Poker Pays My Bills

Top pair and over-pair hands are treated very differently in Limit Hold ‘em, NL cash, and tournaments. Tournaments require aggressive play. Stacks are usually small compared to pot size and opponents will run over you if you play top pair hands weakly. Likewise, top pair/top-kicker or an over-pair are pretty decent hands in Limit games. But in deep-stacked NL cash games, top pair/over-pair hands become some of the most difficult situations to navigate. To make matters worse, these hands are fairly common, so we will repeatedly find ourselves in raised (or even worse, unraised) pots with this bittersweet holding.

The more deep stacked you are, the more hands like top pair/over pair become small-pot hands. We avoid playing big pots with these hands by using pot control. We use position, knowledge of out opponent, and just the right amount of checking.

A Limit game player might say,“What?? Checking?? But what about the dreaded free card??” In Limit Hold ‘em it was pounded into our heads to defend our hands. In NL cash, the idea of defending hands undergoes some serious revision. In order to keep a pot small in NL, we need to check a street here and there.

Allow me to present a vague poker example where I inevitably omit a ton of important information. You are in a heads-up raised pot in position with AK. You and your opponent are both deep stacked and facing a flop of KT2 rainbow. Your opponent checks to you. Let’s look at what hands you might be facing in a raised pot, assuming you are against a reasonable tight opponent. On this flop, AA, KK, TT, and 22 will happily play a big pot with you. KQs and AK will also give you some action, but not much if your opponent is a good deep-stack player. QJs, AQ, and AJ will probably stick around for small bets but will only put big money in if they hit their draw. QQ, JJ, 99, and other pairs are most likely going to fold if you bet, but might play a small pots if they think you are weak for some reason.

So in this scenario, you will get lots of action from hands that have you crushed and a little action from hands that want to draw to stack you. But there aren’t many worse made hands that can pay you. So you find yourself in a “way ahead/way behind” situation. These are good places to consider checking behind on either the flop or the turn. I like to randomize this a bit while also considering my opponent. If my opponent is very tight on the flop and will certainly fold his QQ or JJ if I bet, then I might check here. If my opponent likes to call continuation bets, then I will most likely fire on the flop but check behind on the turn. Against aggressive opponents, checking behind also induces bluffs from hands that would have folded, and induces river calls from weaker hands that think they are good because you checked a street. The value gained from these easily off-sets the times that your check might cost you the pot because of some perfect free card. And because your check kept the pot smaller, if you are drawn out on you only lose a small pot.

Here is a top pair AK hand I played recently that really exemplifies the way-ahead/way-behind situation.

http://www.pokeranalyze.com/hand-replay/1452

The pre-flop raiser Eva is an extremely tight player who only raises about 5% of what she is dealt. I elect to just call her raise to keep the pot small. We are both deep stacked and I will have position with my AK, which is really just a drawing hand. I am actually happy that the blinds get in because they have wider ranges.

When the flop is checked to me I bet for value and because I am an aggressive player who would tend to bet here if everyone else checks. So this bet from me doesn’t reveal much about my hand because most players who play with me regularly would expect me to bet here. I’m hoping to get a call from one of the blinds who might have a worse ace.

The blinds fold and Eva thinks a while before calling. That is a very clear signal for me to put the breaks on. At this point I am most likely facing 77 or even AA, and perhaps KK, QQ, or JJ might call the flop once to see if I slow down on the turn. AK and AQ are also possible. If I were to bet the turn again, Eva will fold KK, QQ, JJ, etc, and will crush me with 77 or AA. The only hand I might make money from is AQ, and that hand is just barely in her 5% range. When she checks to me I gratefully check behind.

On the river I make a reluctant call, but a fairly reasonable one. I did show some weakness when I checked behind on the turn and there is still some hope I can split against an AK. I cannot raise because there is no hand that I can beat that will call a raise.

Note that Eva could have made much more money with her hand. After getting three callers preflop and hitting a set on an A high board, she could have fired out a pot sized bet to see who has a good ace and can pay her. If she had bet all three streets, it would have been hard for someone with my AK hand to realize they are beaten before the pot got too big and they were committed. The player with my hand would have most likely lost their whole stack.

You can also see that position is extremely important for pot control. It is much harder to control the betting out of position. This is yet another reminder of the value of position in Hold ‘em.

November 10th, 2008 Magdalena posted in No-Limit Cash Game Strategy