Poker News

Lou Krieger

This is the second of a two-part series that began last issue.

Your skills can help you assess the risk; but don’t carry it too far. Even when you are far superior to your opponents, don’t rely too heavily on skill alone. The element of luck can be very destructive if you have too much of your bankroll at risk regardless of how poorly your opponents might play. The old adage about not putting all your eggs in one basket rings true here. Be willing to risk a little to win a lot. Although most players will not go all-in before the flop with a lot of money at risk, they will usually call your bets before the flop with hands that provide an opportunity to improve significantly. All skillful no-limit hold’em players are willing to pay a small price to catch the card they need on the next wagering round in order to win all your chips.

Why restricted buy-in no-limit games differ significantly from games with no cap. Here’s a case in point. You have $200 and are playing a small no-limit game with a restricted buy-in. You raise to $20 before the flop with A-K. Two players call, and the flop is A-8-3. You make what’s called a continuation bet of approximately half to three-quarters of the pot. That’s a wager on the flop made by a player who bet or raised before the flop- regardless of whether the flop improved his hand or not-to convince his opponents that the flop helped him or that he had a big pair from the get-go and doesn’t even need any help from the flop to keep on betting. Suppose an opponent raises. If you call, you”d have a significant portion of your money already in the pot, so you might just as well go all-in, see all five cards and hope your top pair is the best hand or improves sufficiently to win the pot. If you lose, you can rebuy for another $200.

Compare that with a baby-blinds no-limit game where there’s no cap on the amount of the buy-in and you and your opponents each have $2,000 on the table. Even if the betting went the same way as it did in the example cited above, your decisions are much more difficult. If your opponent was lucky enough to flop a set, you can lose $2,000 instead of $200 because the raiser is likely to come out betting on the turn and keep atit until you have most or all of your chips in the center of the table. While there’s always the chance that he might be bluffing with the worst hand, is it worth $2,000 to find out? The more you have at risk, the more skill you”ll need to protect your bankroll and to leverage it at just the right time. But even if you’re very skillful, your decisions won’t be right all the time.

How many chips do your opponents have and how well do they play? These considerations are also important in deciding how much to risk when you sit down to play no-limit Texas hold’em. Always have at least as many chips as the weakest player at the table. But if one of your opponents is particularly tough, you might want to buy in for less, to limit your potential losses.

What if you don’t know how any of your opponents play? If your opponents are all a total mystery to you, just sit down with a short stack and add to it later if you”d like. You can’t take chips off the table unless you get up to leave the game for good, but you can always re-buy. A little caution-and sometimes an awful lot of it-goes a long way in this game. Let that be your guide.

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