Blue Moon Cometh - Goodbye

Early in a no-limit hold'em tournament, an E-mail friend held pocket queens in middle position with one $30 caller. He made it $300 to go and the blinds folded, but the caller pushed in the rest of his $1,000 starting stack. The pocket queens called (exactly all in), then lost to pocket kings. He had read several articles I wrote last year that mentioned "measured" bets and raises in no-limit (that is, raising about two or three times the going bet). His question to me was: "If I had started with a 'measured raise,' would I have had enough information to fold?" Good question. The short answer is maybe. Of course, it depends mostly on your judgment of the specific opponent.

Folding a high pocket pair before the flop is essentially a matter of judgment vs. mathematics, and your judgment can outweigh the mathematics of the situation only against certain opponents. In a 10-handed game, when you pick up pocket queens, you will run into pocket aces or pocket kings roughly one out of 12 deals. So, especially if you are doing well, you should exercise some amount of caution before betting the farm before the flop. Whenever I pick up pocket queens early in a tournament, I usually make an aggressive first bet or raise, but keep a worried eye on any player who seems to be breathing hard (besides myself). If someone raises his stack at me, it all depends on who that someone is!

Although I don't like calling bets that put me all in before the flop early in a tournament, with pocket queens, I can go either way. If it is at all close, I tend to call with queens. Although pocket queens lose big to pocket aces or kings (they lose more than four out of five times), and are roughly a toss-up against an A-K, they are a big favorite against all other holdings. Over the years, there have been several well-publicized examples of a good player making an inspired laydown with a big pocket pair. For example, en route to winning the first (1999) Tournament of Champions, David Chiu folded pocket kings before the flop against Louis Asmo's pocket aces. But many of the ultraconservative laydowns that I have seen (some by me) were wrong. Even when the judgmental factors fully justify the laydown, it can be wrong! What my years of experience have taught me, especially in poker (and slightly less so in bridge), is that although you can frequently predict what an opponent has generally, you can seldom predict what an opponent has exactly! Even with the most "consistent" of opponents, you never know when, for example, he might have recently read an article and decided to vary his style!

Or, sometimes opponents misevaluate a situation – or simply lose their minds. Otherwise put, poker is an inexact science. Although there is indeed much science involved in poker, exact precision is infrequent. We make judgments within certain ranges of tolerance and accuracy. Slight differences are usually indiscernible. For example, it is very difficult for us to judge whether an opponent (especially a relatively unknown opponent) is betting big with pocket kings or pocket jacks. Indeed, in no-limit tournaments, some players might play pocket jacks more boldly than pocket aces before the flop. Although you might manage to fold a high pocket pair under full-table conditions, note that when shorthanded or heads up (usually near the end of a tournament), it is much more difficult to do so – and often impossible! Not only are the before-the-flop mathematics (roughly 100-to-1 against running into aces or kings when heads up) essentially "once in a blue moon," when heads up with large antes, you are under great pressure to play most hands with which you believe to have an advantage. These two reasons are so compelling that it is almost impossible to have enough data upon which to base a judgment to fold pocket queens.

Accordingly, when I am fortunate enough to pick up pocket queens when playing very shorthanded or heads up, my prime objective is simply to get as much money as possible in before the flop! Except perhaps against a very weak opponent, I do not even consider providing for the possibility of and protecting against A-A or K-K, which comes up only "once in a blue moon." Instead, I think to myself, "This is probably the best hand I am going to get! Now, what can I do to get all or most of my opponent's money into the pot before the flop. If this happens to be the 'once in a blue moon' hand when he has pocket aces or kings, amen. Maybe I'll flop a queen."

Allow me to entertain you with a true story that was recently brought to my attention:

A Fairfax County, Virginia, schoolteacher was discussing with her class some of the words and phrases used by a local congressman who had addressed the school assembly that morning. Starting with his opening words, "It is an honor and a privilege for me …," the teacher asked for volunteers to give other examples of what might be considered "an honor and a privilege." Among the various offerings, a well-read little girl proudly stood up and said, "It is an honor and a privilege for me to be an American." Also remembered were the words of the class brown-noser, who took the opportunity to say, "It is an honor and privilege for me to be one of your students." A boy who shall remain nameless suggested, "Well, you're playing hold'em and a pair of fives hit the flop; it is an honor and a privilege to have a 5 in your hand."