How to Begin a Session — Part V

In Part IV of this series, I continued my discussion of things that you should do when you start a session. We looked at the following list:

1. Don’t play right away.
2. Look for negative inferences.
3. Assess each player’s current state of mind.
4. Determine your table position.
5. Take fewer chances.
6. At no-limit, buy in for the minimum.
7. If possible, establish a positive image.
8. Decide which players to exploit and which to avoid.

That column covered point No. 4 by assessing how to develop a game plan based on your table position. This column will look at points No. 5 and No. 6.

Take fewer chances: No matter how hard you work at observing the game, making appropriate negative inferences, and determining how each player is approaching the game, you can assume only so much before you have to put your money into action. The information that you gather, while potentially useful, is necessarily incomplete.
As a result, you need to start your play conservatively. What does this mean in practice?

• Play fewer starting hands.
• Fold more blinds to a raise.
• Slightly favor folding in raise-or-fold situations.

Play fewer starting hands: As you develop your understanding of the players, you can take more chances — stretching a point to play in pots with weak players, for example. But at the start of a session, play ABC poker, don’t be creative, and fold marginal hands.

Let’s look at a potential situation. An early-position player limps in, and it is folded to you in the cutoff. You have the A♣ 8♦. If you understand that the limper is weak-passive, know that the button player does not three-bet frequently, and believe that the blinds often fold, you should raise. However, at the beginning of a session, you probably do not have a solid read on any of these criteria. As a result, you should fold this hand and wait for a better opportunity. Later in the session, under the exact same conditions, you may correctly realize that raising is the best play, but not yet.

You have A-10 and are third to act preflop. The first two players fold. In a tight game, you might raise here and hope to get heads up with one of the blinds much of the time. Without this knowledge, just let the hand go.

Two players limp in and you have Q-9 suited in middle position. If you had confidence in your post-flop reads, you might justify calling along; but you don’t yet, so muck the hand.

Fold more blinds to a raise: It goes against the grain to fold a marginal but playable hand to a preflop raise when you’re in one of the blinds. After all, you came to play; you hate to be pushed around; and you will feel bad if you would have hit the flop and won a nice pot. Nevertheless, in the early stages of your session, you must let these hands go.

A middle-position player limps in, the button raises, the small blind folds, and you’re in the big blind. Early in a session, fold hands like 9-8 offsuit, K-6 suited, 7-5 suited, J-8 offsuit. These are tough hands to play from out of position, you will have to act immediately after the raiser (assuming the common case of everyone checking to the raiser, who bets), and you do not have a good idea of the ranges of the two active players. Later on, you may decide that it’s worth a gamble with one or more of these hands, depending on those ranges, the predictability of the opponents, and their skill level.

Let’s say that you have K-K in the small blind. A middle-position player raises and the button calls. What should you do? Three-bet, of course. This is not a marginal case, as you have the second-best possible hand, and you need to get more money into the pot. Early-session conservatism is meant to avoid iffy situations, not all situations. With a premium hand, you should still play aggressively.

Slightly favor folding in raise-or-fold situations: Frequently in limit hold’em, you are confronted with classical raise-or-fold situations. The player to your right has bet, and you have one or more opponents behind you. You may have the best hand, or you may not. In these circumstances, your primary options are to raise, protecting your hand that could be the best, or fold, conceding that your hand may easily be second-best.

These cases are rarely straightforward. The more that you know about the tendencies of the bettor, the better your decision can be. Absent that, you normally should favor folding over raising until you can gain improved insight.

These are not the only possibilities of favoring conservative action early in a session, but are rather typical.

At no-limit, buy in for the minimum: Many of my friends who play no-limit are macho types. They always believe that they figure to be the best player at the table, and they always buy in for the table maximum so that they can win the most money.
When playing with strangers, this can be an error. You have no idea who the excellent players are and who are less-skilled. So, always buy in for the minimum while you assess the table. This may take some time, as showdowns are rarer in no-limit, but eventually you’ll be able to make a reasonable determination regarding who is a threat and who is a target.

Now, look at the stack sizes of the two groups. If the targets’ stacks are deep, buy more chips. If the tougher players’ stacks are deep, you can stay short. Remember, you can always add chips to your stack, up to the table maximum, but you can never take chips away.

Yes, if it turns out that you are the best player, you may have lost a bit of an opportunity. But if the opposite is true, you may have saved yourself a lot of chips when misreading one of the better players.

In my next column, we will look at the remaining points, emphasizing how your conservative early play can enhance your image and open the door for successful creative plays later in the session. ♠

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