Tactics

Poker has something in common with football, basketball, chess, bridge, and many other competitive endeavors, including warfare. It is often the case in a game or sport that a player or team develops some new concept that initially takes the opponents by storm. Over time, however, they adjust to it and develop appropriate defenses and countermaneuvers. I am going to discuss a common tactic, along with some less common variations and countertactics.

Punish the limpers: A player who limps in after the big blind generally has some sort of drawing hand, like suited connectors or a small pair. One limping player often starts a chain reaction, and several other players limp in after him. A player with a good hand in late position or even in one of the blinds will raise and attempt to pick up the pot. The tactic of punishing the limpers can consist of raising as a semibluff with a moderate hand or even with absolutely nothing. The play is often made by raising a more than normal amount, and sometimes substantially more, which puts extra pressure on the limpers.

Squeeze play: This is similar to a punish-the-limpers play, except that the first player in has raised. His raise was followed by one or more calls. Now, an oversized reraise “squeezes” the initial raiser, who is caught between an apparently strong reraising hand and one or more callers, who also might have big hands. This is obviously a more dangerous play than the first one. Here, both the raiser and the cold-caller have shown strength. The reraise-bluff is more expensive than a simple bluff. Both the squeeze play and the punish-the-limpers play are designed to steal pots.

Counterplays: The obvious counter to these two plays is to limp with some big hands. Then if some overly aggressive opponent attempts to steal the pot by means of a punish-the-limpers play or squeeze play, the big hand can come back over the top. It has become increasingly common for players to “float,” which is the modern term for flat-calling. Floating can be done with nothing and the intention of bluffing later, or, in this case, with a big hand, hoping to trap anyone who tries a squeeze play.

Pseudo-punish the limpers and pseudo-squeeze: In this case, the reraiser has a real hand when he reraises, and is hoping to trap the initial raiser or any limpers who decide that he is merely attempting one of these plays. It is important that your reraise be consistent with the reraise that you would make as a bluff. Since this amount is often more than a normal raise — say, one and a half times the pot — make sure that you also make a hefty reraise with your good hands.

Before I get to the final variation, I want to describe some hands that occurred in the World Series of Poker $40,000 no-limit hold’em event. In the evening of day 2, I had won a huge pot with the A J. I raised from middle position and my opponent, Alec Torelli, elected to flat-call with the K K. I don’t know his reason for this, but I do know that I would have folded to a big reraise. It is quite likely that he was hoping to trap one of the remaining players. Perhaps someone would try to execute a squeeze play and reraise, falling into his trap. Perhaps I would make a mistake on the flop, not reading him for much strength, and go broke on a board like J-7-2. Luckily for me, his maneuver backfired when the flop came A J 4. I went all in with top two pair, and he called with the nut-flush draw. Nothing bad happened, and I was suddenly one of the chip leaders with more than 800,000 in chips.

About 30 minutes later, we were playing with 2,000 antes and blinds of 8,000-16,000. Neil Chriss raised from under the gun to 35,000. Greg Raymer called. He is a very creative no-limit hold’em player, and often makes unusual moves that put his opponents under a great deal of pressure. I was in late position and raised to 135,000. Was I making a squeeze play against the weak raise and call? No, I had queens. Chriss, who obviously had something marginal, thought a long time and finally called. At the time, I remember thinking that he probably had A-Q or A-J suited. Greg, the current chip leader, thought for a few seconds and moved all in! Now, I went into the tank, and thought for a long time. If I folded, I’d still have nearly 700,000 and would be in reasonable shape, but if I won, I’d be the chip leader by a large margin and would have a great chance of making the final table.

Now I had to decide what Raymer was up to. He obviously might have decided to float aces or kings, as Alec had done in the earlier hand. I figured that hand had ended so badly for Alec that perhaps Greg might want to avoid a similar accident, and therefore would have reraised Neil immediately. I also thought that he might three-bet somewhat less with aces. Why try to kill the action? Could Greg be hoping that I was still thinking about Alec’s float, and would read him for making the same play? If that was his thought, he could have any calling hand. The most likely hands I thought he would have were small pairs and good aces. I am a big favorite over all of those hands, except A-K, against which I am a small favorite, and there was already a lot of money in the pot from the previous action. I called!

Greg tabled A-K, and we were off to the races. I was happy that he didn’t have aces or kings, but I wasn’t exactly ecstatic about racing against A-K. Neil probably had folded one of the aces that Greg needed. The flop was safe, but the turn was a king.

I was KO’d later, just out of the money, and Greg had a huge chip lead over the field with 2.3 million.

To wrap up the variations on the theme, Greg’s creative idea was a pseudo-big hand limp, hoping to catch someone making a squeeze play semibluff. Notice two key components of this play: (1) a flat-call with A-K, and (2) a huge semibluff reraise, representing a call with aces or kings. I might have folded jacks or queens against his play, and even when I called, he was only a 6-5 underdog with a lot of dead money in the pot.

Steve “Zee” Zolotow, aka The Bald Eagle, is a successful games player. He currently devotes most of his time to poker. He can be found at many major tournaments and playing on Full Tilt, as one of its pros. When escaping from poker, he hangs out in his bars on Avenue A — Nice Guy Eddie’s at Houston and Doc Holliday’s at 9th Street — in New York City.