Winning Wisdom

At only 27 years old, Gavin Griffin already holds one of the most impressive collections of poker's most prestigious titles: World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour, and World Poker Tour championships.

Now, Card Player is giving its readers a chance to send questions directly to the poker prodigy.

Poker fans can send Griffin their questions to [email protected]. The questions can be about anything from poker strategy to his opinions on certain aspects of poker or his life as a poker pro traveling the circuit. The best questions will be answered by Griffin and published in Card Player. If your question makes it into print, we'll send you a free Card Player T-shirt.

Playing From the Small Blind

Gavin:

I am a relatively new hold'em tournament player and have learned a lot from my subscription to Card Player. Your new Q&A format column is great and very helpful. You and Ed Miller have a concise, polite, and easily understood writing style that you use to share your expertise.

There is a situation that occurs quite frequently, especially in the early to middle stages of multitable tournaments and sit-and-goes, about which I don't recall seeing much written. You are the small blind with one limper. The pot odds for a call, assuming the big blind does not raise, are 5-1. Is it advisable to play most any cards in this situation, assuming no unusual tendencies or stack size in the big blind? How do you generally deal with this situation? Very early in sit-and-goes with small starting stacks, you have to be somewhat careful not to "drip" (a word from a recent column) your stack down. If you'd like, please comment on this situation in the later stages of an event, as well.

-- John Arledge, Gautier, Mississippi

Hi, John:

I'm glad you enjoy my column. It's important for this format that I get good questions to answer, so keep sending good questions and I'll try to keep putting out good answers! The situation you presented is a tricky one. You can get yourself into some really bad situations when you call from the small blind because of the good price you are getting. There are a few factors involved in making the decision to play or not. First, is the big blind an aggressive player? If he is, it's probably best to fold many more hands than you would if he were passive. It sucks to limp in here, only to get raised and then you have wasted some chips that you could have put to better use. Chips that you save are often as important as those you win, so be careful with an aggressive big blind. Second, how well do you play after the flop? Can you get away from a hand if the situation warrants it? Are you going to get the maximum value if you flop a big hand? This is quite important. If you don't think you can play your worst hands very profitably, it's probably best to throw them away. Finally, if you have good answers for the first two questions, this third one is key. How well does your hand play in a multiway pot? When you're getting 5-1 and the first two conditions I set out have been met, it's probably right to play a large majority of your hands, including pretty much any two suited cards, J-7+, Q-7+, K-5+, any ace, any pair, all non-suited connectors, most one-gappers, and some of your two-gappers. This is a pretty wide range of hands, so you really have to be sure that you're not going to get raised too often and that you are going to be able to make the maximum when you have the best hand and lose as little as possible when you flop a second-best hand. Best of luck, John.

Late-Stage Tournament Play

Gavin:

I could use your opinion on late-stage tournament play. Lately, I seem to be running very well in general -- playing position, making good calls, and chipping up to above-average chip counts consistently. However, as I get close to the money or into the money, but not super deep, I seem to be refusing to believe players (whom I have covered in chips) who reraise me. The result has been obvious -- going from comfortable chip position to short-stacked due to poor decisions. I have been telling myself that I am not playing to take 36th, so I need to take risks, but the results of this have really sucked. It looks like donkey play by me, but I swear that I just don't put them on strong hands and I read them as making a move on me to steal my standard preflop raise or my blind. So, here is my query: What is your mindset during late-stage tournament play that helps you avoid making poor decisions that seem so easily avoidable (just folding, and so on.). After reading this over, it reads pretty stupid, but I am asking anyway; thank you in advance.

-- Jamie Cohen

Hi, Jamie:

Late-stage tournament play is where you really can do some damage in a tournament. It's great to play well and run well early, but you make your money by making great decisions late in a tournament, when all the money is on the line. You make a promising statement when you tell yourself that you aren't playing to finish 36th, but to win, but you have to use that thinking with discretion. Playing to win doesn't mean playing like a maniac and firing off all of your chips in bad situations. Playing to win means that your "tournament life" shouldn't factor into your decisions. You shouldn't fold a hand that you normally would play just because losing would put you out of the tournament. It also means that if you have a lot of chips, you can gamble a bit with a small percentage of your stack, because winning those chips and showing people at the table that you are willing to call bets with marginal hands is worth more than losing those chips is a detriment. Yes, you should play to win, but you shouldn't ignore reason and information to do so. Best of luck in future tournaments; I hope that you can put it all together soon.

Gavin Griffin is the newest member of Team PokerStars. Visit his website at www.gavingriffin.net.