Asking the Right Questions

I can tell a lot about how well a client poker student of mine plays, and how much my assistance will be of benefit, by the questions he asks me. I have a new no-limit hold’em client who is asking excellent questions that I am sure will be of general interest to poker players. Here are some of our early e-mail exchanges. The material has been slightly edited for this column.
Client: I would appreciate your thoughts on the following scenario: I’m in a $5-$10 blinds no-limit hold’em cash game. My stack size is $2,500, I’m on the button, and everyone has me covered. I have a pair of black kings. Preflop, two players limp in and I raise to $50. The big blind calls, and the two limpers call, so I have three opponents. The pot size is $205. The flop comes Q♦ 10♣ 8♦. Everyone checks to me; what should I do? I discussed this afterward with Jack, an experienced cash-game player. We were not in complete agreement on what to do, so Jack suggested that I e-mail you and get your opinion. Do you favor checking or betting the flop?
Bob: I check. This is far from being an attractive gambling situation. You have three opponents and there are three cards in the playing zone to a straight. The straight is unlikely, because it takes a perfect J-9 to make it, but an opponent holding two pair or a set is far too strong a threat for me to bet an overpair. You cannot stand any heat. Face the fact that you got a terrible flop, even though there is no ace on the board. I have not given up on the hand, though. When I have an unfavorable gambling situation, I do not put big money into the pot. Everyone “knows” that I do not have a big hand if I check, and most think I could not hold aces or kings. But I may not have to face a steal on the turn just because I checked, as every player in the hand is afraid of the other two callers in the pot. If a blank comes and they check again, I might fire off a barrel.
Client: You just sat down in a game with $1-$3 blinds, you know nothing about any of the players, and you pick up A-Q suited on the button. You bought in for $300, and your opponents for this hand have more money than you. A middle-position player open-raises to $13, and two people in front of you call. Do you favor calling or three-betting (to perhaps $60)?
Bob: I strongly prefer a call. You have perfect position, because the raiser acts first and you act last. You have a good hand, but not one that I would be looking to play for all of my money. If you reraise, you will find out where you stand — but a large portion of your stack will be in the pot, so that knowledge may be useless. I would be inclined to just call even with A-K suited, although reraising now comes into the picture. I think A-K is a much better hand for playing all in than A-Q, and would not consider for a moment playing a big pot preflop with that weak a hand unless short-stacked.
Client: With effective stacks of 100 big blinds when holding A-K in one of the blinds against two or more limpers, what is your rule of thumb or criteria for raising? When you do raise, should I assume that it’s for one and a half to two times the size of the pot? Assume a loose $1-$3 or $2-$5 blinds no-limit hold’em cash game. I have been raising more often than not in this situation, but I’m unsure if this strategy is correct.
Bob: I vary my play with A-K or A-Q when in one of the blinds. A-K is a much more reliable hand for raising than A-Q (even suited). I always raise more than the amount in the pot when raising from one of the blinds. I also do not make the wager as much as twice the pot size, which would be a raise of $50 with a pot of only $25, which seems too heavy to me. There is one exception to this policy. I do not rebuy after losing a big pot until it’s my button (I do not like a big stack when out of position). So, if I had less than $100 in front of me, I would be inclined to overbet the pot size by double or more just to get all in. With any hand, if I raised from one of the blinds in a cheap game, I would overbet the pot by more than my usual 20 percent, especially if there were more than two limpers, and especially if the game had $1-$2 blinds as opposed to a $5-to-go game. I think there is a big difference in players in these two games. The players in the $2 game seem to have no idea of how much they can call in proportion to their stack when they need to improve. As a result, I make bigger raises in proportion to my stack (as many of the halfway-decent players tend to do in that size game). Here are a couple of examples:
I am in the big blind with three limpers and the small blind; $8 is in the pot. I would raise $15 more (to a total of $17).
I am in the big blind with three limpers and the small blind; $25 is in the pot. I would raise $35 more (to a total of $40).
Many players are suspicious that the big blind is stealing when putting in a big preflop raise, so you need to be careful about making this play with a nothing hand. I believe that your chance of picking up the pot by raising is not that good in a cheap game, so be sure to have something to fall back on when you raise from the blind.
Client: When holding a pocket pair of tens, nines, or eights in the big blind against several limpers, in the long run, do you think it’s more profitable to raise, trying to win preflop, or to check and hope to flop a set? What about hands like A-Q and A-J?
Bob: The job of pocket pairs in a no-limit hold’em cash game is to flop a set and bust someone, so raising a large amount preflop is seldom a good strategy.
Raising with A-Q or A-J as a semibluff is an effective tool in many games. It depends on how eager your opponents are to call. If you have one of these hands in the big blind, watch the first guy who enters the pot, regardless of where the action is, until the betting reaches you. In fact, watch people on every hand when they open a pot, and get an idea of what to look for. The main thing is how closely they watch the action. If you get through the first player with your big-blind raise, you are close to winning without a fight. ♠
Bob Ciaffone has authored four poker books, Middle Limit Holdem Poker, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Improve Your Poker, and Omaha Poker. All can be ordered (autographed to you) from Bob by e-mail: [email protected]. Free U.S. shipping to Card Player readers. Ciaffone is available for poker lessons at a reasonable rate. His website is www.pokercoach.us, where you can get his rulebook, Robert’s Rules of Poker, for free. Bob also has a website called www.fairlawsonpoker.org.