Amateur Mistake From The WSOP

This article is inspired by the most frequent mistake I saw lots of amateur players commit on a regular basis throughout the 2015 WSOP. Most of these players don’t even realize they are committing this egregious error. This mistake is difficult to notice, especially for players in the small or middle stakes, because the vast majority of the player pool exhibits this flaw. Once the amateurs become aware of it, they will instantly be able to improve their strategies, allowing them to play in a much more profitable manner.

Most amateurs simply do not apply enough pressure before the flop. Their strategy is to wait for strong hands and then reraise, hoping their opponents will blindly pay them off with all sorts of junk. This results in their opponents easily folding to the passive amateur’s aggression, making it nearly impossible for the amateur to extract significant value from their strong hands. If you only win small pots with your premium hands, you will have a difficult time winning in the long run.

Instead of reraising with only premium hands, you should reraise with a wider range determined by how you expect your opponent to react. If you expect your opponent to call your reraise with a wide range of marginal hands such as 2-2, A-10, and K-9, you should reraise with what is referred to as a linear range. This range consists of your best hands, such as A-A and A-K, as well as hands that should have your opponent dominated, such as 9-9, A-J, and K-Q. You will find this strategy works best against weak players who are not capable of folding to a reraise before the flop once they have any amount of money invested. Going to the flop against players who are frequently dominated will work amazing well for you.

If you expect your opponent to either fold or four-bet (rereraise) when you reraise, you should reraise with what is referred to as a polarized range. This range consists of your best hand, such as A-A and A-K, and hands that are not quite good enough to call your opponent’s initial raise, such as A 7, K 10, K 8, and 10 7. Notice that when implementing this strategy, you will be calling with your hands that flop decently well, such as A-J, K-Q, and 8-7 suited. This strategy works well because when you reraise with a weak hand, you rarely expect to see a flop. With hands like A-J and K-Q, you typically want to see a flop, and calling ensures that happens most of the time.

While reraising with marginal hands is an excellent way to make you more difficult for certain opponents to play against you, you should only reraise with your premium hands. If you expect your opponent to only raise with a premium hand before the flop, which is a trait some small stakes players exhibit, there is no point in bluffing because your bluff is almost certain to fail. This will usually be the case when the initial raiser is in early position or known to be overly tight. Against these players, it is important that you do not overvalue hands like 10-10 and A-Q because, if you reraise and your opponent continues in the pot, you are often in bad shape. Your goal with your strong hands should not be to play them in a manner that forces you to fold. Instead, call the initial raise and see what develops after the flop. Against the tightest players, your reraising range could be as tight as A-A, K-K, Q-Q, and A-K suited.

If getting out of line and reraising feels too risky for you, you must understand and accept that if you want to succeed at poker, you have to steal pots that don’t belong to you, especially once you move to the middle and high stakes. If you sit around and hope for someone to dump their chips to you, you will frequently be disappointed and end up blinding off. Instead, take control of your destiny and don’t rely on playing only the best starting hands in a blatantly straightforward manner. Good luck! ♠

Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT champion with more than $6 million in tournament winnings. Each week, he posts an educational blog and podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com, where you can get a FREE poker training video that details five things you must master if you want to win at tournament poker.