Beginners, Beware of the Overplay

If you're new to limit hold'em, and you've read a poker book for beginners, you're probably playing tight -- and that's fine. It's important, however, to understand that an ultra-tight strategy won't work forever, and even has its drawbacks. As I've written before, I think tight play is perfectly appropriate for someone who is just starting out in poker and has little understanding of the differing hand values. A problem can occur, however, if this new player has some success and then tries to move up to higher stakes without really being ready.

Beginners who follow tight starting-hand requirements tend to get excited when they're dealt a playable hand. It almost feels like Christmas morning. They'll raise and reraise with any overpair, and sometimes with any top pair in a limit hold'em game. It's only natural. They've been taught to be tight-aggressive. They got the tight part down, folding hand after hand for hours, and they think now's the time to be aggressive. This strategy may work at the lowest limits; there are enough poor players betting and raising with nothing, and enough passive players who fail to extract value even with great hands, that no matter how you play top pair, you're likely to do OK with it in a low-stakes hold'em game.

Fast-forward to the middle limits. If you bet and raise with a top pair, or even with an unimproved A-A, at every opportunity, you may quickly find yourself broke. When an opponent raises on the turn in a limit game, he is saying that he can beat a pair -- any pair. You might be able to profitably three-bet the turn with aces or kings if you can reliably put your opponent on a lesser overpair, but such hand-reading generally takes experience. When you're starting out, it's generally best to call down with a top pair or an overpair after you've been raised on the turn or river.

But, Matt, you might say, what if my opponent is raising the turn as a semibluff? Wouldn't I want to get more money in the pot in that case? Let's say, hypothetically, that your opponent has a straight-flush draw and has check-raised you on the turn. What will happen if you reraise? Your opponent will almost certainly call. He will then check-fold on the river if he misses, and either check-raise or bet out on the river if he hits. In those instances when your hand holds up, you win a total of three bets from him on the last two streets. Now what will happen if you just call his check-raise? In all likelihood, your opponent will bet the river every time, hit or miss. So, you'll win the same three bets from him when your hand holds up! It gets better. If your opponent hits a draw, you might lose a bet, or even two, on the river. If you've already reraised on the turn, your total loss on the last two streets could be four or five bets. If you've taken the other approach and called your opponent's check-raise on the turn, you minimize your losses and drop no more than three bets on the last two streets.

Let's look at an example hand: In a fourhanded $30-$60 limit hold'em game I played recently, I picked up two aces under the gun and raised. Only the big blind called. The flop came down J-5-2 with two diamonds (I had no diamond). The big blind checked, I bet, and he called. The turn was the 8, bringing a second flush draw. The big blind checked, I bet, and he raised. Based on the logic that I outlined above, I called. The river was the 7, for a possible backdoor flush (I had the A). My opponent then surprised me by checking. His check could have meant one of three things: (1) He missed a draw and decided not to bluff on the end; (2) He hit his flush and intended to check-raise; or, (3) He had a medium-strength hand and didn't want to bet out, for fear of getting raised, so he planned on check-calling. In case (1), betting would do nothing for me, as my opponent would not call. In case (2), betting would cost me two bets. In case (3), betting would gain me one bet.

At first glance, it may seem that I should check, as betting benefits me in only one of three cases. Not only that, the upside of betting is only one bet, whereas my downside is two bets. But we have to consider likelihoods. If case (3) is more than twice as likely as case (2), betting makes me money in the long run. (If I win one bet two times for every time I lose two bets, I'm breaking even. If I win more often, I come out ahead.) In this hand, it was my opinion that my opponent was pretty unlikely to check-raise a made flush. I thought he probably would have led with that hand to try to pick up a bet, rather than get greedy and go for the check-raise. Based on this read, I chose to bet. My opponent called, and I won. It turned out that he had the 7 4. He had flopped a flush draw and chosen to merely check and call. On the turn, he check-raised after picking up a gutshot to go with his flush draw, but then he checked on the river when he made a pair. This example hand doesn't fit the pattern perfectly -- not every hand does -- but the point remains. If my opponent had hit his flush or his straight, I likely would've lost more on this hand by three-betting the turn. And in almost all cases, I would've won the same amount when my aces held up. Even on this particular board, my opponent might've folded his pair of sevens on the river if I'd reraised on the turn instead of just flat-called.



I hope that I've convinced a few of the newer limit hold'em players out there of the value of slowing down with one pair on later streets. And I hope that you noticed that I snuck in an argument for a river value-bet in my example hand. Knowing when to slow down and when to pick up that extra bet turns good limit hold'em players into great ones.

Matt Matros is the author of The Making of a Poker Player, available online at www.CardPlayer.com. He is also a featured coach for stoxpoker.com.