Moving it All In

For decades, there was little no-limit hold'em to be found except for tournaments. One of the realities of no-limit hold'em is that the mistakes poor players make often cost them their whole stack. This is different from limit poker, in which a mistake costs you a bet, or a pot built of limited bets. As a consequence, bad no-limit hold'em players go broke much faster than bad limit players, and this makes it extremely difficult to sustain the poker economy of the game. The live money just disappears, leaving a group of toughies trying to beat each other up. So, from the late '70s until the current boom, not much no-limit hold'em was to be found.

Things are different now, with daily no-limit hold'em games being spread in almost all brick-and-mortar cardrooms and on the Internet. The huge infusion of money into the game has created new parameters for the economic underpinnings of the game. While the historic economic fundamentals still apply, the seemingly endless flow of new cash has created an economy for no-limit hold'em that appears to be sustainable for at least the short-term future.

But even when no-limit hold'em ring games were scarce, the game survived in tournaments, and it had a distinct cachet as being the game that was played for the world championship at the World Series of Poker ever year. Several hundred of the toughest players and a few hundred more brave souls gathered at Binion's Horseshoe every spring to duke it out for bragging rights and the biggest prize pool around. The game survived almost exclusively in this context – until the World Poker Tour started to televise no-limit hold'em tourneys and they took the public by storm.

I have focused my poker career on limit poker, the predominate structure of poker in my youth and middle age. I have had a little experience playing no-limit hold'em tourneys. However, over the years, I developed a risk-averse consistent style designed to prevent big fluctuations, which is not a style that lends itself to no-limit hold'em dominance.

That said, I do think one of my strengths in poker is reading people and reading hands (which is an important asset in no-limit hold'em), and that I have a good conceptual understanding of poker, which is a huge asset when moving from one type of poker game to another. While I did not think I would be anyone's fool at a no-limit hold'em table, I also understood my limitations; there is a lot to be learned from experience, and my experience was elsewhere. The nuances of any situation are not always easily defined until you experience them from hindsight, and even the obvious is easily overlooked when your mind is not looking at things from a given perspective.

If I were starting out now and looking to play poker for a living, I would focus on no-limit hold'em, both cash games and tourneys. The ability to gain an edge from the inexperienced players currently flooding the poker world is much greater in no-limit than in limit. Besides, shoving it all in can be a lot of fun, not to mention the enjoyment of the challenges of the critical decisions that are required in the game.

So, when the Internet cardroom www.PlanetPoker.com invited me to do a poker seminar at the IPF tourney at Maho Beach on the island of St. Marteen in the Caribbean, I packed my bags and looked forward to playing in some no-limit hold'em tourneys, not to mention lounging on some sunny beaches in the wintertime.

Tourneys are a different animal than cash games, and on the plane I reread David Sklansky's book on tournament poker to refresh my mind with tourney concepts. At the start of the $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold'em tournament, I was psyched up and ready to rumble.

The tournament, which was being run by the IPF, featured mostly European players. In Europe, big-bet games – pot-limit and no-limit – never died out the way they did in the United States. Europe has a far bigger pool of players with many years of big-bet experience than the United States does.

The tourney's paradisiacal venue brought many vacationing tourists to the event who were just looking to have fun and gamble. And some were looking to gamble very high. But it also brought in some of Europe's top no-limit hold'em players. Most were very young and very tough.

About 200 players started the $1,500 event, and we were down to 34 – four tables. I had one big hand in which I flopped a set of fours when two players, each holding two aces, underplayed their hands and let me take a flop. (It was a great situation to be in; I got 2-1 on all of my chips and had only a runner-runner flush possibility to beat me.) But after that, I was reduced to stealing blinds and picking off small pots while struggling to stay alive.

When the blinds were $600-$1,200, with a $200 ante, the game was being played fairly tight, with few players willing to risk their tournament position without a very strong holding. I had in the previous round moved all in preflop in a couple of situations in which I did not think I was going to be called, and had picked up the blinds and antes. I had built up my stack to about $15,000 in chips (the average was about $9,000), which was a good but not great position. I was playing to win, not to squeak into the money, and had a mindset to be aggressive.

I posted $1,200 in the big blind, we were eighthanded. Three players folded and the fourth player raised to $2,400. The two players behind him folded, as did the small blind. I looked down to see two tens. It was decision time!

I had played only about 35 hands in my life with the player who raised, which was not enough to give me much of a read. He had slightly more chips than I, and had made several previous raises of double the big blind or two and a half times the big blind. Once, he had pushed all of his chips in preflop. I had no physical read on him, nor did I have much of a clue regarding the texture of his hand. He was, however, playing more hands than any other player at the table.

I thought about my options. If I raised a portion of my chips, I was essentially pot-committed and would almost certainly be betting the remainder of them on the flop. My hand, while good, was still very vulnerable, and I didn't want to go broke. So, I limited my choices to calling or moving all in.

If I moved all in, I believed it would lower his propensity to call, thereby reducing my chances of going broke on the hand. I would be happy for him to fold and give me the money in the pot without the risk of a "race." But I also could play the hand coyly by just calling and trapping if a favorable flop came. However, giving him a chance to hit a hand that he may fold to an all-in raise constituted a greater risk. Reducing the chance of going broke was more important than the chance of acquiring extra chips. I moved all in, hoping that he would fold two overcard hands that had a good shot of beating me.

He said "I call" so quickly, I knew I was done. He turned over two aces and I didn't hit my long-shot outs.

I mulled my decision in hindsight. Did I play it right? I think I did. There were enough chips in the pot that I had to make a play on the pot. And if he didn't have a very strong hand, I was going to win without any draw. An important concept in tournaments is to lower your risk of going broke, even if you sacrifice the chance of winning a few more chips. I am not saying to "nit up" and blind yourself away, but you should adjust the play of your hands in a manner that gives you the greatest chance to win the pot when weighed against the risk you must take.

I enjoyed the trip big-time. The island scenery was lovely, the tournament was well-run, and the dealers were surprisingly good. Of course, it would have been much better if I had caught a 10 when I needed one!

No-limit hold'em – especially tournament no-limit hold'em – looks like it's here to stay. If you have a history of playing limit games, you must adjust your thinking. Likewise, if you have a history in ring games, you must further adjust your thinking. To become a consistent final-table finisher in this new era of the game is an endeavor that will require a lot of work. But if you're starting in the game today, the rewards will justify the effort. I think it's definitely the way to go.

And the game is played from Lithuania to Costa Rica, so it will give you a chance to see the world!

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. If you would like to ask Roy poker-related questions, you may do so online at www.UnitedPokerForum.com. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a free-lance writer in South Florida.