This will not be about game theory, how to play each hand or even what to do in scenarios, I will leave that up to the authors of the many books already out there. I do believe that a player should have a guideline of hands they follow but like anything in poker, everything depends on the situation.
I hope the 5 P’s will help you focus on the task at hand, making money off other peoples mistakes. With a little variation, the 5 P’s could extend over a lot of different games, but for this article I will deal with Limit Holdem.
POSITION
Position is THE factor to base all your decisions on in Limit Holdem. Why? It is the only factor that can add or subtract value to your hand on a consistent basis. Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at a few examples.
A) You are on the button. You look down and see ATo. Good hand. It is folded around to you and you raise. You are on the button. You look down and see ATo. Good hand. It is capped before it gets to you and you fold.
B) You are UTG with 89s. You fold You are on the button with 89s and 4 limpers. You call.
Not convinced, let’s look at actual numbers. Poker Room tracks EV (The unit for EV is average profit in big bets.) by position for every hand played on that site. Nearly ALL hands make more money in later positions than early. Let’s look at one, the mighty AA.
UTG it yields 2.48 bb’s profit, yet on the button it is 2.96 bb’s. That’s over ½ bb difference! In a $2/$4 game that would be $2 MORE profit in late position than early and that is with the best starting hand in poker.
Position plays an enormous role in the way a hand is played and followed through with. So let’s look at the basic positions and some recommendations on how to play.
Early Position – First three positions to the left of the BB. There are not many hands to play from this position. To make money from early position you must play tight and aggressive. You have no information about how the other players will play behind you. If you play a hand from the first three positions, you could not go wrong by always bringing it in for a raise.
Middle Position – The next three positions after early. Loosen your starting hand requirements a little but still play tight vs. an early position raise. Tend to raise more first in and start to add a little deception to your play. Maybe just calling a raise with AKs or re-raising with a small pocket pair for example. Just be prepared to release if you miss the flop.
Late Position – The cut-off and the button. The whole play book is now wide open. There are obvious exceptions but most hands play. If it is raised before you, still tighten up a little with your calls. If it is raised and re-raised before you, play only the premium hands. Limped around and most any hand will play that likes multi-action, like suited connectors. Folded around to you, most players will automatically raise. I would suggest raising 70-75% of the time. Blind stealing is an art and if you auto raise every time you are first in, you will start to get played back at and put in tough positions.
The Blinds – Treat the blinds like early position. A lot of players like to defend their blinds to the death. Don’t fall into that trap. Remember you will be first to act in every round and no use losing more money than you already had to put in.
Choosing the right hand in the right position can be a great money maker but playing the wrong hand out of position can wipe out hours of hard work. Let’s do the math. A player can expect to win 2bb/hour from limit holdem. ($3/$6 table = $12 a hour) One misplayed hand played out of position could literally wipe out hours of solid play. This example can be applied to all the other segments coming up as well. I would highly recommend a starting hand chart for new players. There are many out there but I would recommend the Internet Texas Holdem book for a good start.
One last advice – Cold Calling. It is very rare that cold calling a raise from any position (except BB) is a good play. If you are facing a raise you should either 3 bet or fold. There are rare exceptions and that will have to do with the 2nd P.
PAY ATTENTION
There are only two things you have to pay attention to while playing limit holdem; yourself and the other players. That’s it, that’s all the information you will need to play good limit holdem. So let’s start with the easy one first…..yourself.
Are you mentally ready to play the game? Are you focused? Have you set enough time to play a solid session? Are there any distractions?
As you know, emotionally, poker is tough. The suck outs, unreal calls, luck and just bad play can stress you to the maximum level in a short time. You have to be prepared for the inevitable and try to stay on as smooth an emotional level as possible. You never know when that next opportunity will arise to take advantage of bad play.
That is a lot easier said than done. Hand after hand of losing to pure dumb luck can work on a person. So during a session, re-evaluate yourself and make sure you are still emotionally “in the game”. If not, sit out a few hands, take a break, switch tables or whatever it will take to calm you enough to play solid poker again. Be honest with yourself, whether you have played 2 minutes or 2 hours, if you are getting emotionally out of control QUIT! From our example above, if you can lose an hour of profit from one misplayed hand, imagine what tilted play will cost you over the long term.
Stress relief – Don’t want to quit but not playing optimal? 1) Take $5 to the penny tables and live it up! Raise, cap and just cause chaos. 2) Define a set of rules. AQ – AA is all in. 22-TT is half in. All suited cards are 1/3 in and go cause havoc in some freerolls. (My personal favorite)
Now on to other players. There is finite math that will tell you xx hand is an xx% favorite vs. x amount of random hands. There is no arguing the numbers and they are an important part of poker and should be part of any serious poker player’s arsenal. What I would like to point out is that with good note taking and observation, there might be less “random” hands than meets the eye.
