Playing the Same in Lowball

Other writers have described the optimal way of varying your play. Many players think that varying their play means playing the same hand differently at different times. Rather than playing the same hand different ways, though, the experts recommend playing different hands the same way. They often illustrate this principle with hold'em hands. I used the principle recently in lowball, which is what I play best.

I opened in first position in a $20-limit game with a good hand, a pat straight 6.

The next player folded.

Big Jim, in the next seat, raised. Big Jim is a reasonably solid player and he gives me a lot of respect. He would have a good pat hand or an excellent draw to have raised when I opened in first position.

Everyone else folded.

When the bet returned to me, I quickly reraised, already having made up my mind on what I would do when Big Jim was putting his raise in. Of course, reraising with a pat 6 is almost the only way to play the hand, and I wouldn't want to lose the opportunity for extra bets, so flat calling was not really an option. (I might conceivably flat call with a pat 8 instead of reraise, because in addition to usually being a solid player, Big Jim was also very aggressive and might well go another bet, but I wouldn't do that with a pat 6.) I had seen him put the fourth bet in on a pat 9 before – and sometimes even on snows – but those were exceptions to his usual play. Most of the time when he put multiple bets in, he had the goods. He might put extra bets in when last to draw, hoping that his opponent would break a pat 9 or even a pat 8 and draw. Good lowball players rarely break an 8, though, and his most likely hand on a four-bet pot was a good pat hand. But a good pat hand could be a smooth 8. When I reraised, I hoped that he would go one more bet, and then I would raise again. He just called, though.

What I meant by already having made up my mind on what I would do was not the reraise. Rather, it was the manner in which I did it, an immediate reraise rather than the momentary hesitation that some players exhibit before reraising.

When the dealer asked for the draw, I stood pat.

Not surprisingly, Big Jim showed his queen and drew one card. He had been hoping that I was drawing when he put in the first raise, and thought that his draw was better than mine. Normally, it would have been, but he had been unfortunate enough to catch me when I held a good pat hand. He also expected that if I just called and stood pat, I would check and then call if he bet, so he would be getting 2-to-1 on his raise in many situations. As I indicated earlier, many lowball players have the strategy of calling one raise with a pat 8, and then checking it after the draw and calling another bet if made, no matter whether the raiser then drew or stood pat. Their justification for such a play is that they don't want to lose any more than three bets on a pat 8. I don't play that timidly often, and when I do, it's usually for some reason other than timorousness.

I bet. Big Jim called. I showed my hand, and he disgustedly threw his hand in the muck. I assumed that he'd caught a 7 or an 8; I doubt that he would have called with a 9. I did not ask to see his cards. I never do.

A few hands later, I found a pat 9-8-7-6-5 in a middle position. Whether I open with this hand in middle positions depends on what I think I can pick up on behind me in the way of tells; absent any tells, I would open with passive players behind me and not open with aggressive players yet to act. I had a tell on the player to my immediate left, and I could tell that he had no intention of playing in this pot. If I had picked up an indication that he wanted to play, I probably would have folded, because his desire to play could translate into a raise. A rough 9 is not a hand with which I want to face a raise. If I flat call, I show weakness, and the player behind me can stand on a 9-7 or even a smooth 9-8. I could not bet after the draw if he stood behind me, and, after I checked, would essentially give up on the pot. Any hand a reasonable player would stand pat on, after having raised, behind a pat hand had to be better than 9-8-7-6-5. That's why I recommended in the lowball strategy series that ran in Card Player a number of years back not to open with this hand from early positions. It's too vulnerable. You usually want to abandon it if raised, because a raiser has two chances to beat you. Either he's already pat with a better hand or he's only a small underdog when drawing, and that is easily offset by the bet after the draw, which should usually be called. Why lose three bets on a hand that you could have folded and lost nothing? When you open from early position with a rough 9, it generally wins only one bet, but risks losing several. For the same reason, if the player on my left wanted part of the pot that I started this paragraph describing, I would not open. But he exuded his I'm-going-to-fold tell, so I opened.

Just as before, Big Jim raised.

Everyone else folded.

Just as before, when the bet returned to me, I quickly reraised, already having made up my mind on what I would do when Big Jim was putting his raise in. I was playing a different hand this time, but was playing it in the same way as must have been fresh in Jim's mind when I had the pat 6.

Big Jim called.

Again, I stood pat.

Big Jim studied his cards for a while. I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. Finally, he came to a conclusion, and asked for two cards. I was pretty sure what he had. He must have had a 9-8-7 himself. The hand had to have been better than mine, though, since there was a no worse 9 than mine, and it wasn't likely that he'd be raising me with a 10. If I had played the hand any other way – not reraised, say – or hesitated before reraising, he might very well have stood pat behind me, or at least drawn one card instead of two. But my aggressive reraise must have made him think drawing one card would cost him another bet if he made what he was drawing to and felt obligated to call. That is, he didn't want to draw to an 8-7, make it, and lose another bet. Had he known that I had a pat 9, he certainly would have drawn one. But he had never seen me go three bets with a pat 9, and had no reason to think I was doing so now. Furthermore, my playing the hand the same as before must have convinced him that I again had a good pat hand. He probably couldn't quite believe that I had a pat 6 again, so a two-card draw to a 7 was reasonable.

Slight digression: Beginning lowball players might ask why a player would put in three bets to draw two cards. The answer is that Big Jim did not plan on drawing two cards when he raised; he planned on my taking one card and then standing pat behind me. Beginners might ask further why he called the reraise for a two-card draw. This was because at that point, he was getting 6-to-1 on his call (including the blinds), and probably at least 7-to-1 since I likely would bet and he could raise with any hand that beat mine. If he thought that I had about a smooth 8 or rough 7, the odds against beating my hand were somewhere in the range of 6-to-1.

I didn't want to show that I had played a 9 that strongly, so I bet. I knew that if Big Jim made a 7, no matter how rough, he would certainly call. Lowball players don't generally lay down a 7 for one bet, particularly if that one bet came from someone against whom they had drawn two cards. In fact, if he made an 8, he likely would grumble and still call. But if he made a 9, a fairly good chance existed that he would throw that away. I was not betting for value; I was betting for concealment and possibly to induce a fold from a better hand. The odds against my getting called were probably worse than 6-to-1.

The way that a lot of lowball players play this hand (the rough 9) is, if they aggressively reraise, as I did, and the other player draws any cards, they invariably check, pleased that they convinced the other to draw. What they don't realize, though, is that after seeing the hand that the opener played so strongly, the other player gets angry inside for having broken the best hand, and is much less likely to break a hand that already is potentially the best when the opportunity comes up again. For this reason, I don't know if checking is always the best play. True, the only time you would likely get called is when you're beaten, but the concealment value may be worth the extra bet. (Of course, someone who habitually puts in three bets with a pat 9 may be better off checking. On the other hand, though, he'll also get paid off on his good hands, so maybe he's still better off betting. Which is better is the subject for another column.) For me, though, there was no question about the concealment value. I have made this exact same play twice on Big Jim, and he hasn't called me either time. Eventually, he'll probably catch me, but the situation doesn't come up often, so maybe I'll be lucky for a while. I may run into his pat 6, also, or good pat 8, for that matter. If either happens, I'll just have to give up on that pot.

Putting three bets in on a pat 9 is risky. If you know the other player is drawing one card to a monster, you are basically laying him 4-to-3 for a draw in which he is not much worse of an underdog than 4-to-3. Playing the hand this way greatly increases your variance in an already volatile game.

In the situation I described, I greatly increased my chances of winning a pot by playing a different hand in the same way as another.