Playing in a 45 person SNG this morning, I am cruising along nicely in third place.....until I lose a ton of chips to the Ukranian sitting next to me when my top pair good kicker rivers his flush draw....despite my bets that should have priced him out. I recover, become chip leader, but he is 2nd. Then I limp with J/2 (JT!!!!) suited on the button. The flop is J/J/6 and a guy I wounded the hand before bets big. I shove and am snap called by the Ukranian who has A/J. Wow!!! One hand later I raise with 5/5 and am called by Q/10. With a queen high flop and 2 under cards I am all-in and lose. Player down.
This brings me one of my favorite topics: bet-sizing and over/under playing your hand. All too often I see really bad bet-sizing which sometimes includes pre-flop shoving with only blinds in the pot. This type of hand is so easy to read that I can almost predict the small pair which is shoving. Sometimes I am surprised (and sometimes I do the surprising), when it is done with AA or KK. But usually it is JJ or worse. People just do not see the value of raising for value, and hopefully getting some action when AK flat calls your 2/2 raise, then committs all of their chips on a A/Q/2 flop. I for one will only call the small pot pre-flop shove with about 3 or 4 hands, AA, KK, QQ, AK suited. Exception of course with the small stack shove and me with the chip lead.
The other mistake I see a lot is the min-raise from most positions (will talk about an exception later). This normally just creates a "protected" pot with lots of callers and very poor equity post flop. Also, you are seldom able to raise people off draws with a large pot created as they are often getting correct calling odds. The only time I kind of like the min-raise is from the small blind with a monster, inviting the early limpers to re-raise with inferior hands. Even if you are flat called by the world, I often see an aggressive bet on the flop take down a nice pot. That said....WTF are they thinking? Nobody folds, protected pot, you are out of position. Yikes!
The bet sizing errors that I see at times are the small raises on "wet" boards. Because of the draws out there it is critical that you bet top pair or two pair hands on a board like A/10/9 with two spades. The important part is the size of your bet. Too small and you give great odds for draws like J/Q, J/8, A/J, etc. Too large (think shove here), and you give up too much future value. You must give people a chance to make a mistake by giving the 3/1 or 4/1 drawing odds only 2/1 on their money. We all know that some players will call with incorrect odds but that is a fundamental poker error and we should welcome that call. I have seen people bet like $40 into a wet board with $240 in the pot. Don't be that guy.
There are a few players at my Friday night game who I believe are masters at bet sizing. They seldom overbet or underbet a pot, but will accurately bet to give poor drawing odds. My hat is tipped to you sirs!
And speaking of betting, in my Omaha games, you frequently flop 2 pair, top pair with top kicker, flush or straight draws, and low draws. I am coming around to the opinion that you must bet all of these hands. It may seem like a stupid thing to comment on from a hold 'em perspective, but with all of the draws possible you must get money into the pot when you are ahead. You will never get the flush, straight or low draws to fold, but it is super important to build the pot now either while ahead or with a giant draw. You will find it much easier to collect a large pot when your nut flush draw comes in if you bet before it hits. If your hand deteriorates (other folks' draws came in), you can always take your foot off the accelerator, but trust me on this, you must always bet and raise to protect your made hand. Wow, after writing that I am amazed that I would even think you would not already, dear readers, be doing this......that said, how often do we check call in hold 'em with top pair and questionable kicker? The aggressor always has the advantage in this game, so bet, bet, bet!
This brings me one of my favorite topics: bet-sizing and over/under playing your hand. All too often I see really bad bet-sizing which sometimes includes pre-flop shoving with only blinds in the pot. This type of hand is so easy to read that I can almost predict the small pair which is shoving. Sometimes I am surprised (and sometimes I do the surprising), when it is done with AA or KK. But usually it is JJ or worse. People just do not see the value of raising for value, and hopefully getting some action when AK flat calls your 2/2 raise, then committs all of their chips on a A/Q/2 flop. I for one will only call the small pot pre-flop shove with about 3 or 4 hands, AA, KK, QQ, AK suited. Exception of course with the small stack shove and me with the chip lead.
The other mistake I see a lot is the min-raise from most positions (will talk about an exception later). This normally just creates a "protected" pot with lots of callers and very poor equity post flop. Also, you are seldom able to raise people off draws with a large pot created as they are often getting correct calling odds. The only time I kind of like the min-raise is from the small blind with a monster, inviting the early limpers to re-raise with inferior hands. Even if you are flat called by the world, I often see an aggressive bet on the flop take down a nice pot. That said....WTF are they thinking? Nobody folds, protected pot, you are out of position. Yikes!
The bet sizing errors that I see at times are the small raises on "wet" boards. Because of the draws out there it is critical that you bet top pair or two pair hands on a board like A/10/9 with two spades. The important part is the size of your bet. Too small and you give great odds for draws like J/Q, J/8, A/J, etc. Too large (think shove here), and you give up too much future value. You must give people a chance to make a mistake by giving the 3/1 or 4/1 drawing odds only 2/1 on their money. We all know that some players will call with incorrect odds but that is a fundamental poker error and we should welcome that call. I have seen people bet like $40 into a wet board with $240 in the pot. Don't be that guy.
There are a few players at my Friday night game who I believe are masters at bet sizing. They seldom overbet or underbet a pot, but will accurately bet to give poor drawing odds. My hat is tipped to you sirs!
And speaking of betting, in my Omaha games, you frequently flop 2 pair, top pair with top kicker, flush or straight draws, and low draws. I am coming around to the opinion that you must bet all of these hands. It may seem like a stupid thing to comment on from a hold 'em perspective, but with all of the draws possible you must get money into the pot when you are ahead. You will never get the flush, straight or low draws to fold, but it is super important to build the pot now either while ahead or with a giant draw. You will find it much easier to collect a large pot when your nut flush draw comes in if you bet before it hits. If your hand deteriorates (other folks' draws came in), you can always take your foot off the accelerator, but trust me on this, you must always bet and raise to protect your made hand. Wow, after writing that I am amazed that I would even think you would not already, dear readers, be doing this......that said, how often do we check call in hold 'em with top pair and questionable kicker? The aggressor always has the advantage in this game, so bet, bet, bet!
No comments:
Post a Comment