Am I Making a Good Bet? Part 7: Starting Requirements

Most of the situations I’ve discussed in this series so far have focused on big decisions. For example, when is it right to move-in as a bluff or semibluff? Making good bets in these spots is obviously very important, and has a huge impact on your results, but this type of decision is relatively rare. You won’t be making a lot of decisions for your entire stack.

Equally important, are the more frequent routine small decisions you make every hand. The most frequent decision you face is whether to play a given hand. Once you have decided a hand is playable, you then have to decide how to play it.

It is important to think of these decisions in terms of expected value. In the first column is this series, I wrote that you need to begin by understanding the idea of Expected Value (also know as EV or Expectation.) EV is the average you will win or lose from taking a particular action.

If you flip a coin for $100, on average you will break even. Your expected value (EV) is zero. If you get $200 when you win, but only lose $100, the your EV is +$50. The actual outcome can never be +50. It might be +200 or -100, but the average outcome is +50. If you are at all unclear or confused by what expected value is, you should drop everything else until you understand it.

Let’s look at a very common starting decision. What suited connectors should you play? Most top players agree that when you are the first to voluntarily put money in the pot, you should begin by raising. Never limp, first in!

You are playing in a nine-handed $5-$10 cash game. Let’s say that you will either fold or raise to $35. Your stack is $1,000, and most of the players have similar stacks. There are 12 suited connectors in each suit. The best is A-K suited and the worst is 3-2 suited. (There are also one-gap connectors like Q-10 suited and 8-6 suited, but they should be discussed separately even though a one-gap hand like K-J suited is much better than a low connector like 4-3 suited.)

The player under the gun folds, and you are next. I have heard this spot called under the gun plus 1 or just simply early position. The problem with this is that it doesn’t consider how many players are at the table. If there were only 4 players, then under the gun plus one would be the button, which is certainly not early position. There is a superior way to think of your position, and that is to focus on how many players are behind you, waiting to act. I think of this position as the button minus five (B-5), because it is five positions worse than the button. If there were only eight players at the table, then B-5 would be under the gun.

So with which suited connectors should you raise to $35 and which should simply be folded? Unlike books that give detailed lists of which hands are playable from which position, I don’t have a simple answer to that question. It depends on your skill level, the skill levels of the other players, the general looseness and aggressiveness of the game, etc.

But let’s try and look at it from an expected value point of view. If raising to $35 has a plus EV you want to do it, if it doesn’t you don’t. Let’s start with the best suited connector, A-K suited. It clearly has plus equity and should be played. Now let’s look at the worst, 3-2 suited. It clearly has negative equity and should be folded. For a typical game, a skillful player should be able to play A-K suited, K-Q suited, and Q-J suited for sure. With more skill and/or in a better game, this list could extend to J-10 suited, 10-9 suited, and even 9-8 suited. But at some point your equity crosses from positive to negative. Let’s say, that you break even with 9-8 suited, and lose with all lower suited connectors.

Your gain from playing 10-9 suited is very small. Your loss from playing 8-7 suited will also be small. For a less skillful player or a tougher game, J-10 suited might be the break-even suited connector. As your position gets better, more suited connectors will have positive EV. If you were playing in a tournament with antes as well as blinds, then the starting pot would be bigger, and again more suited connectors would have plus equity.

If there were two very aggressive players, who love to three-bet light, sitting in late positions, then you should tighten up. If there are weak players, who love to limp behind you can loosen up. You must be focused on when you have a positive expectation. These are the times when you will make money.

If you don’t expect to make money, then you are not making a good bet. There may be times when you want to throw in a negative equity hand for deception or balancing, but in general you want to play the hands where you will make money and only those hands. If you stop playing hands whose negative equity is ‘only’ minus a dollar or two, you will have eliminated a huge leak. ♠

Steve ‘Zee’ Zolotow aka Zebra is a very successful gamesplayer. He has been a full-time gambler for over 40 years. With two WSOP bracelets, over 50 cashes, and a few million in tournament cashes, he is easing into retirement. He currently devotes most of his Vegas gaming time to poker, and can be found in cash games at Bellagio and at tournaments during the WSOP. When escaping from poker, he spends the spring and the fall in New York City where he hangs out at his bars: Doc Holliday’s, The Library and DBA.