Let’s take this example:
You are in late position with TT. Player in early position raises and it is folded to you. From your notes you see that this player will raise AQ-AA but will only cap the betting with AA or KK. You three bet and all fold to the original raiser.
Math says that your TT is about 75% to win/split a pot vs. 1 random hand. This is not a random hand though. If the player calls your three bet, you could safely assume you are ahead and proceed that way on the flop. If he caps the betting though, you would have to assume you are way behind and if you completely miss the flop, could fold and save you some money. Before I go any further, let me answer some questions from the readers:
Yes, I use Poker Tracker Yes, patterns like this emerge No, they are not rare occasions Yes, I take advantage of them
Do you need a program? No. There are many observations you can get by just paying attention. Does a player overplay AK, does a player bet draws or check/call draws, when a draw hits the board will a player bet or check/raise, will a player see a flop no matter the cost, will a player only bet the nuts, and the list can go on and on. Any information towards a tendency of another player will make you money by making the right call, the right fold or the right raise.
Don’t forget you are a player at this table also. Keep an eye on how you are perceived at the table, tight, rock, loose, aggressive or whatever. Make sure you are not falling into a predictable pattern as well. That’s why I said earlier on rare occasions do you cold call a raise. Always be aware of the patterns you are portraying as well and make sure you vary them from time to time.
We now have our head in the game and we’re taking notes and making observations. We still have to make money. Some hands play themselves, some are tough decisions on whether to check, raise or fold. So let’s take a look at the next P for some help.
POT ODDS
This can be a very lengthy subject and one that can get very confusing. Pot odds, implied odds, reverse implied odds and pot equity could be a book all to itself. For this system though I will keep it simple. Remember this is a basic formula for the beginner or for the player that wants to get back to basic winning poker when your game may have gone astray. So for this I will stay with mainly pot odds with a hint of implied odds.
First some definitions:
Outs: The number of cards left in the deck that will improve your hand. Pot Odds: The odds that are present in regards to the size of the pot vs. how much it costs you to call. Implied Odds: The assumed result of betting for later hands.
So to figure at pot odds, just compare your bet/call with the money already in the pot with the odds of you hitting your hand. I would know 1-9 and figure anything with 10+ outs I am calling to the river. Of course one of the advantages of playing online is that you can print out the odds and stick them up next to your computer for easy reference.
Let’s do one example:
You’re in a $1/$2 game and $4 in the pot. You flop an open ended straight draw which has 8 outs. 4 cards on either end of the straight will make our hand. 2 players bet before you making the pot $6. Since you have to call $1 into a $6 pot you are getting 6:1 on a 4.75:1 odd. It is an easy call.
There are no such things as absolutes in poker. There are always situations, players, reads, etc. that come up that will make one play better than another but for the most part, chasing hands with improper odds will cost you money over the long term. We all have bad runs and losing streaks, but you will find that somewhere in the midst of a bad run, this will be the part that bleeds the most money. Overplaying hands too far and chasing draws well past the point of profitability. On the flip side, pot odds can play a big part in the turn around of a bad run also. Playing solid poker in the long run wins money. Nobody plays perfect all the time and we all know that we only make money off of other peoples mistakes. I know that luck plays a part and that we lose hands that we are favored in all the time. Realize though, in the long term, luck goes away and solid poker wins. Call if the pot odds say to, fold if they don’t…..it is that easy. This leads us to implied odds.
I believe implied odds are the most misused calculation in poker. It is practically impossible to quantify and is based solely on your read of the other poker players. Implied odds basically says that if you do not have the pot odds to continue BUT you think enough players will call your bet/call to eventually get to the right odds, it is safe to bet/call. Since this article is meant to be a guide to keep your game on track, I suggest you forget about implied odds unless you are real close.
For example:
Take our open-ended draw from before. There is $4 in the pot 2 player’s check to you on the flop. You are getting 4:1 now and a 4.75:1 draw but you are close enough to make the call. Why? You are practically guaranteed one of the two players who checked will call your bet. Thus, implied odds say make the bet.
This is a VERY simple overview of a very complicated subject. There are many situations that can and do arise that require you to adjust your calculations. Remember though, that for a beginner or a player trying to get back to the basics, you can’t go wrong by going with the odds.
CAVEAT: Make sure that when applying pot odds you are calling with the chance to draw to the BEST hand. If the card you are hoping for can put a better hand on the board, may not be worth it.
Quick Example:
You hold Ts9s late. The flop comes Js9h5s. Another spade gives you a flush but possible not a high enough one. Be careful here.
Now that you are honed in to the nuts and bolts of the game it is time to expand a little into the next P….Psychology.
