Delaying the Play

It was a late Saturday evening, way past my bedtime. I hadn't dragged a chip in more than three hours, and was stuck pretty good for a $30-$60 game. I tried to stay in the moment, keep my mind positive, stay patient, and wait for situations that were right – although they never seemed to appear. How you handle such moments has a large impact on your poker career. Those who let emotions and frustration guide them at such times give up much to those who maintain themselves mentally and emotionally and stay in the moment.



Results aside, I liked my spot. The game was on tilt, with lots of players with big stacks of chips playing poorly. The potential to get unstuck was there, but I needed to make a couple of hands. The texture of the game being what it was, there was not much room to outplay anyone. The pots were big and pretty much always called down by someone looking to "keep the game honest."

In that kind of game, you need to adjust your strategy to get your edge from making and showing down the best hand.



On the button, I picked up two fives. Sam, a very aggressive player, opened the pot from early position with a raise. Sam likes to take control of hands, and has some hand-reading ability and is very tough to read. Because he is so aggressive, he is always a power in any pot he enters, forcing his opponents to make some tough decisions. Two players called the raise and it was up to me.



The value of calling a raise with small pairs varies greatly! The more opponents you have, the better, as it is likely they will give you action if you hit a big hand. And there's the potential for the pot to be reraised. The chance of higher pocket pairs being out against you creates the potential to be beaten by a bigger set, one of the bigger money traps in the game. Other factors are how close you are to the button, the styles and aggressiveness of the players acting behind you, and how many players there are between an aggressive player and you who might get trapped if you hit. All of these variables and more affect your decision to enter a pot with a hand that generally needs to improve to win, especially in games like this one, where you couldn't win a pot with a bet, but needed to show down a hand to rake in the chips. The more variables there are in your favor, the greater the value of your situation.



I liked the value of my wired fives. There were two callers in between me and Sam, the preflop raiser, who was likely to bet nearly any flop. The callers were players who "took one off" very liberally, making it likely that I could trap them with weak holdings if I flopped a set. Both of the blinds liked "cheap" calls in the blinds (which often are not as cheap as they appear), thereby increasing the price the pot was laying me preflop and increasing my likelihood of receiving action if I hit a 5 on the flop.

Sam, who would raise with any large pair from early position, would also raise with a wide range of hands that did not contain a pair; and the fact that the other players did not reraise and also had a large range of hands with which they would call made it unlikely for a higher pair to be out against me. All of my opponents were the type to give action, and Sam was the sort who loved to raise and gamble. And the only players yet to act were the two blinds, who, out of position and likely holding weak hands, were unlikely to reraise. I had only three opponents, which is generally slightly shy of the number I require to call, as I am 7.5-1 to flop a set, but the other factors made the call an easy one. I tossed $60 into the pot.



The above analysis is why you should not have hard-and-fast rules, and must adjust situationally. Someone with the hard-and-fast rule of not calling with small wired pairs without four opponents (which I have often heard players state is the correct strategy) would have missed the opportunity to invest a profitable bet in the situation I faced.



Both blinds called the preflop raise and we took the flop off sixhanded.



The flop came J 5 3, giving me second set on a coordinated board; besides the flush draw, in this game, the babies on board might create straight potential for some of my opponents.



The small blind led into the field, the big blind folded, Sam (the opening raiser) raised, folding the player after him, and the player to my right, an older man, then three-bet.



I thought about this man's range of hands. He didn't strike me as one to mess around with fancy plays, three-bet for drill, or make isolation plays without value. Since he was three-betting the small-blind bettor and a raiser, I was certain he held a hand that he thought might be the best. From his preflop actions, I didn't think he held wired jacks. Previously in the session, I had seen him check and call with draws, even big ones, not playing them aggressively. For that reason, I did not put him on a draw.



He played his weak-kicker hands passively, often check-calling them down, but maybe he had a pair of jacks with a good kicker, an ace or a king. He played all of his suited hands, so he could have flopped two pair, or he could have a set of threes. But one thing was certain: Whatever he had, he was in very bad shape to my holding.



I thought about how my hand would play out. Nobody was laying down any draws that they thought were live. I thought Sam might four-bet if he held an overpair, but would not five-bet if I four-bet. The small blind who led out would not fold a live draw for three more bets, but might fold a hand with one pair. I wanted him to call. So, I chose to flat-call, and in doing so, represent a likely flush draw, hoping that either the small blind or Sam would gamble, and I'd cap it in position. In doing so, I knew Sam would still consider that I might have a flush draw – something that could hold future value.



The small blind called behind me, and to my disappointment, Sam called rather than reraised. The turn card was the Q, completing the possible flush. The small blind and Sam both checked to the older guy, who bet. Since I was almost certain he didn't have a flush (because of the way he had played his draws earlier), and for that matter, thought a lot of his potential holdings would not contain a heart due to the texture of the board, I chose to raise. I thought the small blind might be drawing to the flush, but thought it unlikely that Sam was, as he would have gambled the flop with a flush draw. If I raised, maybe I could get someone to fold a hand they would be correct in drawing to, which would add value to my hand. It would be tough to call two bets to draw to a straight, and a single low heart might fold. Even if someone did have me beat, I couldn't be in too bad of shape to take down the pot, as the board could always pair.



The small blind called quickly, setting off warning bells in my mind. Sam called behind him and the older guy tossed in $60. The river brought an offsuit 7. Everyone checked around to me, and I knuckled. The small blind turned over the 7 4, having completed the flush on the turn. Sam mucked, and the older guy turned over the J 3, having flopped top and bottom pair.



This hand speaks to designing the play of a hand by incorporating all of the hand's nuances to gain the best value for your holding: deception, the number of bets and the value of those bets, and manipulating your opponents into errors and misreads.



And while I didn't win the hand, I liked my thinking, and if I can put sound reasoning and poker concepts into my decision process, I know I'll take down the money in the long haul.



I played for another hour, hit three small to medium pots, and got my loss down to three digits. I left happy with my decisions, knowing I'd gotten my money in throughout the evening at the right price – and you can't ask any more from yourself than that.



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.