Anyone who plays hold'em, even limit hold'em, has encountered bullies who are always shoving money into the pot. It is to be expected that being able to bet all of your money at any time provides a fine venue for the person who likes to use his money to push you around. If you want to succeed in no-limit hold'em, whether you are playing in a tournament or a cash game, you have to know how to handle a bully.
To defeat this type of player, you need to understand his game plan. A large part of that plan is to use the math of the game in his favor. It is harder to get a good hold'em hand than a hand-holder on a hot streak makes it look. If you need to help your starting hand from the flop in order to continue, you are at least a 2-to-1 underdog to improve. If you have a small pair or low-ranking connectors, the odds against you are even worse. A small pair needs help to continue in the hand, and it is more than 7-to-1 against flopping a set. Small connectors do not buy enough help to stay in when all they do is pair. You need two pair, trips, a four-flush, or a four-straight to stick around. The bully's plan is to exploit this hold'em math by getting you to put some money into the pot by means of a preflop raise, then running you out when you fail to improve. Even when you do improve, he may come again on the turn and even the river, trying to impress you with the fact that on this occasion, he got a lucky flop and has you in trouble. Of course, it is definitely possible that he did exactly that!
Before I tell you how to play against a bully, let me tell you how
not to play. The bully often shows a junky hand. He is hoping you will descend to his level and also play junk. This will increase the possibility that his tactic of trying to run you out of the pot after the flop will work. Start with junk, and you will be less likely to hit a playable hand and less likely to be able to take betting pressure by your opponent. Don't look to gamble; play hands that will be able to take heat. There is no dishonor in conceding a few dollars by folding marginal hands, looking to recoup your money with interest with hands that can win a big pot.
Here is what you should do to defeat a bully:
1. Reraise preflop quite often. This relieves you of the burden of having to hit the flop and puts it where it belongs - on the guy who needs to improve. The hands that normally meet the criterion of being worth a preflop reraise are aces and kings. Against a player who you know is frequently far short of the usual requirements for raising because he raises so many pots, feel free to play back with queens, jacks, and A-K. And when you do, reraise big. Make sure that you more than triple the total that he raised to. Also, beware of another player in the pot who could have a big hand, such as an under-the-gun limper. You do not want to give pocket aces a big present.
2. Sometimes slow-play big hands preflop when in position. My standards for slow-playing are to be in position, have the money not be too deep (he might get lucky and draw out on your aces), be heads up, and be facing a player who is going to bet the flop whenever he has raised preflop, regardless of whether he improved or not.
3. Play your drawing hands strongly on the flop. You should raise your opponent if you have position on him and he bets the flop, even with a mere straight draw or flush draw. Most of the time, he has a hand that will not be able to take any heat. And, you have something to fall back on if he calls.
4. Don't tip off your good hands too early. This means just calling when he bets, and you have top pair with a good kicker. Make sure your pair is high enough to avoid most of the chance of being overcarded. My criterion is that there is not more than one overcard that can beat me. So, when I have Q-J on a board of J-X-X, I would not want an ace or king to come, so I would probably raise a bully. (I definitely would not raise the typical opponent, as my hand is not strong enough.) If my hand was K-Q and I paired on the flop with no ace on the board, I would likely just call a bully's flop bet and hope he kept coming, assuming the board did not have too many possible draws.
5. Don't get mentally tired because the bully keeps winning driblets from you. A no-limit hold'em player who is constantly betting and raising is certainly going to win more pots from you than the other way around. Fortunately, in poker, your success is measured by how much money you win, not by how many pots you win. I remember Bill Smith telling me about a guy named Pinky who bet players at a full table that he could win the pot on more than half the deals. At the end of the evening, he won all of his side bets - and was stuck his lungs. So, have the patience to wait for a good gambling situation with the bully, then stick it to him. If he eats up your blinds money fairly often, you will still be able to recoup it with interest when you catch a hand.
6. Fight the bully from a good seat. If you are on his immediate right, relocate. Otherwise, he will have position on you.
However, do not sit on his immediate left! Yes, I know that you have probably read someplace that you should sit on a bully's left, as a number of poker authors have said so. Actually, you never want a seat in which the betting is constantly coming through you and running you into the field. You want to be heads up with the bully, not having him bet and using the other players as his backstops. This advice of mine is poker 101, not rocket science. The best place to sit with a bully in the game who is raising a lot of pots and betting a lot of flops is somewhere across the table from him. This will give you position on him a reasonable amount of the time, and also a view of how a pot is likely to develop.
There are many other little tricks you can use besides the ones I mentioned, but you can see my general philosophy. Play only good hands, so that you are armed with the natural advantage of having a better starting hand. Play few hands from out of position, as most of the tricky moves with which you want to fight a bully are much better when having position on him. Make sure that no one else is going to stick his nose into your business when stretching your values to be aggressive. Do not be afraid to run a risk when up against a bully; you have to take some chances to fight fire with fire.
Bullies are far from a piece of cake to handle, but you cannot let them constantly keep charging you to see the flop and then let them run you out of the pot. Poker is no different from life. You either have to fight back or leave the arena when someone is trying to push you around. If the bully is a world-class player, find a different game. If he is just a pushy person of moderate ability, smack him back a few times. He will quit bothering you and will pick on a weaker individual.
Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered from Card Player. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons: e-mail [email protected]. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert's Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.
