The Penalty for Predictability

As I write this, I am cruising on the high seas. More specifically, I am on the Pacific Ocean, returning from Hawaii on a two-week Card Player Cruises poker vacation. Poker cruises have many wonderful features. The aspect that I want to emphasize here is that you play against the same players day after day. There is a range of games offered, but for any given game and limit, the same small group of players attends every day.

That fact puts an even greater emphasis on varying your play, so that you cannot become easy to read. Not all opponents are skilled at this aspect of the game, and occasionally their steady play, while admirable as a guiding principle, becomes a detriment. Here is a hand we played that demonstrates this point, and it has a few other interesting lessons, as well:

I was under the gun in a seven-handed $10-$20 limit hold'em game, holding the K Q. This is not one of my favorite hands, and if the game were full, I would have folded immediately. We were somewhat shorthanded, however, and I thought I had good control of the table. I believed a raise would clear the field considerably, and perhaps even win the blinds. I raised.

Of the six remaining players, five called! So much for my presumed table control. I was now out of position to half the field with a poor multiway hand. Plan A had failed miserably.

We saw a flop of 4 3 3. I could not have missed by more. Not only did I have nothing, I did not even have a backdoor anything. However, I was the preflop aggressor, and perhaps that could count for something. Maybe they all missed the flop, as well. The blinds both checked. Should I check or bet?

I decided Plan B was to simply give up. I had no hand, no draw, and lots of opponents who might hold just about anything. Accordingly, I checked, planning to fold.

Glen, the player on my left, bet. Remarkably, the rest of the field folded like a set of dominos. It was back to me.

It was time to reassess. I still had nothing, of course, but the pot was offering me 13-1, and I was the last to act in that round of betting. The big question was, if I caught a king or queen, would it be good? I needed to determine Glen's likely hands.

Fortunately for me, Glen was a very predictable, passive player. If he held A-A, K-K, or Q-Q, he would have three-bet preflop. Interestingly, these were pretty much the only hands with which he would take aggressive action. That meant he would have called preflop with A-K and A-Q, but I did not believe he would bet the flop with either holding; nor would he bet the flop with a flush draw. He had to have some sort of good hand.

Could he have a hand like A-3? No, because although he would bet that hand on the flop, he would not have called my preflop raise wih it. The more I considered it, the stronger I concluded that he had to have a pocket pair smaller than queens. If this was correct, I certainly was getting the right price to try to draw out. Switching to Plan C, I called.

The turn was the decidedly unhelpful 2. I checked and Glen bet. Now what?

I thought about what hands I might represent by raising, but Glen was not easily frightened when he had a hand, and certainly would call me down. Could I represent an ace and bet the river if a 5 came? Well, I could, but I was going to get called. I concluded that I had to make a real hand to win this pot, although I was going to try a desperation bluff if an ace hit, hoping he had read me for having A-K and would give up.

Looking at the price again, there were six big bets preflop, one more on the flop (his bet and my call), and one more that he just put in. I was getting 8-1. Assuming that my read was still correct, I had six outs in the remaining 46 cards, giving me odds of 40-6 or 6.6-1. Getting a clear overlay even if I did not get paid off if I made my hand, I called.

As luck would have it, the river was the welcome K. I had one more decision to make: bet, or try for a check-raise. My play so far had pretty much screamed A-K. Adding in the fact that Glen was not very aggressive and would find the river king scary, betting was clear. I bet, got called, and won, with Glen showing pocket nines.

Conclusion: There is nothing really wrong with the way Glen played his hand, although I would have preferred a three-bet (or fold) to his preflop call. The problem is that Glen played his hands in exactly the same manner each time, calling, betting, or raising in a predictable fashion.

In my book, Advanced Limit Hold'em Strategy, I place a major emphasis on avoiding predictability, and I devote several chapters to the subject. Because of Glen's predictability, I was able to make correct decisions on my hand. Whether I won or lost the hand, Glen was at a disadvantage because of his routine play. Had he three-bet preflop, or had his preflop calling range or post-flop betting style been more diverse, I could not have played the hand the way that I did. I would have been forced to fold.

I was lucky in another way. Had any other player bet the flop, I would not have been the last to act in that round of betting and would have had to release my hand.

If you do try a poker cruise, and you should, remember to vary your play so that you can keep your opponents guessing. And try not to eat too much!

Barry Tanenbaum is the author of Advanced Limit Hold'em Strategy, and collaborator on Limit Hold'em: Winning Short-Handed Strategies, both available at www.CardPlayer.com. Barry offers private lessons tailored to the individual student. Please see his website, www.barrytanenbaum.com, or write to him at [email protected].