Poker News

Ashley Adams

You can learn some lessons too well. It happens to beginning Stud players all the time. They came to the casinos with the loosey-goosey style of the home game. They lost. They read some books, watched their opponents, and soon learned that if they were to win in a casino they had to play tight. So they did. They limited their Third Street play to Trips, high pairs, low pairs with a high kicker, 3-Flushes and 3- Straights. Gradually, and painfully, they learn to throw away the 9-K-A double suited, the 3-3-6, and even the 3- 9-9 that they played for profit in the passive easy home games. They learn to patiently fold 20-30 hands in a row. They’re rocks AND THEY’RE LOVING IT!!!

They learn to play tightly on Fourth Street , folding low pairs when they don’t improve and conceding to paired door cards. They avoid those Fifth Street trap hands like two low pair and inside straight draws or any other hands that are long shots or dominated by their opponents. But, as I said above, you can learn some lessons too well.

On the River when they have Aces and an opponent with a 3-Flush on board bets, they fold, figuring their opponent probably has the Flush. Or they lay down two low pair when they read their opponent for Trips on the River. In general, however, a player who prides himself on good lay downs on the River is probably making serious mistakes - in fact mistakes that are much worse than calling too much on the River. That’s right. Being too tight on the River is a BIGGER mistake than being too loose.

When the pot is large, as it nearly always is on the River in 7-Card Stud, you are getting excellent pot odds for your call of one bet. So even if you’re pretty sure that you are going to lose you MUST put in that final bet to give yourself a chance of winning the pot. You don’t want to take the lesson of tight play too much to heart and apply it where it doesn’t belong. And it doesn’t belong on the River (and to a lesser extent to Sixth Street).

Consider this example. You’re playing $3/6 Stud. Your opponent, showing 4d-5d-6d-7d bets $6. He’s been leading the betting the whole way. You have a pair of 8s. The pot is $60. What should you do? You think about all the hands he could have that would beat your lousy pair of 8s. He could have the Flush or the Straight of course. But he could also have a big pair, two small pair, even Trips. You’re embarrassed that you’ve played this awful hand. You hate to lose to this guy and show everyone how bad you are. So you fold. WRONG MOVE BUDDY! Unless your opponent never bluffs, don’t fold this hand! You’ve concluded that you’re probably beaten. And you know what. You probably are. But how sure are you? 60% sure, 75% sure? 90% sure? You will lose the $6.00 if you are beaten, but $66 if you win. You only have to be correct one time for every eleven times you’re wrong to break even with this call. That’s 11:1 odds the pot is giving you. Even if you’re 90% sure, that’s only 9:1. You have the best of it and you should call. Looked at another way, a mistaken call is a small $6.00 error. But a mistaken fold is a gigantic $66 blunder. On the River, be willing to make small mistakes to avoid the large ones.

Filed under: Poker News