Poker Strategy -- Avoid Making The Obvious Mistakes

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So, there was this movie starring Drew Barrymore, about a 15-year-old girl in 1965 who meets the wrong guy at the wrong time, gets knocked up, and has her whole life slammed sideways as a result. On one level, it’s the story of triumph over adversity. On another level, it’s a cautionary tale about not making obvious mistakes. It’s this latter level that I’d like to grab by the scruff of the neck and drag over here into our world, the world of poker, because lately it seems to me that a leak many of us share is the sheer inability to avoid the obvious mistakes. In this column, I’m going to run down some of these mistakes, talk about why they happen, and discuss ways to avoid them.

Playing Small Pairs Out of Position

This is a good one to start with, because it’s such an easy one to avoid. You pick up pocket deuces under the gun, and limp into the pot. You hope to start a limpede (a stampede of limpers), and collect the proper odds to draw to your set. Well, since those odds are 7.5-1 against, it seems unlikely that you’re going to get the right price on your speculative hand, except in the loosest, most passive games. Many people will fold, in which case you’re paying a small price to take the worst of it. However, someone might raise, in which case you’re paying a much larger price to take the worst of it; or, you’re folding, and squandering the bet that you could have saved by just not playing the hand. Look, everyone loves to flop a set, and everyone believes that this time it’ll happen for sure. But when you’re in early position, the majority of the time, this call just prices you into bad math. Save the chips, save the headache, avoid this obvious danger; just fold.

Doing Everything Else Out of Position

I know of no truer truth of poker than everything’s harder out of position. It’s harder to bluff, harder to control the size of the pot, harder to get the right price for draws, harder to protect big hands, harder to know where your opponents are in the hand — harder, harder, harder. And yet — all day, every day — we see people making promiscuous calls and audacious raises from early position. What are these people thinking? That their 9-8 suited is going to flop a straight or a flush? That their A-Q in the blind is worth calling a raise and a reraise because both of those other guys are liars? That their skill edge is so great that it can overcome their positional disadvantage? Well, it ain’t. Hey, Mike Caro once said, “Everyone takes turns making mistakes in poker. The trick is just to skip your turn.” By analogy, everyone takes turns playing out of position. Why not just skip your turn? If you’re in a good game, you’ll do fine just waiting to play hands in position. And if you’re not in a good game, playing out of position becomes geometrically worse.

Bluffing Into Traffic

With three or four players in the pot, you’re looking at a board of A-K-3 and thinking, “Hey, maybe if I bet, I can fold the field.” That’s not likely, because what hands do most players play with? Ones containing aces and ones containing kings. Is it truly realistic to think that the six or eight cards out against you contain neither an ace nor a king? Granted, there are times when you can make such hands fold, but generally in this situation, you’re swimming against the tide. Bluffing is great — we love bluffing — but save your bluffs for when you’re facing just one opponent. Your chances of successfully running a bluff are generally inversely proportional to the number of players in the pot. So, don’t bluff the multitudes. It just doesn’t work often enough to be profitable.

Ignoring Obvious Tells

This is one I am so guilty of. I’m sitting in middle position with, let’s say, K-J. I look to my left before I act (as we all should always do), and see a guy loading up his fist with chips. I know from experience that this is a true tell, that for all intents and purposes, those raising chips are already in the pot. Well, this means that if I get involved here, I’m going to have to play a raised pot out of position, against someone who has already telegraphed his strength. What kind of hand does he have? Most likely a pocket pair or something with an ace, both of which have the lead — maybe a dominating one — over my K-J. Yet, I call, or maybe even beat him to the raise (thus opening myself up to a disastrous reraise), just because I’d decided to get involved with the hand before I got the news about his intent to raise. I’ve always said, “Make the latest possible decision based on the best available information.” To that I would now add, “Don’t ignore the information you get!” And trust me, I’m talking as much to me as I am to you.

Taking the Wrong Price

You’re on a flush draw. An aggressive player makes a pot-sized bet on the fl op. The math tells you that you don’t have the right price to call; yet, with visions of implied odds dancing in your head, you call anyway, hoping to complete your draw on the turn and crush your foe. I can see one bad thing and one worse thing happening here. The bad thing happens when the draw gets there and your foe doesn’t pay you off. Well, why would he? He can see that flush as clearly as you can. So much for your implied odds. The worse thing happens when your draw misses and you face another pot-sized bet on the turn. Now, your choice is to abandon your ill-considered investment or continue throwing good money after bad math. Look, it’s easy to calculate your card odds and measure them against your pot odds (real ones, not implied/fantasy ones). It’s so simple that even I can do it, and I’m a math moron. So, take a breath. Crunch the numbers. Filter your results through objective analysis, not through hope. Draw the right conclusion and don’t draw at the wrong price. This is another disaster that you can easily avoid, just by keeping your eyes open and thinking ahead.

This only scratches the surface of obvious mistakes that we can, and should, avoid. Maybe take a moment here to think of some of the pitfalls that haunt you, and make a mental note to, well, just not get into that car with that boy. To quote Paul Kelly of Paul Kelly and the Messengers,

I see the knives out, I turn my back.
I see the train, I stay right on the track.
I lost my shirt, I pawned my rings.
I’ve done all the dumb things.

If we can just stay away from the dumb things, we’re bound to stay ahead of the game.

John Vorhaus is the author of the Killer Poker book series and the poker novel Under the Gun. He resides in cyberspace at radarenterprizes.com.

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