Value Leaks

One thing I learned when playing poker last winter in Russia — where the games were consistently weak-loose and betting for value was the only winning strategy I needed — was the crucial importance of not leaking value. Literally, the only way I could fail to beat the game was if I played down to their level, handing back to them the chips that they so graciously and consistently handed to me. This got me thinking about a new nostrum to add to my large and ever-growing collection of poker aphorisms (which collection includes such classics as, don’t play garbage hands, quit winners, and go big or go home). That new adage is this: Don’t leak value. Let’s take it out for a spin and see what it can do.

Drawing Against the Odds: Man, you see this one over and over again. You lay some jamoke the wrong price to draw to his straight or flush — betting the full size of the pot on the flop, for instance — but he draws, just the same. He imagines that if he hits his hand on the turn, he’s going to reap a lot of implied value. There are two problems with his thinking here. First, he’s getting the absolute wrong price right now (chasing a roughly 4-1 shot for a roughly 2-1 payout), and he can’t be sure that you won’t make him pay again on the turn (which you should) if he misses (which he most likely will). Second, the moment that you put him on a draw, you’re not going to donate a single chip if he hits — unless, of course, you fall victim to that value leak.

Paying Off Made Hands: Over and over again, we put our opponents on a draw, see them make their draw, and then suddenly convince ourselves that they weren’t on that draw to begin with. We call “just to keep ’em honest,” or just because we can’t accept that they got lucky and we did not. Look, the math of this is simple: You give them the wrong price to draw. You do this all the time. You hope they’ll accept a losing proposition, but the fact is that if they do, occasionally they’re going to get there. It is then vitally important that you not pay them off. Otherwise, you’re just fulfilling their prophecy of implied odds. Look, if a guy’s on a draw and the draw gets there, don’t wail and moan, and don’t deny reality. Simply check, fold, and wait for better times. And I know what you’re thinking: Your savvy foes will realize that you can be bluffed off a hand when a scare card falls. But you know who your savvy foes are, right? You know who’s capable of that move, and who is not. When you’re playing straightforward poker against a straightforward player and it looks like he’s made his hand, guess what? He’s made his hand! Don’t leak value by paying him off.

Playing Out of Position: This is a huge value leak for many, many players — myself included, when I get into one of my moods. The fact is that we (some of us, at some times) simply hate to fold, and we hate to do it whether we’re in position, out of position, or hanging upside down from the light fixture above the table. That’s all well and good — we play poker to play poker, after all — but it’s just damn hard to play most hands out of position. Powerhouse? You bet, they fold. Draws? You can’t check behind to get a free card. Bluffs? You have to fire your first, second, and maybe third barrel right out in front where everyone can see them. It exposes you. It exposes you to giving away information. It exposes you to having to back down and basically hand over the pot. It exposes you to getting played with, bluffed at, and generally made miserable. So look at it this way: In every poker session, you have a certain allotted budget of hands that you get to play. Simply spend your budget on hands in position and you’ll leak much less value in the long run. And again, I know how tricky you are, and how skillful. I know that you know how strong it can look to lead into a field from first position. The trouble is, your foes also know this, and no matter how much strength you’re representing, you still have to play the whole hand out of position, and that’s never easy. Why not have strength and stealth and position, too?

Calling Along: You have top pair with a bad kicker, or middle pair with a good kicker, and you face a bet on the flop. What should you do? The math first, of course; investigate whether or not the pot is laying you the right price to improve. If it’s not, you must then decide whether or not your foe has the hand he’s representing — top pair, better kicker — and determine how you plan to go forth. It seems to me that you have three choices — two good and one bad. One good choice is just to surrender the pot. You don’t have much of a hand, and in the name of not leaking value, you can just decline to participate in the whole reckless adventure. Another good choice is to raise and find out where you’re at. A raise on the turn is costly, yes, but not as costly as paying off your foe on the turn and again on the river, only to discover that you were right all along: He had you outpaired or he had you outkicked. That’s why just calling along is such a bad choice. You have to pay the price for being wrong (if you’re wrong) without ever giving yourself the chance to gather more information. Of course, if you know your foe to be a lying sack of cheese who routinely gets out ahead of his hand, you have that information already. But when you don’t know where you’re at, it’s far better to get out early, or to raise to clarify the situation, than to call along and repeatedly pay the price of your own ignorance.

These are just a few of the ways that players leak value. Can you think of others? Can you write them down? Remember that the value you leak in theory is the value you can avoid leaking in fact.

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series and the new poker novel Under the Gun, in bookstores now. He resides in cyberspace at vorza.com, and blogs the world from somnifer.typepad.com. John Vorhaus’ photo: Gerard Brewer.