Take Your Time

"Stop, children …"

If you play no-limit hold'em tournaments and haven't read Dan Harrington's books, you're giving away money.

It's not every column in which I tell you the most important point of the whole piece in the first sentence. So, if you have a plane to catch, just reread that first line and have a safe trip.

OK, since you want more, here goes: One of the most important things that Dan says is one of the simplest: slow down.
I don't have a copy of the book right here in front of me, so I can't give you an exact quote. But, he mentioned watching players think for a long time about relatively obvious decisions (perhaps they were just putting on a show?), but then calling monster all-in bets without a moment's hesitation.

Before we go further, I'll say right off that I disapprove of players taking unnecessary time just to … heck, I don't really know why they're doing it. Maybe it's because they see it done on TV. But, of course, when it's happening on TV, there are tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line. Maybe they're enjoying the moment when everybody is looking at them. But sitting at a full table, many of the decisions you make are relatively straightforward ­- particularly those involving throwing your hand into the muck. If you have a hand that plays itself, and that play is to leap back toward the dealer, face down, don't slow things down; fold and be done.

With that out of the way, let's look at a more complex situation.

Let's suppose you're playing cash no-limit hold'em with $1-$2 blinds. Two people limp in and you call with pocket sixes. There's another caller after you, and then the button makes it $15. Everyone folds back to you. Should you call, raise, or fold?

Those of you who said "Trick question!" get an extra dessert; I didn't give you enough information. But consider this: Many players will instantly fold here. "I was going to sneak in and see a cheap flop," they reason. "The cheap flop is gone, so now I must abandon my initial $2 investment." Other players will instantly call. ("I can flop a set!") The key is that neither action should be taken without careful consideration.

What are the variables? Well, how much money do you have in front of you, and how much does your opponent have? If you had less than about $30 to start with, you made the first mistake. You won't flop a set often enough to justify investing more than about 7 percent of your stack preflop. Let's assume, however, that you have $200 in front of you. So far, so good. Next question: how about your opponent? How much does he have in front of him? If he's got just $50 left in front of him, calling is out of the question. You simply can't win enough from him to justify the investment of another $13, given that you'll see another 6 on the flop less than once every eight times.

So, it's an easy fold, right? Well, maybe. What hands do you put him on? To make our problem relatively simple, let's say that he has A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, A-K, or A-Q. There are six possible pair combinations of any rank: club-diamond, club-heart, club-spade, diamond-heart, diamond-spade, heart-spade. There are 16 combinations of any different-ranked hand (such as A-K). So, there are 6+6+6+6+16+16 possible hands he can have - a total of 56. In 24 of the 56 cases (43 percent of the time), he has a pair larger than yours, and you have only 20 percent equity. Multiplying that 20 percent equity by the 43 percent of the time it happens gives you about 8 percent equity for that case. The other 57 percent of the time, you have about 55 percent equity (against two overcards). The product of those two numbers is about 31 percent. So, given the range of hands that your opponent has, you have 31+8 = 39 percent equity in the hand. Yes, folding is your best choice here.

But here's the key point: It does no good to work out those numbers after your cards are in the muck. If you make your hand a bit stronger (perhaps a pair of nines), and/or change your opponent's range of hands some, it may be correct for you to push all in (if the stacks are relatively short).

And we still haven't gotten to the situation in which both you and your opponent have big stacks. We said you had $200; perhaps your opponent has more than that. If so, it may be correct to call, hoping to flop a set. Now you have to ask yourself, "If the flop comes 10-6-3, giving me a set, will he put all of his chips in with K-K? Will he call a bet on the flop with two overcards (when drawing dead)?" In other words, you haven't answered all of your questions yet.

Oh, and we forgot about the guy who called after us but before the raiser. What's he going to do?

Again, this is not really intended to be a discussion of cash-game no-limit hold'em preflop strategy. I am just pointing out that you need to think through the situation before acting.

I was recently reading a piece in which the author described watching Phil Ivey play. The author described Ivey, arguably the best poker player of this generation, taking his time before each action, contemplating the implications of raising, calling, and folding at each turn. Few, if any, of us could duplicate the mental decision tree that goes on in Ivey's head. But, the principle is the same: Consider each possible option and its consequences. Then, follow what appears to be the most profitable branch of the tree. That's really what winning poker is all about.

But to do that, you have to ...

"Look what's going down."

Lee Jones is the poker room manager for PokerStars.com, and the author of the best-selling book Winning Low Limit Hold'em.