Big Slick, Pocket Pairs, and Duking it Out With Poker Predators

I got an E-mail recently from Dave P., who wrote: "I'm fairly new to casino poker, but I've been visiting my local cardroom three or four times a week for the last month, and now I'm hooked. I know I've got a lot to learn, but I'm doing my reading and working hard to improve. There's something I don't understand, though, about head-up pots, and I confess that it kind of eats at me. I often see scenarios in which a player will raise or reraise before the flop and get head up with someone, and when the board brings nothing but small cards, he'll check the flop, check the turn, and check the river, and his opponent will check right along with him. Then, he'll turn over an A-K and win the pot! So, how come this never works for me? Whenever I show early strength and then downshift after the flop, the chips fly at me faster than bees to honey. If I try to go the other way and represent a big pocket pair, it's like I'm totally transparent. Nobody ever buys it, and the chips fly at me even faster than when I check. If I don't get any help on the turn, the chips keep flying and I'm forced to fold. Am I missing something here? I know that I shouldn't throw good money after bad, and I firmly believe that the key to long-term success lies in sticking to sound strategy, and not going on tilt. On the other hand, it's very frustrating to watch other people drag pots in the same situations in which I consistently have to wave the white flag. What's the answer?"

Interesting letter, Dave, and let me preface my response by saying I don't pretend to have all of "the" answers, although I'm more than happy to share a few thoughts.

Poker players are not born full-grown, they have to mature – and they have to do it not in a vacuum, but in a jungle. One of the game's cruel ironies is that in the early stages of this Darwinian process, it is the serious, disciplined newcomer, determined to "play correctly," who is especially vulnerable to attack from observant, aggressive predators. Of course, these "chipivores" hunger for the money of the weak-loose newbies just as much as they hunger for yours, but their approach to them is different; they don't waste their time trying to move ego-driven types who can't be bluffed, nor do they waste creative plays on people who are paying no attention. Against weak-loose newbies, they can play a waiting game, circling like buzzards until the inevitable moment when their prey either self-destruct or simply get ground down (and out) by the percentages they so love to buck. Against the more disciplined newbie, however, chipivores go into attack mode, for they recognize that at this point in their poker maturation, the serious neophyte's discipline is both his greatest strength and biggest weakness.

In the learning of poker (or anything else), fundamentals precede the creative stuff; it's almost impossible to learn anything the other way around. But while discipline is a fundamental attribute that's essential to long-term poker success, it can only serve as a cornerstone of your game if you can weather the onslaughts of those who seek to exploit it, and survive to the next stage of the learning process.

The A-K question you raise, Dave, serves well to illustrate the point. At the start of their poker careers, many serious low-limit players have it drilled into their heads that A-K is a drawing hand, and if the flop brings nothing, release, release, release. This is sound advice contextually, the context being that you have to learn to walk before you can run. In fact, it's sound advice in general, hardly applicable only to the low roller. A-K, after all, is a drawing hand, and many a high-, pot-, and no-limit player, both live and tournament, has had to ease on down the road as a result of overvaluing Big Slick.

None of this alters the fact that in the day-to-day real world of limit poker, there are no foolproof, formulaic answers, and while lack of discipline is certainly a drawback, so is predictability. If you fold like a tent every time you raise with A-K, the flop brings rags, and your heads-up opponent bets, and forthrightly lead out with it every time you do connect, your opponents will soon catch on, and run over you whenever you miss, and decline to pay off when you hit. If you want to be successful, you simply can't play the same hands the same way all the time. While this idea applies to varying degrees to all of your holdings, it's especially true for your big pocket pairs. Indeed, since we're on the subject of A-K, it's worth noting that your ability to derive full value from your A-K hands is inextricably linked to the way you approach these big pocket pairs.

This is because most players, when confronted with a preflop raise, tend to put the raiser on either A-big or a starting pair, and the observant, aggressive player, presented with a predictable weak-tight opponent and a rag board, is not shy about testing him to find out which of the two he's got. Although he's going to lose a single bet when Mr. Weak-Tight does in fact hold that big pocket pair, this one-small-bet risk is more than offset by the facts that (A) in a head-up pot that was raised preflop, the chipivore is looking at a return of 4-to-1 (plus any blinds); and (B) in failing to ever punish the chipivore for his aggressive moves by varying his play in a way that would cost his opponent extra bets, the weak-tight player does nothing to alter the positive risk/benefit ratio of the chipivore's aggressiveness, thereby guaranteeing that he'll be faced with it over and over again.

By mixing up your play in heads-up situations with your big pocket pairs, you can slow your opponents down considerably, a benefit that will carry over to your A-K hands. Instead of always being forthright and leading out with your pairs, you might sometimes check with them, sometimes bet, sometimes check-raise on the turn, or sometimes check-raise on the flop. Remember, the chipivore is nothing if not observant, and by alerting him that his automatic rag-flop bets into your preflop raises shall henceforth carry considerably greater risk than the single bet it was costing him before, you effectively revoke his license to steal – which should get you more free turn and river cards, thereby maximizing the cumulative value of your future Big Slicks.

The successful player doesn't stop at exploiting his opponents' weaknesses; he also seeks to exploit his opponents' strengths. Right now, Dave, your opponents are seeking to use your greatest strengths – your discipline and determined commitment to play "correctly" – against you. As a newcomer, it would be a mistake to try to counter that by getting into extremely aggressive chip-splashing head games with your A-K hands that don't connect, especially against more experienced players who can read you better than you can read them. But you can still turn the tables on the chipivore by adding deception to the way you play your big pocket pairs – and discourage him from exploiting your discipline against you by exploiting his aggressiveness against him.