Poker News

Tom ‘Time’ Leonard

Continuing along on our journey to improved performance, today let’s discuss recognizing opportunity before it actually knocks. Many beginner and intermediate players who have spent time working on their games by reading poker literature and clocking their opponents’ tendencies, focus on their position and starting hand values and try and play a selective aggressive game as advocated by all the pundits Sometimes what they are not attuned to, and should be, as much of the profit is earned by it, is recognizing opportunities. Opportunities to play a hand much differently than “the book” would suggest. Poker is a game of relative values. You don’t need monster hands to be a winner. You just need the winning hand at the showdown or to make a well timed bet or raise which causes an opponent to lay down his superior hand.

Opportunity in its most elemental form in Hold’em is utilizing your position. If you are on the button and no one has yet entered the pot how often should you raise regardless of what cards you hold? If your answer wasn’t 85 to 90% it shouldn’t be too much lower. This, of course, is recognizing an opportunity An opportunity to pressure two random hands that, when faced with reacting to a raise, may well fold. This is such a common play that the next level of “Opportunity Recognizers”, such as the savvy small blind, may well three bet it in an attempt to re-steal and get both you and the big blind to fold. This is another example of knowing your opponents’ tendencies and identifying on what plateau their thinking lies. So, let me re-ask the question with that qualifier in mind. If you know both blinds to be weak/tight players and you are first to act on the button, howoften should you raise regardless of your hand’s value? Now, your answer should be 90%. If you raise 100% of the time you’re in this position, even your weak/tight opponents will figure out you’re a thief and play back at you. You do need to mix up your play but you can raise with some very marginal hands when faced with this opportunity.

Opportunity also knocks in the form of “Orphan Pots”. We’ve all seen hands in which post flop no one seems willing to invest a bet. The first player to bet many times picks up the pot. Recognize and act on these opportunities to pick up small pots. These small victories can pay for your blinds and help mitigate the power of the rake to enhance your bottom line.

Our goal for this session is twofold. First, always be alert to evolving opportunities which can be attacked by playing hands much differently than you normally would. Secondly, when these opportunities arise don’t become one of those weak/tight players whom you profess to abhor who actually need strong hands to raise Be aggressive and take advantage of the opportunity. After all, good cards come and go but opportunities arise constantly. See you next “TIME”.

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