PSYCHOLOGY
Don’t worry; I’m not going to get Freudian on you. The psychological make up of the table and the players there and the way they fit into your game play’s a big roll in how your session will be. It can be frustrating to be a passive type of player at a table full of aggressive people raising and 3 betting every pot. It can be equally frustrating if you’re an aggressive type of player at a table that will not play back at you. You can have all the tools and be on top of your game but if you are not comfortable at the table, you will make mistakes and mistakes cost money.
First off you have to be honest with yourselves about how you play the game. Everyone plays the game for different reasons. For relaxation, sport, fun, serious, entertainment and the list could go on and on. Once you realize why YOU play the game then you can make a better valuation of why others play the game. I am afraid there is no real help here that anyone can give you. Just sit down and figure out what it is that motivates you the most about playing poker. Look deep, I am sure there are not many; if any players out there that say “I can’t wait to lose money today!” so saying I play to win money is a pretty obvious answer. You may be surprised to learn that once you figure out what kind of player you are you can pinpoint what kind of player you have a hard time playing with. Then, of course you can study up on how to play that type of player or just avoid them all together. Once you figure out what kind of player you are, you can set out to find a table that will fit you best.
You can find out a lot about a table by just looking at the numbers that most sites give you in the lobby…Avg. Pot Size and % Flops Seen. If you have taken good notes, now is a good time to use them to maybe get a hint about the players at the table also.
Avg. Pot Size (APS) – This figure can give you a peek at the over all skill level of the table. If the APS is high, many people are seeing flops or calling raises and going to the river with them. A low APS could mean people releasing hands pre-flop or flop which could be an indication of better players. The actual number used as a base figure could fluctuate greatly between sites so just use your judgment and observation skills to figure what it would be at the site you are playing at. Somewhere between 4-5 BB’s I think would be a good avg. number here. ($2/$4 table would mean $16-$20 avg. pot)
% Flops Seen (%FS) – This figure can be used to evaluate aggressiveness. Usually a number < 30% would mean an aggressive type of table with not a lot of people seeing the flop. And of course the opposite, if it is > 30% it is probably a passive table with not a lot of raising.
You can use this to narrow down your choices of where you would like to sit based on the type of player you are. A low APS and %FS would indicate an aggressive table with not a lot of people playing each round. High APS and %FS would be just the opposite, a passive table with a lot of flops being seen. Whatever combination it is could tell you a little about the table and type of play you would be getting into. This is by no means an exact science. It will give you a general idea of which table to look at before you take a seat.
For the more serious players, before you sit you may want to go a step further and look at any notes you may have on the players that are there. You are looking for the optimum situation here and the more information you have the better. If no notes, observe the table for an orbit or two, if there is a waiting list, all the more reason to watch and learn before you sit down. You are looking for any edge to tilt the odds in your favor and if the table doesn’t fit well, there are always more to choose from. Of course on- line, table dynamics can change instantly so keep an eye on who comes and goes and switch tables if the dynamics start swinging against you.
Your almost there, but the final P is probably the hardest of all.
PATIENCE
Let the game come to you. In limit holdem, sometimes this one could take a while. You have to have patience at the table and be able to handle the folding hand after hand until the right situation presents itself, patience with yourself for when the right situation comes along at you still get beat and patience with your game for the times when the bad run seems to never end.
Losing patience, out of all the P’s could be the one that costs the most. Sometimes those hands that are marginal start to look real tempting after a few orbits of nothing but junk cards. Then, before you realize it, you are playing hands you shouldn’t have been playing and can’t make it up with the good hands that are winning. Usually you can look back at a marginal to losing session and find the hands that should have been dropped and find out that it could have been a better or even profitable session if you would have left them alone.
Patience at the table is where it all starts. You have to realize that no matter how good you are, you are going to lose eventually. You can’t and will not win every session. You can control how much you lose and to an extent win. There will be nights when you fold almost every hand and just never get started, nights where you fold most hands and the other ones get cracked and nights where you just can’t lose. All three require an amount of patience. On the nights that can’t get going, you must have the patience to keep waiting or quite till another night. Not fall in the trap of trying to push marginal hands and control the amount of the lost. Losing happens. When it is a fold or have your hands cracked night, patience could be the farthest thing from your mind. To stay calm and realize in the long run you will win those hands and not to tilt away even more money could turn a bad week or month into a winning one.
Win everything goes right? Deck hit you in the face. Your big blind is even flopping monsters! That’s right patience. Even here you most optimize you winnings to cover the times when you are not winning. Sometimes you feel any hand can win and you may even see a couple folded hands hit big. Still don’t be tempted to chase with the marginal hands. These nights don’t come easy or often and you have to maximize the winnings.
Patience is the key that drives the whole vehicle. Without it, you may never get started in this game.
I hope that these P’s will help you stay focused and on track through this often frustrating but rewarding game of poker. Staying focused on the basics will allow you to expand your game and hopefully make it a rewarding adventure for whatever reason you are playing for. Good Luck and See You at the Tables!
Steve Vaughan
4Flush.com