Learning No-Limit From Scratch - Great Play, Sucky Result!

All poker is situation-specific, no-limit more than limit. In no-limit you can creatively design more exploitive plays. The equity gained from designing effective plays exploiting your opponents’ tendencies can be substantial when either the bets or the expected value (EV) from the play is large. Taking the time to think through your opponents’ thought processes and how you can exploit those thoughts will reap you great rewards.

I’d been playing $2-$5 at the Venetian for several hours and was $440 deep. The game was aggressive, several young pros, sitting three in a row, were extensively pushing preflop, seizing every reasonable opportunity to “squeeze.” By “squeeze,” I mean preflop raising a situation in which you are taking a marginal or weak hand and making a significant bet in the hopes of immediately folding out all your opponents.

A splashy, aggressive, and poor player who had me covered opened for $20 from under the gun (UTG). I looked down at A A and contemplated how the hand might play out. Against a weak player, it’s a great spot to have aces, and I looked to maximize its equity. I pondered the table texture. The three aggressive young pros were lined up to and including the button. I thought that, with their hyper-aggressive tendencies, accentuated strongly with position, one of them would find a large enough marginal hand to “squeeze.” After all, it didn’t require much. And, if I flatted, I could reraise the “squeezer” after Mr. UTG had an opportunity to call the squeeze-raise.

Pretty confident that one of them would squeeze, I flatted. Another opponent called the $20 and, to my delight, Mr. Young-Aggressive in the cutoff with more than $1,000 behind made it $110 to go, causing the button and blinds to fold. Mr. UTG hemmed and hawed and slid in the extra $90.

I pushed my whole stack in, raising it $330 more with $260 in the pot, folding the other caller and Mr. Young-Aggressive. Mr. UTG tanked for about 30 seconds, asked me if I had ace-king, and called.

The dealer flopped the 8 7 5. Mr. UTG excitedly turned over 7 7, giving him second set. The turn and river blanked for me. I despondently tossed my hand into the muck and requested a chiprunner.

“Well, that didn’t work out very well,” I said to myself. But it really did! I actualized a bet getting $575 to $440 as a 4-1 favorite, and that’s a bet with massive equity that I’d like to make all day. The only thing that went wrong, though it was a major thing, was that I lost the pot. And while at that moment that issue seemed significant to me, it’s really not very important. In poker, the object is to get your money in with the best of it. Actualize that over time and the chips will be yours!

The hand speaks to observing opponents’ tendencies and designing a play to exploit those tendencies. Had there not been such a distinctive line-up of aggressive players in late position, I would have three-bet Mr. UTG. Instead, I passed on that profitable play because I paid attention to the texture of the late position players and thought through an exploitive alternative with even higher EV.

When playing, you need to observe every decision your opponents make. Think through their thought process and how they arrived at that decision. Define whether the decision was based on logic or emotions. Emotional decisions can vary wildly; logic is more consistent. And fashion counter-plays that exploit your opponent’s thoughts.

There is much to consider. How’s their hand selection? How does it vary with position or opponent texture? Do they bet or call too loose? How does that vary? Are they scared to call big bets? Will they call value bets lightly? Do they call weak on the flop and then rotate tight on the turn? Are they aggressive in squeeze positions? What is their propensity to fold to a three-bet, too tight or too loose? Are they easy to trap? Do they telegraph their intentions? The questions are immense. As you become a better reader of poker situations, these thoughts and others will automatically process in your brain, and you can bring your conscious thoughts/reads to a higher level. It’s a never-ending growth cycle that occurs as you focus and develop with experience.

Additionally, you’ll need to adjust your play based on your reads. What plays are effective against your opponent’s tendencies? This is something you need to think about and have designed before the situations occur. And when the situations present themselves, determine if this is the right time to make the exploitive play. Has anything changed? Is the current situation similar enough to the past situation that the designed play will be effective?

If you want to play poker at a high level, you have to exploit the tendencies of your opponents. In the example above, I noticed that the three young pros were overly-aggressive in position. I made a non-standard play by flatting my aces, thinking that one of them wouldn’t be able to resist the opportunity to make a squeeze play. When one did, it set up the opportunity for me to get my stack in preflop with AA. The $110 Mr. Young-Pro forfeited without seeing a flop took away a lot of his squeezing value for the session. If the late-position players were passive, flatting would have lost significant value, and three-betting probably would have been the better play.

I felt I’d played the hand well! I read my opponent’s tendencies, designed a play that effectively countered those tendencies, and managed to get my stack in at around a 4-1 favorite and getting 1.3-1.

I only wish I would have scooped the chips! ♠

Roy Cooke played poker professionally for 16 years prior to becoming a successful Las Vegas Real Estate Broker/Salesman. Should you wish any information about Real Estate matters-including purchase, sale or mortgage his office number is 702-376-1515 or Roy’s e-mail is [email protected]. His website is www.roycooke.com. You can also find him on Facebook or Twitter @RealRoyCooke