Shootout at the Venetian

The poker boom has brought about the opening of fine new cardrooms in Vegas, at first-class properties such as Caesars Palace and Wynn Las Vegas, and the competition has proven to be a good thing for players. There are quality cardrooms up and down the Strip, as well as off the Strip. One of the nicest in town is at The Venetian. It is one of the most comfortable rooms I have ever played in, and I've played in all of the major poker rooms in the country.

Recently, I was playing $40-$80 limit hold'em there. "You've four-bet more tonight than I've ever seen you do in a week," said Joe, a regular in the middle-limit $30-$60 through $60-$120 games who can terrorize a field. Joe was dead right, in that I had in fact four-bet preflop several times during the course of the evening. But, he was dead wrong in letting me know that he thought something was up!

Joe is a charming, debonair guy, a real gentleman. But at the poker table, he can play like a meth head with an AK-47, firing at a speed that can scare you silly. And on this night, Joe was … well, Joe was being Joe. Raising, reraising, and doing what Joe does best, he was keeping the heat on his opposition. When playing meek opponents, Joe buries them alive.
But there was nothing meek about the guy sitting behind Joe. A Las Vegas pro, he recognized what Joe was doing and was effectively taking the play away from him; he was bullying him by reraising him with marginal hands, isolating Joe while holding position over him. When Joe fired, this guy shot back!

Mr. Bully, being a good player, had changed his play in an effective manner. He normally played a solid tight-aggressive style, and wasn't one to get involved from early or middle position for two bets preflop without a hand you should be worried about. But he knew when to adjust, and as Joe tried to lean on the field, Bully started leaning on Joe. I watched Joe and Mr. Bully for a few laps, laid down some hands preflop when I had much the best of it, and then decided I had had enough and it was time to do something about it!

In order to play poker well, you need to adjust your game to the styles and play of your opponents. There are many books that lay out basic strategy - and basic strategy can work well against loose, unobservant opponents. Many players who do well against those opponents find themselves lost when they step up against tougher opposition and find that their readable and straightforward approach loses its value against good hand readers and playmakers.

Being in a game with a nonstandard situation, I knew that I had to come up with an answer to the state of affairs. I thought about my options and came up with two types of counterstrategies. One thought was to stay patient and wait for big hands, and get strong value out of those hands by trapping both Joe and Mr. Bully preflop with their weaker starting hands. The other was to play moderately strong hands very aggressively, taking control of the hands and trying to win the pots in which no one made anything.

Both Bully and Joe perceived me as being tight - and, certainly, compared to Joe, I am! Joe can take the lead from starting gate to wire and turn over 6-2 suited, and if you have the stones to take the pressure, you can go to the end with him. For better or for worse, I just don't have that in me. But, I thought I could use my opponents' image of me as a tightie to create some value.

I decided to pursue both strategies. I was going to make some aggressive plays and see if I could take some pots away from them, and also attack with my big hands. I made several four-bets with hands like A-J, and A-Q, 7-7, and K-Q suited, hands with which I normally don't like to call when facing three-bet situations. But in this spot, I was not going to lay them down; au contraire, I four-bet them.

It went well! At first, Joe folded to my four-bets and I took on Mr. Bully heads up. Then, Joe started calling the preflop bets. I hit a couple of flops and took a couple of pots down without getting called. My stack grew. Then, Joe made his statement about my four-betting so much. I knew the jig was up then. The next time I four-bet with Joe raising preflop and Mr. Bully three-betting, they called. So, I adjusted my strategy and waited for a big hand, one that I wanted them to play with me.

A couple of rounds after Joe commented about my four-bets, I picked up wired kings and four-bet again. I got action from both players to the river, and won a nice-sized pot. After the river, Joe stated that he was drawing dead. My early plays had created additional value for me with my kings by causing Joe to incorrectly read my hand. And Joe's statement had caused me to change my strategy at the right moment, so that I didn't have to lose any value in a hand in order to figure it out. I eventually would have figured out that he'd figured things out, but if he hadn't spoken up, that awareness would have cost me some chips.

To be a great poker player, you must adjust your strategies based on your opponents. If your opponents are unobservant, oftentimes the best strategy is to be very straightforward. But when the texture of the game changes to observant opponents, you need to make "deception" plays, hands played differently from your standard style, in order to prevent them from reading your hands accurately.

When your opponents are making nonstandard strategies part of their game, you need to be able to adjust your play to counter their strategies. To do so effectively, you need to be proficient in your play knowledge. You also must be able to distinguish when to make which play and why, which might be very difficult but it is most important. Many players with good play knowledge do not conceptually understand the whys of play selection and therefore make plays in situations in which the plays have no value.

So, when you are confronted with nonstandard situations in poker, stop and think for a minute about what you are going to do about them - and why. In the above situation, I did just that and used effective counterstrategies. Secondly, don't let your opponents know what you know. Confused and dazed opponents are much better opponents than knowledgeable, on-top-of-it adversaries.

There was another player in our game with whom I have played for many years, and he is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet in a card game - L.A. Sam. While not as fast as Joe or as steady as Mr. Bully, Sam has some juke and jive in his game. And he has no fear, which is a powerful characteristic in a poker player, particularly in a situation like the shootout at The Venetian. He just sat there in the crossfire, picking his spots, recognizing the situation, and making his opponents (including me) show a real hand.

Most of the chips I won from Joe and Mr. Bully, I transferred over to Sam. And while I am a firm believer in the principle that nice guys should finish first, I wasn't exactly rooting for Sam in this situation. I booked a small win for the evening, but I put significantly more chips in play to get that win than I usually do. If only Sam had stayed in L.A. for the weekend! But, hey, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. The way Joe and Mr. Bully were firing, all things being equal, I was happy to escape the shootout alive.

Roy Cooke has played winning professional poker since 1972. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. His books are available at www.conjelco.com/cooke. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a freelance writer in South Florida.