’t getting paid enough to play through the bad beats.  That’s your money in the middle, and you let it get away with a weak bet.

But, if you bet $10 at the $10 pot, your opponent is only getting 2 to 1 odds to see that next card, and while the result might be exactly the same (remember, if he’s so dumb, you can’t chase him away, right?), you’ll win enough when you win to make it worthwhile. 

I’m playing like this a lot lately: manipulating the odds of the pot so it’s wrong for an opponent to call with what I think he has.  It’s expensive when you’re wrong, but overall, it’s been a huge help to my game.  On the other hand, it makes limit Hold ‘Em look like Candyland. 

I’m struggling with a question: what to do with limpers.  I play on the cheapest tables around, since I’m still learning, but it seems like the level of play in that game invalidates a certain amount of advice you might rely on at a more serious table.

Late position is where you should be playing most of your hands (not that you’ll play 50% of what you’re dealt there, but that’s where you’ll be most of the time when you’re playing).  I’m getting frustrated thinking that I’ve got a great hand for raising, and then find that four people ahead of me are limping.  Again.  Their limps turn your KJs–a great blind-stealing hand–into an underdog trying to bluff half the table.

I think most advice you’ll get says: scare these guys off with a raise if you have cards or take the nearly-cheap ride if your cards are marginal.  Tight aggressive, right?  With an eye towards pot odds.  But with that kind of money already in the pot, everyone’s getting pot odds to call, so they can’t fold.  So you can’t shake them.  And four limpers holding crap will beat you, no matter what you have.  Most of the time, the flop will miss you, and it’s just math: with that many hands, what doesn’t help you helps them.

People say there’s no such thing as "too loose" in an opponent.  I
think sometimes there is, especially if you’re just trying to practice
your TA-A game.  If they don’t respect your aggressive play, there’s no point.  Here are the options as I see them:

1. Limp and cut if you miss.  You had the pot odds and position to call, and when you miss, you’re out one BB.  Don’t make it worse by making something happen.
2. If it keeps happening, move on (to a different table) or move up (to a higher level, where the raises are respected a little more).
3. Treat .01/.02 like .05/.10.  Throw out the advice about 2BB or 3BB raises and start raising 10BB if you’re going to play at all.  That’s something this kind of table understands: if their stupidity is sufficient to call your monster raises with poor holdings, tune the raise to get the result you want.  It’s not changing your game to suit lesser players, it’s… well, okay, it is.  Also dangerous.  But at least you have to ask yourself why you were thinking raise to begin with.
4. Never, ever bluff at this level.  You want to make something happen with that AQs in your hand, but he already made something happen with his 74o.  He knows where he stands, you don’t, you don’t have the outs, you’re throwing money away.
5. Patience.  He’ll still have your money in fifteen minutes when you actually do hit with a decent hand, and he won’t know to be scared enough to fold.