Two Gears

I am a semiprofessional poker player who lives in Houston, Texas. In the two-plus weeks I was in Reno, Nevada, for the World Poker Challenge, I learned many things, one of which I'd like to share with you. In one of the events, I noticed a player who could have greatly increased her chances of winning a no-limit hold'em tournament I played in if she had had a second "gear." Most players fall into certain categories: tight, loose, aggressive, passive, and so on; but the mark of a good player is to fall into lots of categories. One player might think a player is super tight, while another may think that same player is a loose goose. A key component of being a successful player is having several gears. If you ask some of the people I play with back home if I'm tight or loose, you'll hear both sides. Will having two gears make you a good player and guarantee that you'll be successful and win lots of money? Of course not, no single thing will. But, having two gears will help you become a better player.

Let's get back to the tournament. We will call our player "Fast," for obvious reasons. We were down to 18 players in the $500 no-limit hold'em event, and I asked the player seated next to me if he knew the lady's name with all the chips at the next table. The next thing we knew, we lost two players at our table and here she came with her mountain of chips, which for obvious reasons was good and bad. Vince Burgio came up behind me and said, "Now you're in trouble, boys," and told me that I couldn't give her too much momentum. The first three hands after she sat down, she raised the pot to $2,000! The blinds were only $100-$200, so these were huge raises at the time. You also have to understand that most players tend to tighten up near the end of a tournament, trying to guarantee a trip to the final table and a big payday. "Fast" knew this, and knew how to attack like a shark in a feeding frenzy. "Fast" has plenty of money and plays to win, but more important to her is the action. She's not thinking about anything but winning every pot, which, again, is good and bad when she's your opponent.

The fourth hand after "Fast" sat down was my big blind, and again she raised the pot to $2,000! (And, yes, she won the first three pots without a showdown.) I read her as being weak and on a steal. I looked down and saw two sixes, and pushed all in for $6,000 more, hoping to end it right there and slow her down a little bit. When I pushed in my chips, I could tell she didn't like it, and she started to think for a while. She finally called – with K-10 offsuit! "Fast" is not afraid to gamble. She didn't improve her hand and doubled me up, making me the new chip leader with $16,000 while hurting her chances of winning.

"Fast" had accumulated all of her chips by being aggressive, so she stayed that way. However, you have to know when to put on the brakes. What hand could I not beat there? I certainly wouldn't push in with a hand that couldn't beat K-10 against a player I knew was not likely to be bluffed. She had to know that she was at best a small underdog to win the hand, and if I held 10-10, J-J, Q-Q, or A-10, she was a big dog, and if I held A-A, K-K, or A-K (all possibilities), she was really in trouble. First of all, you have to make sure your raise is big enough to achieve its purpose, which is to get as much money as you can into the pot to get value on your good hands or so that your opponent can't call you unless he has you beaten, and then you can take the appropriate action. One problem players run into in tournaments or live pot-limit games is that they make a raise that's so big that they cannot fold when reraised.

The appropriate action would have been to fold when I reraised. Now let's say that "Fast" was a short stack of $2,400 and raised the pot to $1,200. Then, she clearly should call the reraise unless she knew for certain that I had aces or kings (the two hands that dominate K-10 the most), but with $18,000-$20,000 in chips at the $100-$200 level, she shouldn't have played a hand worse than kings or aces, in my opinion.

The main reason I know for a fact that she made a mistake is that in that same tournament at the final table, I made a similar mistake for all of my chips (yes, "Fast" was there, too, and lost to pocket kings when she had aces). I hadn't picked up a hand in a long time, but had only gone from my $26,000 stake down to $18,000 in about three and a half hours of play. A player who I knew was a beginner and was nervous about being at the final table had been showing down very good starting hands and also laying down hands when reraised unless he had a good starting hand that was in fact the best hand. I never saw him turn over a junk hand, which is unusual in no-limit, where the cards you play aren't nearly as important as the way you play them. Anyway, he had been raising about three times the big blind with aces and kings (he was getting hit by the deck), and when he had middle pairs, he raised a lot more because he didn't want action on them. We were down to seven players and I was in the big blind; he raised to $5,000 with $400-$800 blinds and a $75 ante. I had been watching him as he looked at his holecards, immediately raised to $5,000, and "perked up." I thought he had tens or jacks, which dominated my hand of J-10, but I was sure that he would lay down anything lower than queens, and possibly even queens. I reraised him my remaining $13,000 and he sat back and started to think. It seemed like forever, but it was only about five minutes until he made a crying call, saying, "My first instinct was that you're bluffing me, so I call." He was right and wrong. He was right that I was bluffing but wrong to make that his reason for calling. He admittedly said he had no clue what I held, so it's tough to make that call. If I had A-Q, I would still win half the time and still would have been "bluffing." I am positive that if my raise was $20,000 or more, he wouldn't have called, but I didn't have $20,000 more because I had made some bonehead plays.

"Fast" and I were both guilty of being too aggressive when we should have slowed down. Don't be afraid to find that second gear and slow down, and maybe not play a hand for an hour or two. Be patient and pick your spots if you have the chips to be patient. If you are on the other side of the fence, don't be afraid to bet and raise if you have nothing if you think your opponent will fold. Get aggressive and check-raise your heads-up opponent with rags in the blind when he's a late-position thief and gives you an "I've gotta bet the flop" number. Don't be afraid to reraise a raiser with nothing when you think he'll lay it down, and don't be afraid to reraise a raiser and then fold when you get reraised by another player and it's obvious you're beat. And maybe most importantly, know the chip status of every player at your table and whom you can and cannot bluff!

Great players have many gears in which they play. Do you? Best of luck to you when playing your next session of the greatest game on earth.