'Small-Bet Poker' Works ... For Now

For quite a long time, most but not all no-limit hold'em experts have been adherents to the principles behind "small-bet poker." By "small-bet poker," I mean a style in which players prefer to avoid hands where all their chips can be at risk, even if they are fairly certain they are leading in the hand.

For example, sitting at a final table where the average player has $100,000 in chips, and owning a $120,000 stack, an expert who believed in small-bet poker who accidentally saw his equally stacked neighbor's cards and noted that they were the A K would probably not move all in on him with the A K (at least not if he were sure he would be called), a hand that is about a 5 percent favorite, because the expert wants more than a 5 percent edge when all of his chips go into the pot.

My hypothetical leaves a little to be desired because if there is any significant chance that the player holding A-K offsuit will fold (and given that it is an underdog to almost any pair, there should be such a chance, especially if the potential caller is an expert, and how many true experts would accidentally flash/expose their cards?), the move-in bet makes much more sense. The bettor not only has his 5 percent card edge, but also wins many pots when his bet isn't called. As a result, in a real-life situation, the expert would probably move in, and almost certainly would do so if he knew his opponent to be a conservative expert.

Nonetheless, if the expert knows he's going to get called (and if he's playing a loose, gambling-type player, he can be pretty darned sure that he will be called), he doesn't want to play his whole stack with such a small edge.

The nonexpert, on the other hand, should want to gamble. He should love getting his entire stack in with a small edge and should not even be all that concerned about getting it all in at a small disadvantage.

When playing small-bet poker, many experts want to avoid committing all or most of their chips to any one pot, even if they have a fairly large advantage, because it doesn't take many such situations to combine to make them an underdog. Would you call all in twice in a row if you knew you were a 3-2 favorite (60 percent) each time? This would give you only a 36 percent chance of winning both hands!

Suppose I told you that you were much better than 3-2; in fact, you were going to be a 7-3 favorite each time. You'd still have only a 49 percent chance to win both pots! These are statistics for winning only two in a row. To be a favorite to win three all ins in a row, you'd have to be an 80 percent favorite all three times – 79 percent wouldn't do it! Just imagine how tough it is to win four, five, or six all ins in a row.

My desire to play small-bet poker refers to a general desire to avoid large pots, even if I have a slight advantage, because the turn of a single card can change things, and I believe that most of the time I can increase my stack gradually, without the need for all-in moves.

I can't always do this, of course, or I wouldn't ever be able to steal anything but the antes, and I also wouldn't get paid off when I made a big hand. Any game plan that is so consistent as to become predictable is more or less useless against strong players. I don't always face strong players, but in larger tournaments, I expect that's who I'll be facing until or unless someone proves he is weak.

Unlike the many players who assume that a new face is mediocre until proven otherwise, I employ a "strong until proven weak" system. I got this from a Horatio Hornblower story I read many years ago, when the senior officer told Hornblower, "They're (the opposition) not fools … at least, it won't cost us anything to assume that, and it would cost us a lot to assume they're foolish if they aren't. We can always change our tactics later."

This is opening an entirely different can of worms, because clearly there are some situations when it does cost a poker player significantly to assume his opponent is strong when he isn't. You wouldn't make a bet designed to make a player lay down a hand against a loose-weak player, because he's just going to call you down. Accurate information works much better than guesswork. I simply mean that in the absence of any information, I assume strength, and I do everything I can to gain accurate information as quickly as possible.

Getting back to small-bet poker, employing this approach does not mean that I bet the same amount on every street, or act like I am playing limit hold'em. I wouldn't want to change a game that offers the chance for all kinds of creativity and bets large enough to protect a hand into one in which it's difficult to apply much pressure. It just means that with most other factors equal, I'd rather avoid big pots.

If the other players recognize this to the extent that they are forcing me either to play big pots or to yield too often, I have to abandon the small-bet approach and become willing to mix it up, unless they are going so crazy that I can sit back and fold lots of hands until they have trapped themselves (something that usually happens if a player heavily overbets too many pots). Any other approach would be giving away too much equity.

Small-bet poker isn't right for everyone. You have to lay lots of hands down, including quite a few that are winning when you lay them down, and many people aren't psychologically well-equipped for that.

Even more significant, it is an incorrect approach for someone who is a below-average player for the field. When you're in over your head, you need to do a lot more gambling, and big-bet poker becomes the correct approach, because by playing big-bet poker, you take advantage of the expert's desire to avoid big confrontations and win lots of pots to which your cards don't entitle you.

Note that even when it's right for you to play big-bet poker, you can't be too consistent there, either, or eventually you will trap yourself. Small-bet poker and big-bet poker are merely two playing styles that one must be willing to abandon whenever the context and game situation demand a different approach. Note further that just because you abandon a style, that doesn't mean it has to stay abandoned: That also would make your style too predictable.

If all of this sounds like you need to consistently examine and re-examine not just your own approach and your opponents' approaches, but also your image and their images, you're right! Next issue, we'll look at how the combination of many new players to tournaments and David Sklansky's relatively new book may have forever changed the small-bet poker approach. Here's one clue that I'll advance now: Small-bet poker already works far less well than it used to!