Poker News

John Vorhaus

Most poker players stumble blindly through their hands, lurching from decision to decision without much thought to the way the hand will play out. This is not the way to think of poker, especially no-limit hold’em, where each hand is an evolving combat, and where those who think ahead enjoy a material advantage over their foes. No, the way to think of poker is like chess… chess plus luck.

Consider two different players holding the same 7-8 suited. One is not thinking strategically and the other is. For the sake of this conversation, we’ll call them Dondo and Spassky, where Dondo is the last float on the clueless parade and Spassky is, well, Boris.

Dondo picks up 7-8 suited in middle position and limps into the pot. He’s already failing to think ahead… even so far ahead as the players behind him, who might raise and drive him off his hand. Let’s say that happens, and let’s do Dondo a favor and give him the presence of mind to fold, getting him away from the hand without doing any more damage to his stack. Believe me, though, he could have done a lot worse. He could have called the raise, seen a flop like 8-3-2 and crashed himself against the rocks of someone’s 8-8.

Spassky, meanwhile, picks up that same 7-8 suited and he has a whole different point of view. If he enters the pot at all (he is, of course, free and perfectly sensible not to) he’ll come in for a raise, because he’s already thinking steps ahead, to the various flops he’s likely to see, and how he’s going to handle them.

He knows that if he raises andjust gets called, he can define his foes’ hands as good but not great (not, that is, reraiseworthy). He also knows that there are many flops he can bet. A scary flop like A-K-x looks very much to have hit the hand of a preflop middle position raiser, and if that’s how the flop comes, Boris will bet it. But if it comes middle-middle-middle (8-6-5, say) he’ll bet that one, too, because he knows that this flop not only hit his hand, it’s likely to have missed everyone else’s. He might even bet into an orphan flop like 6-3-3, figuring to represent a middle pair. But if Boris gets “unlucky,” and hits a flop that’s bad for his hand, something like Q-J-T, say, he can easily fold, and lay back to plan his next move.

You could argue that Boris raised with a mediocre hand, and if he hits his flop he’s just lucky. I wouldn’t completely disagree, but look at how Boris tripled his number of “lucky” flops. By raising preflop — and by thinking ahead — he sets up a situation where he can bet high flops, middle flops, and low ones. Dondo, by just calling, gives himself only two alternatives: fit or fold. “Fit or fold” is a sensible and perfectly adequate way to play poker, but it doesn’t take you to the top of the game.

For excellence in poker, especially no-limit hold’em, you have to be prepared to take control ofa number of different pots with a number of different holdings — and you have to have a working strategy for each situation that comes up. It’s good luck to hit your hand, but it’s better luck to plan ahead.

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