Take This Stack and Shove It!

Last issue, I had the audacity to claim that no-limit hold'em might not still be the "Cadillac" of poker games (losing out to pot-limit), primarily because of the way it's being played these days: lots of stacks getting shoved all in before the flop, and lots of crossed fingers and held breath after the flop.

That I would qualify the claim by writing "the way it's being played these days" is a pretty strong indication that pot-limit isn't always a better test of skill. Depending on circumstances and conditions, either game can properly claim the title.

I didn't write that just to take a controversial position: Instead, I think you'll start to find, lurking among the aforementioned "circumstances and conditions," answers to some of the virtually limitless number of questions you'll encounter as you try to grow as a poker player.

Because I like the poker education process to be an active one, rather than passive, I'm going to give you a couple of weeks to think about what some of those differences might be. I'll give you one very useful hint: Most (but not all) of the circumstances and conditions that make pot-limit the better test involve just how real, costly, painful, and expensive a mistake might be.

Meanwhile, let's take a look at one of those circumstances: What can you do to contend with the one-trick pony "all-in specialists" who are appearing more and more frequently in satellite tournaments, one-table tournaments (both brick-and-mortar and Internet), and smaller buy-in no-limit hold'em tournaments?

If you enjoy playing in these events, the first thing you should probably do is buy and read David Sklansky's Tournament Poker, not because it's one of the finest tournament poker books ever written, but because I think most of the "one-trick ponies" have read it.

They read it, but perhaps didn't completely understand it: I think they are overusing some of Sklansky's concepts, providing yet another example of how "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."

Sklansky's well-earned reputation as "poker's foremost theorist" means he sells lots of books, and when he writes something and emphasizes the all-in move's power, you can count on lots of players trying to follow his advice, even if they don't take the time to understand everything he writes.

As a result, I think that even if you believe your tournament skills are advanced beyond anything David Sklansky can teach you in a book, you need to read the book in order to understand why your opponents are doing what they are doing!

I remember first making this argument to Phil Hellmuth, early in our acquaintance, when he told me he had never read a single poker book (this was about six years ago, and the statement is no longer true).

"Why should I read a book by someone who doesn't play as well as I do?" Phil asked me. "He might write something that might mess my game up!"

I demurred. "Even if you don't think there is anything the author can teach you," I began, "don't you want to know what your opponents are reading? Because what they're reading almost certainly will affect how they're playing."

Phil's response is a subject for another day, but the argument still holds, and in any event, I seriously doubt that anyone bothering to read my column thinks there isn't anything that David Sklansky could teach him. So, read it because it will help, and even if you don't believe that, read it because you will start to gain some insight into the all-in specialists' thought processes. Let me again emphasize that I believe the players who are overusing the all-in move have probably read Sklansky but have not really understood him … probably because they are skim-reading or learning passively rather than actively.

The casual reader is by now probably thinking something like: "Fine, great, wonderful, another homework assignment … how about some advice that's going to help me in the one-table online tournament I'm going to enter when I lay this magazine down? What can I do to avoid having to gamble with these 'maniacs' who shove their entire stacks in so often? Even if I have a hand, I'm playing to take advantage of my skill, not to flip coins!"

Patience, young Skywalker: You need not be a Jedi yet to take on an all-in specialist. Patience you will need, though, as well as confidence that does not grow into overconfidence.

It can be difficult to watch a player win small pot after small pot by shoving huge stacks of chips forward, thinking all the while, "What a maniac! Sooner or later someone behind him is going to wake up with aces, kings, or queens and come after him. Why can't it be me? He's risking $1,000 in tournament chips to win $35, and he can't have a great hand every time."

Of course, he can have a great hand every time (or very nearly), although the odds are so strongly against this possibility as to let you disregard it. Why mention it, then? Because it's easy to get so caught up in the "known truth" that he can't have a good hand every time that you can forget it's perfectly possible for an apparent maniac to wake up with a strong hand at least occasionally – and on those occasions, he's going to get paid off handsomely.

