Know Your Foe

One of the hardest things to do in no-limit Texas hold’em is to play hands when out of position. You lose out on information, the right of last action, the option of checking behind for free cards … so much. The problem isn’t so bad if your table is passive and you can play hit-to-win poker, taking inexpensive fliers on speculative hands (your suited connectors, your small pocket pairs) in hope of hitting well-disguised strength and letting the last-to-act crowd blindly bet into you. It’s different, though, when you’re facing just one or two foes, especially in raised pots, and especially if you know they’re likely to bet most flops. That’s why, before you get involved in reckless adventures, it’s crucial to know your foes, and know which ones are likely to put pressure on you on subsequent betting rounds.

Good news: They’re easy enough to spot. Some preflop raisers simply can’t resist the continuation-bet. They’ll make it pretty much 100 percent of the time. You know they don’t always have a hand. They know they don’t always have a hand. But they also know they have position, and unless you have a hand, you’re likely to fold like an origami crane. Your situation would be much easier if you could call a preflop raise from out of position, then check the flop and have your opponent check behind. And yes, there are foes who will grant you this gift, so once you’ve identified them, be more likely to call their raises from out of position. Against the rough-and-tumble crowd, though, it’s better not to get involved. Why? Because the best way to win without position is with cards, and cards are hard to have.

Two-thirds of the time — you know this and your foe knows this — when you take two unpaired cards to the flop, you fail to pair either one. Since hitting the flop is the surest way to defeat preflop and post-flop aggression, you’ll be able to use your best weapon only one time out of three. Again, the situation is different against raisers who are post-flop passive. If you know they’ll fold if they miss, you have the option of leading into them, or checking, letting them check behind, and taking the pot away on the turn. Against aggressive foes, though, this strategy won’t work. If they CB (continuation-bet) with or without a hand, you won’t know where you’re at, and you’re out of position. Therefore, if you call preflop, you’re hoping to hit, and if you miss — which you will most of the time — you’re sacrificing too many chips; you’re paying too high a price for your hope.

There are, of course, other counter-strategies to use on aggressive foes. You can use the old stop-and-go, calling the preflop raise and then leading out into most flops. You can call along on highly textured boards and hope to represent a made hand if the texture hits on the turn. You can three-bet preflop or check-raise on the flop or the turn. But guess what? All of these strategies amount to outplaying your foe, and while I’m not saying you can’t do that, I am saying that it’s harder to do when you have to act first.

So, here’s what I advise, instead. Be aware of who your highly aggressive enemies are. Track their tendency to CB all (or almost all) the time. Then, against such foes, simply refuse to get involved when out of position, except with premium hands. This takes a certain humility, a willing suspension of ego, for you might find yourself thinking, “Why am I laying down to this guy? I’m better than him!” Better you may be — but not when he has position. Save your confrontations for when you have not only a skill edge, but a card edge or position edge, as well.

It typically happens that a hyperaggressive player is sitting one or two seats to your right, and is just mercilessly hammering away at your blinds. You may even have put him there on purpose, for we always like to sit to the left of aggressive enemies. Now, though, that choice seems to be haunting you, because, thanks to his aggression, you can’t get a bet in edgewise. You pick up K-10 suited and decide to take a flier on the hand. But unless you hit the flop, or unless you decide to get frisky, you’re pretty much done with the hand when he bets on the flop. Sad, but also unnecessary, because guess what? He has position on you for only two hands every orbit. The rest of the time, you have position on him. Therefore, gladly fold those marginal hands when out of position.

Now look at what happens when you play that K-10 suited in position instead of out. He raises. You call. You take the flop heads up. It doesn’t matter how the flop comes, because you know your enemy, and you know that he’ll CB, regardless. And, he does. Did you hit the flop? Who cares? Because now you can call behind. Just call. Man, there’s nothing more scary to a reckless continuation-bettor than the flat-call behind on the flop. Why are you doing that? You’re trying to goad him into another bet, aren’t you?! Well, he by darn isn’t falling for that. Therefore, he checks on the turn. Now you have the option of checking behind for a free card — delivering yourself all the way to the river for the price of just one call on the flop — or betting out to take the pot away. See how much more flexibility and control you have? That’s the power of position, baby. There’s nothing like it in the world.

There are times — many, many times — when you can play all sorts of crazy hands when out of position. Anytime you think you’re likely to see the pot go unraised, you’re pretty much good to go. And there are games like that, games that we call limpfests, in which one or two early-position limps start a stampede of limps — a limpede — and everyone else decides to see the cheap flop, too. But when you know your foes, and you know that frisky ones are waiting to raise big from late position, just screw down your starting-hand requirements and save your speculation for when you have position over the powerhouses. Want it in math? I can give it to you in math. Against inveterate continuation-bettors … bad cards + bad position = bad news.

What could be simpler than that?

It’s long been said (by me), “Don’t challenge strong players, challenge weak ones. That’s what they’re there for.” Never is this more true than when you’re deciding whether to call raises from out of position preflop. Your cards matter some; your enemies matter more.

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.