‘Easy’ Things to Do to Win at Poker — Part VII

This series focuses on things you can do at the table to improve your decisions. I have been discussing each item on the list below, extracted from my book Advanced Limit Hold’em Strategy.

• Pay more attention
• Select the best games
• Learn how your opponents play
• Study betting patterns
• Analyze every situation
• Plan in advance
• Play focused on the game
• Count the pot
• Compute the odds
• Figure out how the play might go
• Estimate what your opponents think you hold and how you should respond
• Then, make a decision

In my last column, I explored situations involving advance planning. (All of my columns in this series are available at www.CardPlayer.com.) This column will focus on the next two points — play focused on the game, and count the pot.

Play focused on the game: Let me tell you a quick story. In a $100-$200 limit hold’em game, one of the infrequent players was known as one of the tightest players anywhere. All of the participants knew that his opening range from under the gun was A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K, and, if he felt frisky, A-Q suited and maybe J-J. That’s it.

On this occasion, Mr. Tight raised from under the gun, and everyone folded to Old Pro on the button, who had A-A. He three-bet, and Mr. Tight called. The flop was 8-7-3, and it went check, bet, call. The turn was a 6, and Mr. Tight check-raised. Old Pro knew that Mr. Tight simply could not have a better hand than aces, so he three-bet. Mr. Tight raised again. Old Pro raised once more, as did Mr. Tight. Convinced that they were chopping, as each must hold pocket aces, Old Pro called, and called again on the river when a deuce hit.

Old Pro was shocked to see Mr. Tight turn over 10-9 suited for the nut straight. How could this happen? I will tell you. Just before the hand was dealt, Mr. Tight announced, “This is my last hand. I am going to gamble.” That was very nice of him, but Old Pro was busy at that moment selecting new songs for his iPod play list (or whatever people do with those things), and did not hear the announcement. Had he known that Mr. Tight was going to depart from his tried-and-true, and well-known, formula, he certainly would have played more cautiously, and saved hundreds of dollars.

So, which is more important, getting the right song or saving lots of bets? While most people would pick the bets, they do not behave that way. I know a story of a player at Commence Casino who was so busy looking for a waitress who forgot the mustard for his sandwich that he missed an event at the table that eventually cost him a significant amount of money.

Players watch TV, look for (or stare at) waitresses, send text messages, read newspapers, chat with neighbors, and do almost anything, it seems, except stay focused on the action and study the players. They do these irrelevant (though possibly enjoyable) activities rather than watch and learn how their opponents play, look for tells, and listen while players pontificate about how they play in certain situations or even mutter out loud what cards they hold.

Playing winning poker is hard to do. For many of us, it requires all of our attention to learn as much as possible about the folks from whom we are trying to win money.

Here’s one more simple example: Every time a new player sits down, do you notice how much he bought in for? Many players simply hate to fall below the break-even line, especially after a few hours of play. A player who is winning a few chips is far less likely to make a frivolous bet or raise than one who is ahead a lot. To judge an opponent’s action, one of the things you need to know is how close he is to break-even.

Count the pot: One reason why so many players do not count every pot is that it seldom matters. If it mattered every hand, they might get into the habit of doing it, but many times it doesn’t. You have pocket kings and raise preflop. Three players call. The flop is J-6-3. You are going to bet. You do not need to know the pot size to make this decision. Common situations like this keep players from doing the work of mentally tracking pot size every time.
Another reason is that players do not know how to estimate outs and do the math to compute pot odds. If you get the number of outs wrong, or do not know what to do with that number if you do figure it out, knowing the size of the pot, a key parameter in making that computation, will not help you.

It is beyond the scope of this series to teach you how to count outs, or compute current and implied odds, but there are plenty of ways to learn this.
Counting the pot is also simpler if you count bets instead of dollars. In limit hold’em, if four players put in two bets preflop and the big blind folded, there are nine small bets. On the flop, one player bets and two players call. Add three more small bets, for a total of 12, which you now convert to six big bets. If someone now bets into you, you are getting 6-1 current odds for your call. You may choose to add in the possible value of future bets, or the chances that you will make your hand and still lose, but at least you know what the present price is — not just, “the pot seems big.”

Counting the pot is another skill that you can practice while you’re not in a hand. If you count every pot for a few days or weeks, you will find that it becomes second nature, and you no longer will need to work at it. Online players get so used to having the pot counted for them that they frequently do not make this adjustment when playing live. They need to work on this more than most players.

In my next column, we will look at the next point, figuring out how the play might go.

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].