Poker News

Dr. Scott Aigner, M.D.

In “Harrington on Hold’ em” there is an example of using an opponent to your advantage when you were going to raise with K-K and saw that the short stack to your left is reaching for his chips. It is a single table no limit hold em satellite (one winner). There was an early position player with a decent stack who limped in for 60 (blinds 30- 60). Rather than the kings raising to 200 as he was initially going to do, he just raised to 120. The short stack with 240 now moves all in essentially reraising you double your raise. The button, blinds, and limper are faced with a raise and a reraise, and all fold. Of course you call. The small stack turns over Q-10 off suit, your kings hold up, and you win the pot. This is a waste of a huge hand, in my opinion. The better play would be to call knowing that the small stack is going to move in. The call does not denote as much strength as your raise and the reraise does. In addition to possibly trapping the limper you have three other opponents who might be willing to play for 240. One of them could also play overly aggressively and make a huge reraise with a number of hands.

Although one would not expect this to occur too often, I have seen one of the players with a pocket pair, or even K-Q, make a big reraise all in hoping to isolate against the short stack. By just calling, you are also giving them all a chance to call a single raise.

Now you have an opportunity to win someone’s stack, which is a much bigger than the pot you ended up with by making that initial raise. If one of the players behind calls (or the limper), I can then make a smallish raise to tie himinto calling once again. If more than one call, I can make a much bigger raise or even move in.

You are going to increase your volatility a little playing it this way but in a single table satellite, those kings just do not come around that often. I want to double up or take the chance to win a big pot. You will still essentially be playing against one opponent as the side pot has the potential to become much bigger than the 240 you invested initially. In addition, the odds are that you have a hand that is a big favorite. Obviously, any hand that contains an ace is not a huge dog to your kings so you do have to weigh the risks of this play. Me? I want to accumulate as many chips as possible. Satellites are too short to waste a big pair picking up a small pot.

There are other ways to manipulate opponents into making several mistakes during the play of a hand once they make the first one. This is just one situation that a strong tournament player uses to his advantage. Harrington gives a number of examples that I have not read elsewhere. I was not planning to endorse his book but I really did find it to be outstanding and to be extremely helpful. In regards to the above example, this was just one that I felt that my strategy was superior to his. Having a difference in opinion is not that unusual when discussing poker. It can be just like discussing a patient among a group of physicians. If you ask ten doctors their opinion, you will get ten different answers.

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