Good Cards, Marginal Call

I was playing $30-$60 hold'em at Bellagio. The under-the- gun player, a tight player who plays his hands well, opened the pot for a raise. I was in the second hole with the A J. If the under-the-gun player had folded, I definitely would have at least called and possibly raised with my holding. But, calling a raise or reraising is an entirely different thing than opening the pot with a raise.



For starters, the initial raiser takes away the possible scenario of winning the pot outright without a call. People underestimate the positive expected value of winning small amounts of money (like the blinds) without substantial risk. It adds up!



When confronted with an upfront raise, you also have the additional risk of being in bad shape against the opening raiser if he holds a hand that has your holding trapped with an identically ranked card with a better kicker or a higher pair than one (or both) of your cards. The A J is in a lot of trouble against A-A, A-K, A-Q, K-K, Q-Q, and J-J.



Even if you do hold a better hand than the raiser, there are problems. While you have the advantage of position, he has the advantage of being the aggressor. You're reacting to him, rather than him reacting to you. Unless he is a bad player or you have him "trapped up" in some manner, you would do better in the long run if he were not involved in the hand.



In this case, had the first player passed to me, my holding would appear pretty solid. But when facing his raise with the whole field behind me, it became somewhat marginal. This is another example of the situation rather than the cards dictating value and the play of the hand. So, if you hold a marginal preflop hand, when do you call a preflop raise and when do you pass the hand? What should you consider when evaluating your situation? What strategies should you employ?



What is the style of the raiser? Is the raiser very likely to have a strong hand, or is he raising lots of pots? What range of hands is he likely to hold? What position is he in? How does position vary the strategy of this particular raiser? Has anyone else called? Do the callers influence the strategy of the raiser? Is anyone else likely to call? What is the texture of the field behind you? Are many players who are likely to make post-flop mistakes likely to call? Is there a high likelihood of the pot being reraised behind you? Is it likely to get reraised more than once?



Keep in mind that just because a player may raise with a hand worse than yours doesn't mean he wouldn't raise with better hands than yours, and still may hold a superior holding to yours. (One of my favorite poker maxims is: Even idiots pick up their share of aces!) In such situations, you need to weigh approximately the range of hands your opponent may hold and how your hand plays against those hands. In order to accurately assess the situation, you need to know your opponents, so focus in between hands on how they play.



In this case, the under-the-gun player had to have a strong hand to open from first position with a raise. The game texture was such that players were calling raises, and the upfront player, being an astute observer of poker situations, knew that. He was not messing around in early position without a hand. His holding was almost certainly superior to mine. And I was not looking to take a likely inferior holding against a good player heads up, even with position.



What kind of price could I get on a call? To play this hand, I needed my price extended due to additional factors. If I can outplay an opponent to such a degree that my odds increase significantly, that enables me to make a call with position with an inferior holding. But that wasn't the case here. Another way of increasing my odds was for players to come in behind me, thereby improving the price of my call. The price is improved even more if those callers are likely to play their hands poorly after the flop.



Was that likely in this game? You bet it was! It was Saturday night in Vegas! Nobody was making any strong laydowns other than the raiser and I. With loose players calling behind me, the player under the gun would not be able to make any fancy moves, because he knew that he would have to make a hand against the field. That lent strength to a possible call. When multiplayer fields exist, good players are forced to play their hands more "true to form," as the value of fancy play is greatly diminished in games in which players do not read their opponents and call under all circumstances anyway. That makes it easier to read the holdings of solid players more accurately.



I called the $60, believing we would get a volume pot with many players trailing behind me. I was not disappointed. Five players, including the big blind, called behind me, and we took the flop off seven handed. The flop came down 10 8 7, which was not exactly what I had been envisioning.



The big blind checked, the under-the-gun player bet, and I tossed my hand into the muck. It seemed like a lot of good analysis wasted by the turn of a flop. But deep down, I know it really wasn't. You win money in poker over the long haul because you make good decisions, better than those of your opponents. And I liked both my thought process and my decision in the hand. Over time, I'll hit my fair share of flops, lady luck will even out, and the chips will scoot my direction. That's just the nature of the game of poker.



The hand played out. The under-the-gun player held two kings with the K, and lost to a tourist who had called the raise cold with the A 6 when a fourth heart hit on the river. The guy with the kings took the beat in stride like the pro he is, didn't ridicule his opponent, or say a word when another tourist asked to see his hand. Good players aren't whiners; they know that if the chasers never got there, they'd stop chasing, and they'd never make any money.



This fellow knows that's just poker. He has faith in himself and his poker game, and knows that he'll be living large as long as they keep calling his upfront raises with A-6 offsuit – and maybe A-J suited.



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.