Let's return to a more mathematically likely realm, though, and agree that the maniac is moving all of his chips regularly with weak hands (if the maniac is really living up to his sobriquet and moving in every hand, you obviously need much less to take him on … I'm writing about trying to defend against the quasi-maniac, who is moving in only one to three times each round).

In a tournament's early rounds, you need to exercise a lot of patience, and let the maniac have the $35 for the $1,000 he's risking. Someone will wake up with a hand and take him on, and probably take him out. There's not much you can do, unless you have the goods, because if betting out with a weak hand is a maniac play, how would you define calling with a weak hand?

It's tempting to take a stand with A-J when someone moves in for the third consecutive hand, but you have to remember you're an underdog to any pair and are dominated by A-A, A-K, A-Q, K-K, Q-Q, and J-J. Yes, there's a good chance you have the better hand, but how many hands does your A-J dominate? Only the weaker aces or jacks. Why would you want to risk your whole stack in that situation? You wouldn't, and that's one of the reasons why the all-in move is so powerful: It makes it correct to lay down most of the hands it faces.

You must remember, though, that while the maniac must survive the possibility of anywhere between one and nine players waking up with a hand behind him (depending on his position when he moves in), you get only one hand each deal. Even though it's a mistake for an under-the-gun player to move $1,000 in to try to steal $35, much of the error comes from the large number of players who might find something.

Even A-K isn't such a hot "stand-taking" hand, because it's still an underdog to a pair. I wouldn't take a stand with it on the tournament's first round. What I would do, and what I suggest you do, is:

1. Wait for an appropriately strong hand. How to define "appropriately" is the whole trick here, though, isn't it? Your standards can drop from later positions, as can the bettor's.

2. Watch and learn. All maniacs are not created equal. Quite a few are making "image" plays that they hope will get them paid off in later rounds. Quite a few are taking advantage of other maniacs, and the impatience they create, by moving all in on an early hand with A-A, figuring that some impatient player will figure they'd never move all in with A-A and therefore will call a bet with a hand he'd have folded to a $120 raise.

3. Don't overestimate the value of your "skill advantage." I have seen many players who consider themselves strong lay down hand after hand after hand, not just in the early rounds but also as the blinds and antes start becoming worthwhile, just because they aren't willing to "gamble with an inferior player." They want to wait until they know they have the best of it. One of the many problems with this approach is that in many fast-paced single-table tournaments, you just have to be willing to gamble more than you'd prefer, because the structure demands that you do so. You thus need to pay close attention to the tournament structure and how much time it's going to allow you to wait, and you should also realize that every time you throw a hand away because you don't want to "gamble with an inferior player," you are in a sense throwing away much (if not all) of the edge that your supposedly greater skill gives you.

If you hand over too many pots because you consider yourself too skilled to gamble, you're not as skilled as you think.

Finding just the right balance isn't easy. You can't be too much of a pushover, and you can't take a stand with nothing just because you think the bettor probably has nothing. In the early stages of a tournament, taking a stand with too weak a hand is the bigger mistake; as the tournament progresses into the later rounds, failing to take a stand becomes the larger error.

Because most players seem to understand that they have to start playing when the blinds and antes get huge, I don't see nearly as many players making the "failure to engage" error late as I do see making the "taking a stand" error too early.

Make sure you understand two things before you next go into tournament battle: the relative edges each starting hand has over each other starting hand, and why a true first-round "coin flip" for all of your chips is a disaster. Doubling your stack from $1,000 to $2,000 certainly increases your chances of winning, but what equity you gain from that increase isn't anywhere remotely near the equity you lose by going out. Let the maniac, if he really is one, have those little pots at the start. Meanwhile, take mental notes on who's doing what, and be ready and willing to gamble when the tournament structure tells you to do so. You're too good to gamble too soon, and you're not good enough not to gamble later.