Plugging Some Leaks - Part X

This is the 10th and final part of this series on common mistakes in poker. In this column, I will try to plug three more leaks: one in limit hold'em, one in pot-limit Omaha, and, finally, some that are common when there's a maniac in the game.

Leak No. 22: Losing money in limit hold'em with ace-little suited

A lot of weak players, and also quite a few average ones, lose a lot of money because they have the tendency to play any ace, suited or not. Better players know that ace-rag is usually a money burner, but they often don't have the strength to fold a suited ace – even when the situation is clearly unprofitable for that type of holding. In full ring games, I usually treat ace-little suited as follows:

Moderately tight games:

Early position: Easy fold

Middle position: Usually fold, in some cases raise to steal the blinds, occasionally call if two or three people have limped in front of me.

Late position: With a couple of limpers in front of me, call. If I am the first one in, either raise or fold. I don't always raise here, as many players seem to do. Especially in heavily raked games, simply throwing away my hand is not all that bad, but if I decide to play (which would seem normal most of the time), I bring it in for a raise.

Loose games:

Here, ace-little suited is a profitable hand, and can be played for a profit, sometimes even from early position. (This is especially true when the game is loose-passive, as opposed to loose-aggressive.) In loose-passive games, I can almost always call from middle position and sometimes even from early position, and from late position I might even raise every once in a while to create a volume pot. However, games this good are very rare, and almost nonexistent in $10-$20 and higher-limit games.

More than all of these preflop recommendations, ace-little suited will be profitable only if you know how to play well after the flop, and only if you are able to make the right decisions then – for instance, if an ace flops rather than the flush draw. If you are not capable of making the right decisions here, you should probably stick to the hands that require less judgment after the flop: the premium pairs, the suited high cards, and the small pocket pairs.

Leak No. 23: Underestimating the value of rundown hands in pot-limit Omaha

People who are new to Omaha often have trouble analyzing their starting hands correctly. Coming from a limit hold'em background, they know how to appreciate high cards and big pairs, but they fail to see the potential strength of hands like 10-9-8-6 and 7-6-5-4. When the circumstances are right, these hands can make you a tremendous amount of money. This is especially true if you are up against someone who is known to overplay his big pairs, and who is simply unable to release them even when the texture of the board and/or the significance of the action indicates that this may be necessary. (If you are up against someone who cannot release his bare aces against a board of 10-8-5 with two of a suit, playing the small and medium rundown hands may be very profitable for you – especially when you are in position and the money is deep.) Hold'em players who are giving Omaha a try habitually overestimate the strength of high pairs, especially after the flop. They also fail to see the need to play coordinated cards, and therefore habitually underestimate the small and medium rundowns. If you want to become truly successful in high-stakes pot-limit Omaha games, you shouldn't be one of them.

Leak No. 24: Choosing the wrong seat when there's a maniac in your game

A lot of players and writers think that it is always best to sit to the immediate left of an overly aggressive player. Their reasoning goes something like this: "Because I have position on him, I always know what he has done before I have to commit myself. In addition to that, I will often be able to isolate him with the hands that I do play – the types of hands that perform very well in a heads-up situation: high cards and big pairs. Plus, I will have position on him in all of these cases, meaning that this seat will give me the best of two worlds."

These people are right to a certain degree, but there are some problems. These problems arise if other players in the game don't respect your reraises or see them for what they are: attempts to try to isolate the maniac in order to play heads up against a random hand. If people back into the hand after both you and the maniac have put your chips in, you might face the unpleasant situation of the maniac who is always betting through you, with people behind you who are still to act and who might or might not have received help from the board. Things get even worse when there are also habitual check-raisers in the game, people who are bagging their hands in order to let the maniac do the betting for them, thereby putting you in the middle.

When choosing the best seat, quite a bit depends upon the game (limit or big-bet, hold'em or Omaha), and your opponents: Do they respect a reraise by you or not? In moderately tight pot- and no-limit hold'em games, sitting to the immediate left of the maniac might not be so bad, as there are relatively few playable starting hands for the players behind you to find – especially since you've made it so expensive for them. But in looser (limit) hold'em games and especially in pot-limit Omaha, games in which people find lots of playable hands even against two raises, this seat will get you in serious trouble. You are in danger of being sandwiched between a highly aggressive player who will bet with anything and players behind you who may or may not have received help from the board. It is for this reason that under some circumstances and in some games, the seat that so many people advocate may actually be the absolute worst seat at the table, and if you pick this seat habitually without looking at circumstantial factors, you may be behind more often than you might think.

Some Final Words

This concludes the most extensive series of columns on poker that I have ever written. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something along the way. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at any time.

To read Part I through Part IX of this series, go to www.CardPlayer.com.