Poker News

Tom Leonard

Regular readers of this column know that its focus is Limit Hold’em. Limit Hold’em cash games have been my bread and butter for a long time. However, just like the rest of the poker world, I’ve been playing a lot of No-Limit tournaments, especially on the internet. So, for a change of pace and since No-Limit Hold’em is certainly sweeping thepoker landscape, I thought we’d discuss the transition from Limit to No-Limit today. The most egregious mistake I see inexperienced players making repeatedly is that they tend to play the game as if it were Limit. That, of course, takes away all the tools that No-Limit provides and is a weak and losing strategy. Let me illustrate how ludicrous this approach to No-Limit is by sharing a hand from a recent No-Limit Hold’em Sit & Go. I was in the big blind with not much of a hand, 3-4 offsuit.

The blinds were $50 and $100 and the player under the gun raised it to $200. You see this type of minimum raise all the time in these very lucrative tourneys. Three players call, including the small blind, for the $200 and now it’s up to me. The pot is laying me 9 to 1 and more importantly, if I call I will close the betting. Even with a hand as ugly as 3-4 offsuit, 9 to 1 is too good to pass up. The key to successfully accepting generous odds is to have the discipline to lay your hand down if the flop doesn’t hit it hard. Many chips have been squandered by the less disciplined among us when the flop only “touches” a weak hand and a player becomes married to it. Understanding this caveat, I call and the flop comes down Ace/3/3, hitting my weak holding hard. The small blind checks as do I and the initial raiser bets just $200 into a $1000 pot. Everyone folds around to me and I pop it $600. Our hero then goes all-in and I call having him covered We turn over our hands and he has big slick and he sees my trip threes. He immediately begins typing in the chat box what a horrible play I made to call his initial raise with 3-4 offsuit. The turn is a seven which is no help to either of us and then the river is a ten. My trip threes hold up and I eliminate the player who held big slick. Now he is knocked out of the tournament and is still berating my play in the chat box from the rail.

I overcame my first impulse, which was to fire back that it was he who had made the bad play by only raising the minimum instead of three to four times the big blind. I finally typed in, “Isn’t 3-4 pretty good? They’re connectors”, to a chorus of lol’s (laughing outloud) from around the table If our hero had raised three or four times the big blind he probably wouldn’t have gotten any callers and would have won a small pot instead of losing all his chips. They offer Limit Sit & Goes as well and if you’re inclined not to raise more than the big blind, I’d suggest you stick with Limit Our goal for this session is simply to understand the dynamics of the game we’re playing and not to play No-Limit the same way its tamer cousin Limit is played. No-Limit is a game of implied odds and allows you the opportunity to manipulate the odds the pot is offering your opponents.To not take advantage of this opportunity is not playing No-Limit correctly. In fact, you will be destined to a fairly quick trip to the rail as was my incensed opponent. Just for the record, I went on to win that Sit & Go with the help of that inexperienced player’s chips.

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