Making a Play On a Play

My buddy John is playing $5-$10 no-limit hold'em at the Hollywood, Florida, Seminole Hard Rock Casino. He has about $1,200 on the table. It's a fairly loose-passive game, with lots of flop-seers for $10-$35 to go. Four laps in a row, the guy in the 10 seat pops it for a pot-sized bet ($100-$175) and takes off all the limpers with no flop and without ever having to show. John suspects that he is stealing, and that his hand strength is probably marginal in these spots. This player has the biggest stack, about $2,000, and the rest of the stacks are $500-$1,000, except that the two behind John are short-stacked (one player has about $75 and the other has $200).

The under-the-gun player in the 2 seat limps for $10. The next player pops it to $35. His range is very, very broad. He has about $600. The players in the 4 and 5 seats call the $35 cold with their $500-$600 stacks. John looks down to see the K Q.
In the great scope of poker-hand rankings, K-Q suited might be the 11th- or 12th-best starting hand, behind pairs 10-10 to A-A, A-K and A-Q suited, A-J suited, and possibly unsuited, as well. For many players, an early- or even middle-position raise indicates one of those superior holdings. And K-Q suited is in pretty deep doo-doo against all of those hands except A-J, 10-10, and J-J. So, it's a pretty good starting hand - except when it's not! Then, it tends to be in very poor shape against superior holdings.

John thinks a sec - almost certainly not long enough! Either of the two short stacks behind him might shove with a broad range of holdings. If they do shove, it will reopen the betting and give John more choices when it comes back to him, in a better-defined situation. If they don't shove, the 10 seat may make a play on the pot. John decides to flat-call and see how the action plays out.

One of the short stacks mucks and the other flat-calls the $35. And, as John suspected he might, the 10 seat makes it $185 to go out of the small blind. The field mucks back to John. John again thinks - definitely not long enough - and makes it $515, not quite half of his stack. The short stack calls for his stack. The small blind - much to John's dismay - calls. The flop comes 9-3-2 rainbow. The small blind, having John well-covered, instantly moves all in. John mulls, and mucks. His muck is pretty much the only thing John did right in the play of this hand. The small blind shows down A-K offsuit to take the pot from the short stack's 10-8 suited.

I hate John's play here. First, the read; yeah, the 10 seat might have larceny in his heart, but that doesn't mean he doesn't also pick up hands. As I often say, even idiots pick up their share of aces, and this guy in the small blind is likely not an idiot; he's got some hand-reading ability in him. John, on the other hand, is a stubborn guy, and is not going to let someone steal from him. Sometimes it seems that he'd rather give someone $500 than get robbed of $35, but is the current situation one in which his opponent is likely to be bluffing?

Oftentimes in no-limit, when a player raises and several players call, you have an opportunity to move on the pot preflop, as the 10 seat appeared to be doing. If the initial raiser doesn't have a hand that's strong enough to call, the callers often don't have a premium-strength hand, either. Of course, this assumes that your opponents will lay down to a raise and your bet and your opponents' stacks are deep enough that you can apply enough pressure to generate a fold from all opponents. Since the small blind knows this and the short stack called, it creates a protected pot. John should read him for not fooling around, and possessing a hand that warrants the raise. By protected pot, I mean that the situation is one that should prevent or greatly reduce the likelihood of an opponent to bluff.

John, by back-raising the 10-seat three-bettor, had pretty much turned his hand into a total bluff. He was highly unlikely to get called by a worse hand, or get a better hand to fold, unless an opponent might fold A-Q. Also, to further weaken his play, if he were called, most of the hands that would call him would likely have him dominated. A-A, K-K, A-K, A-Q, and Q-Q all have him crushed!

In no-limit hold'em poker, you are much more dependant on reading your opponent's hands and understanding how your hands play against his range than in limit hold'em, but that's not saying the concept isn't important in limit, also. Another variable that gets thrown into the mix is your opponents' stack sizes, and how that relates to both your read and how your hand plays. You must know your opponents' tendencies and stack sizes, and adjust your play accordingly.

John got fixated on the fact that he thought the guy was stealing the last four times he made pot-sized preflop bets against limpers out of the small blind. He overvalued what is essentially a situational starting hand. And he failed to recognize that just because someone makes a play more often than what appears to be statistically justifiable, it doesn't mean he is pressing the situation. Sometimes it's just a statistical fluctuation of the cards dealt. The guy could well have picked up playable hands in all of those situations. It was a bad read by John and a poor choice of a situation to attack!

All things considered, John should have spent the $515 on a plane ticket to Vegas, where Jade Lane - one of our poker buddies who is developing significant expertise in no-limit hold'em - and I could have put some work into patching up John's game.

Roy Cooke has played winning professional poker since 1972, and has been a Card Player columnist since 1992. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a freelance writer in South Florida. They have written six poker books, including How to Play Like a Poker Pro. Please see Roy's real estate ad on this page.