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Feb 21st: Try to peg unknown players as good or bad as fast as possible

Whenever I think about unknown players, I am reminded of a hand that I played at the Commerce Casino about one year ago. The game was $5-$10 no-limit with a $1500 max buy-in. I had had a pretty good session and was up to $4000.  The table next to us just broke and a new, young, Asian guy had just sat down with $5000. He appeared to play pretty tight for two orbits until we got mixed up in the following hand. I opened to $35 in mid position with 9 8, the button called and this guy reraised to $175 out of the big blind. Because I thought he was tight, and we were deep, I decided to call in position. The button folded and we were heads up. The flop came out Q 9 8 and the villain bet $250.  Obviously I was ecstatic.  This was exactly the situation that I wanted to be in as I thought that it was likely that he had aces or kings. Right away, as I do most of the time at this level, I decided to raise to $700 to build up a pot.   To my shock the villain then instantly moved me all-in.  

In the old days of no-limit (more than five years ago), I would have snapped called here figuring that there was a good enough chance that my opponent was overvaluing a big overpair. However, as the game has evolved people are much less likely to push back with their overpairs after getting raised – although tighter guys still cannot fold them. But usually players will revert into a check/call shell. This guy was younger, which can be interpreted in a number of different ways. Usually, I go with the assumption that younger players have better fundamentals than their nittier, older counterparts and are less likely to overplay their hands.

I came to the conclusion that it was unlikely that this guy would push so much money in facing a flop raise and I gave him credit for Q-Q or some sort of light three-bet with J-10.  Much to my dismay after tanking for five minutes and folding he told me “good lay down” as he flipped up A-A.  

One orbit later, I observed this player limp in under the gun with J 4. I felt sick to my stomach as I realized that this guy was inexperienced. Poker is a game of incomplete information and you must tag unknowns as good or bad as quickly as possible. That little bit of information – the fact that the guy limped in with J-4 – would have made my decision in the crazy all-in hand totally different. Make sure that when new players come to the table that you pay attention to their first few hands. This will make big decisions a lot easier down the line.

Jan 5th: Pot control against non-sophisticated opponents is extremely overrated

I am not sure who came up with the term “pot control” but nowadays you hear it referenced much more in tournaments than in cash games. There was a time, however, where pot control was very trendy in ring games. I remember doing episodes of Live at the Bike back in 2006 where even good players would check back their overpairs on the turn because they did not want to play a big pot with one pair. The really interesting thing though was that the frequency of check-raise bluffs and semi-bluffs, especially on the turn, was quite low. By checking back, all they were really doing was losing value from draws and giving free cards to opponents that had decent equity.

The same thing can be said now, especially at the lower levels. You really do not have to concern yourself with getting bluffed on the turn, especially in three-bet pots. Most people are aware that your range consists of a significant amount of overpairs and strong hands after putting a lot of money in the pot and they are not going to try and get you off of those holdings without a big hand or draw themselves.

I have written a lot about bet-folding and raise-folding the last few weeks in this column. If you can successfully bet for value and then fold when you face resistance, then you are way out in front of most of the player pool at the $5 or $10 big blind level of live no-limit.

Now, of course, there are times when you can check back the turn for value with a strong hand thinking that maybe your opponent cannot call both a turn and a river bet. But this is not to say that you are “pot controlling.” In fact, there is nothing wrong with taking this concept entirely out of your game for low and midstakes no-limit hold’em. The sheer fact of the matter is unless you are up against ridiculously good, aggressive players, and you are super deep-stacked, there is rarely a need to pot control in no-limit cash games.

March 20th: Don’t get lazy when it comes to seat changing. Moving to get in position on weaker opponents is paramount.

Many players get overly content when they are winning in a session. There maybe a lot of chips in front of you and sometimes it can be a pain to physically move. Do not fall into this trap. Do we not want to do things that will help us win more money? The minor inconvenience of moving can actually drastically increase your winrate.

Sitting to certain players’ right can be a big advantage. In fact, I like to have weak, passive players to my right as opposed to the more wild, aggressive ones. Some people like it the other way around. But, if I have a fit or fold player to my right, I can constantly isolate them and I will then be printing money by using my positional advantage against their weaknesses. I think that people spend too much time trying to get to the left of aggressive opponents and do not spend enough effort extracting money from weaker players to our right. A big chunk of my winrate is from attacking these less skilled opponents at the table, not from mixing it up with the better, aggressive players. I think that this concept is lost on a lot of people.

There are some opponents, though, that are so aggressive you want to be to their left because they make your life a living hell. This is especially the case against good, aggressive players in PLO. This is not a common occurrence, however, in the low to mid-stakes no-limit games. You really should concentrate on gaining position against the players that you think are the weakest at the table. ♠

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Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on twitter @barthanson. Check out his podcast “Deuce Plays” on DeucesCracked.com and his video training site specifically for live No Limit players—CrushLivePoker.com. He also hosts Live at the Bike every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 pm ET at LivettheBike.com