Hope You Are Good My Friend
Jennifer Matiran
“Know When to Hold’em …” Ask any professional poker player what the single biggest mistake made by novice Texas players is and they will tell you, “Playing too many hands.” It’s so easy to hold onto a mediocre pair of cards with the dream that your hand will get better. Sometimes it does, but most of the time it does not.
We all know a story about a player who stayed in a pot with 7-2 off suit and then flopped a full boat to win, but does that mean that it was a good play? Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, never finished college. Does that mean the formula to become a billionaire is to drop out of school? Of course not.
In our poker example, if the deck was shuffled and the flop dealt again with a different set of random cards, would the outcome result in another victory for our 7-2 hero? How about if it was shuffled and dealt a hundred times? A thousand times? A million times? How many times would our 7-2 off-suited player win if he holds onto these same two cards against millions of possible redeals?
This exact question was answered by Nick Berry, the inventor of a novel new product called, GreatPokerHands. Berry used sophisticated computer software to play millions of hands using every possible pair of starting cards. He analyzed, sorted, and categorized the results to show which starting hands are great, which are good, which are poor, and which are bad. The GreatPokerHands system compresses this information into easy-to-read color-coded charts that are conveniently printed onto pocket sized reference cards. A set of his cards contains a separate chart for each possible table size from two to ten players.
It should be no surprise to any reader of this newspaper that pocket aces is always the best starting hand. However, what is fascinating is how the good starting hands change depending on the number of players at the table.
Berry explains, “When there are a small number of people at the table, the average hand required to win is quite low. A pocket pair or even a lonely ace might be enough to secure the hand. However, as more and more players enter into a pot, the typical hand required to win becomes much higher.”
This fact changes the ranking of starting hands. Berry’s data backs this up. When playing head-tohead, having starting cards that are suited, while giving a slight edge over their unsuited cousins, it’s only a marginal advantage. After all, it’s pretty rare for a head-tohead clash to come down to who has a flush or not. However, as the number of people at the table increases, the advantage of having suited cards becomes very noticeable, as does the advantage of having connected-or even loosely connected cards.
“When there are many players at a table, if it’s not possible to make a straight or a flush with the two cards you hold in your hand, when you look at the mathematics, the value of your hand is significantly lower.”
It’s fascinating to look at the patterns of how the strengths of starting hands change with the number of players. If there’s one criticism of the Berry’s color-coded charts it’s that they can be hard to read in low-light conditions. Thankfully, the bright color shading makes up for some of this and, after a while, you learn to read the colors. I doubt there is a player of any skill level who cannot learn something from these cards.
You can find more details of these strategy cards at www. GreatPokerHands.com where you can purchase the cards directly. A complete set of strategy cards normally sells for $20. Two sets are $25, but as a special loyalty bonus to Poker Player Newspaper, Berry created a special discount coupon PPNX, which you can use on his website to save $5.00 off any order. According to Berry, “If these cards help you back away from just one hand you would otherwise have played, they will probably have saved their purchase price in that hand!”
Filed under: Poker News