Trying Out A New Strategy

The World Series of Poker has started … I am heading out on Friday to play the $1000 event.  Because of my work schedule, it may be the only event I play this year.  I hope that it isn’t!  That would really bum me out.  But at least I am starting to allow myself to get excited about it.  I am staying at the Rio this year, which (in addition to the tournaments) will have some really good cash games throughout the tournament.  Unlike the Pendleton tournament side games, the cash game competition during the WSOP will undoubtedly be comparatively lame, so I am thinking I will have better results playing those games than I do in Pendleton.

I have begun to introduce a new strategic idea into my pre-flop poker game, and so far it’s working out pretty well.  As it happens, I play really tight pre-flop.  Sometimes I fold fifty or sixty hands in a row, and folding seventy (or more) isn’t even all that uncommon.  It does sometimes get frustrating … folding Ace/Nine suited on the button after two limpers enter the pot, for instance.  If I didn’t enjoy poker so much, I might even call it boring.  It is, however, a lucrative and money-making strategy that has served me well.  No matter how tight I play, it always seems as though I can pick up a caller or two whenever I open-raise preflop.  Sometimes my opponents will tease me for how tight I play – while they are calling my preflop raise!  (I, on the other hand, have even folded Queens preflop when I come across a player as tight as I am who opens the pot for a raise.)

I have begun to wonder, as successful as this strategy is, am I leaving some money on the table?  I don’t really want to play any looser, and I’m not a good enough player to make the best post-flop decisions when I have marginal hands.  But … maybe I don’t have to play consistently loose … maybe I can just play loose once in a while and pick up some cheap pots?

So I’ve been trying out a new preflop strategy:  I count how many pots I open-raise.  After I have opened ten pots, the very next time I have the chance to open-raise again, I will – regardless of position; regardless of my hand.  This doesn’t mean limping (I don’t count those), nor does it count the big blind when I am in a hand already.  It doesn’t even mean calling somebody else’s preflop raise, or re-raising preflop like I would with pocket Aces or Kings.  It means open-raise.

So every eleventh preflop opening hand, I’ll come in for a raise with (generally) garbage.  In a way, the strategy is self-protecting:  If the table is really loose, I won’t be open-raising many pots, so my bluffs will be very rare.  At a tight table, however, I am more likely to play this extra garbage hand.

Once the flop comes, I go back to playing regular poker.  If it doesn’t help me, I am done with the hand.  If somehow it hits me square on, then I’ll play it.  If I am lucky enough to take a winning hand to showdown and table something like an Eight/Five from early position for a straight, I will end up confusing the heck out of my observant opponents.  They won’t know what I am up to next time I open-raise!

Since I starting this play, I find I am playing garbage no more than two times a session, so it’s still pretty rare.  Usually, I just steal the blinds, which is fine with me.  Once, my eleventh hand was pocket Jacks – but I had to let it go after I got two callers and two overcards came on the flop.  And one time, I got one caller.  We checked the hand all the way to showdown … and my high-card ten won the pot.  Sweet!

I’m even wondering whether once every eleven hands is still too infrequent … maybe I should bump it up to once every six hands?  I will play with this concept a bit more and see where it takes me.  But I think I’m on to something here.  At a minimum, it should shake up people’s evaluation of the type of player I am.

In the meantime, I played a hand recently that showed just how to misplay aces.  Whenever I have aces, I always raise pre-flop, and I’m quite happy just to take the blinds.  If I get one or two callers, that’s okay too … it just requires me to play the later streets very carefully and be prepared to lay it down if I can see that I am beat.

In a $2/$5 game, it was folded around to me in the cutoff.  I had the K¨8¨ and raised it to $15.  A little loose for me, but sometimes I will walk on the wild side.  Actually, I’d been playing rather passive all night, so I thought I would exercise just a bit with this hand.  The button and small blind folded, but the big blind min-raised $10 to $25.  Given the pot odds, my position, and a hand that can be very creative, I decided to call.

The flop was pretty much perfect: Q§10©K§.  I flopped top pair on a draw-heavy board.  My opponent bet $30 into a $50 pot, and I called with what I thought of as the best hand.

The turn made it even better:  The K©.  Now my opponent checked, and I made a huge nearly pot-sized $100 bet.  After a long pause, my opponent called.

This call surprised me and worried me.  What could he have that was better than three Kings?  A draw?  Not with that size of a turn bet.  A flopped straight?  A full house?

The river was a meaningless 6ª.  My opponent checked, and I was more than happy to check behind.  He showed me his pocket Aces, I showed my turned trips, and I won a $300 pot.

I really think my opponent misplayed this hand.  His preflop bet was too low, and let me into a pot I had no business being in.  His flop bet was okay, but still I think too small given all the possible draws out there.  I think I would have bet $40 or even $50 there, to chase folks away (or at least define their hands better).  But his turn call was a complete disaster.  How could he think his hand was still good, given the board and my strong bets?  All too often, players get married to pocket Aces (or Kings or Queens or …) and are just not able to lay them down when it’s clear they’ve been cracked.  And yes, it still happens to me too on occasion.