My Style

I want to take a little time and talk about why I play the style of poker that I play. I am not saying I have the best style or the worst style. I am simply going to explain a little about my style and how I came to it. There are a few factors that I have used to determine the style that I play. It mostly is a style that I have come to from some of the books that I have read. It also is from watching some of the better online players and of course many many thousands of hands that I have played. Another thing that I have done is sat at my kitchen table with my daughters and dealt a ton of hands that were played to the end with noone folding. They actually love to play and I pay real close attention to what hands win. You would be surprised.

With that in mind many would think I am a very aggressive player. When in fact I am really just a by the book kind of player. I have read ‘Play Poker like the Pros’, ‘Tournament Poker for Advanced Players’, ‘Harrington on Holdem, Vol. I’, and ‘Harrington on Holdem, Vol. II’. The simple fact is that all of these books pretty much preach the same theme. Raise your hands preflop for information, play your position, Gap Concept, controlling pot sizes and varying your preflop raises. I will discuss each of there separately and why I play certain ways in certain situations.

First, I am dealing with why I raise preflop most of the time instead of limping. Poker is a game of incomplete information. The more information you have the better your decisions will be. If you have ever taken the time to sit down at table and deal out 10 hands face up and then deal the flop, turn and river you will be surprised which hand wins. Very rarely does the best preflop hand win when facing 9 other hands. It is imperative that you narrow down the field. This is a good benefit of raising but it also narrows down the range of hands that would call preflop. By paying attention to what people are showing you are able to determine what hands they may call with preflop. By limping you aren’t narrowing the field since you are only giving better pot odds to players still to act to call you. You aren’t gaining any information that you can use later in the hand. And you are allowing more people into the hand which is building the pot which will cause your bet on the flop to have to be bigger in order to be effective. By limping you have only increased the number of players you are up against and increased the size of the pot without having a made hand. Now there are times when playing a multi-way pot is not a bad thing. I like to limp with low pairs and suited connectors. The reason being is that I am only playing them if I hit trips, two pair, flush or straight. Otherwise I just fold on the flop. But you have to be able to fold these hands when you only hit top pair, middle pair or only a draw when you get the wrong price to call a bet on the flop. Also keep in mind that you don’t need to play them every time you get them. Be very conscious of how many hands you are playing and what position you are in (more later on this).

Playing position poker is one of the most important aspects of tournament poker. Being in late position is huge when it gets to blind stealing time. I really prefer to steal from the cutoff and CO+1 as those aren’t quite as obvious as the button but will of course steal from the button and SB when the appropriate situation arises. The biggest thing you want to keep in mind when stealing is make your decisions easy. One of the main reasons I like to steal with bad cards is that it gives you easy decisions. When I say bad cards I am referring to Q5s, 108s, etc. What I am saying is that if you decide to steal with a hand like A9os from the cutoff and then get reraised what are you going to do? You have a really tough decision. Do you call or fold? You are probably either in a race or totally dominated drawing to 3 outs. But if you make the same raise with 108s and are reraised what do you do? Easy answer, fold. (Now of course it isn’t quite that easy based on pot odds but you get the point) Now let’s say you get called. You make that move with A9 and hit you’re A on the flop. Is it good? Tough to answer that one. So the key to playing position for me is that it gives me more opportunities to pick up pots with bad cards since you have fewer people that will need to fold. Now playing hands in position when not stealing is even more important. Again, go back to poker is a game of incomplete information. So by having more information you are able to make better decisions and therefore make fewer mistakes than your opponents. This is the key to winning.

The Gap Concept that David Sklansky talks about is huge. For those that don’t know, what he states is that you need a better hand to call with than to raise with. In other words, how wide is the gap between hands that you would raise with and call with. That is pretty self explanatory so I am not going to elaborate much. Understanding why limping in and calling raises is a sure sign of a weak player made a big difference in my game.

Controlling pot sizes is another thing that has kept me in a tournament many times. To me this is more important when the blinds are low and the stack sizes are high. When the blinds are at 5/10 and you have 1500 chips would you ever get them allin without the absolute nuts? If you are playing a style similar to what Harrington describes in his books then there are a few things that will be certain. You will primarily raise your hands you play preflop and then you will follow that up with a continuation bet on the flop. Then depending on the outcome of that bet and the turn and river you will be putting in more bets. Keeping pots small until you have a monster will help you survive. Betting between 2.5-3x the Big Blind will allow you to keep the pots small until you have a big hand and then you get paid off. Now your bets on the flop you really need to be conscious of the size with relation to the pot. Continuation bets I like to keep between 1/3 and 2/3 the size of the pot with most coming in very close to ½ the pot. I tend to go to the low end overall as there are still two cards to come even if I do hit a big hand. Depending on a few things if I completely miss the flop and get called I am then done with it on the turn barring some information that I may have on the player telling me that they call with nothing on the flop but will fold on the turn to a bet. Again, I still am keeping a very close eye on the size of my bets.

Varying the size of your bets is also important in order to be hard to read. I generally work off of 2.5x-3x the BB. I double the blind about 10% of the time and 4x about 15% of the time. The rest are in the general range. In HOH it talks about betting 5x the BB as really your max preflop bet and I almost never go this high with it unless it is an allin move when I am short, less than 10x the BB.

Some final notes about my play. I have had decent luck in the middle range buyin tournaments, $10-$50. I rarely play much higher unless I qualify. I have played well in a few of the bigger buyin tournaments making the Final Table in Pacific’s Sunday 100k and cashed in others on UB and Prima. With that said a few things that I do when it gets late. I am not afraid to play with a semi short stack. This is big as it allows me to take a few chances when I have someone covered by a bit with a medium strength and I feel they are stealing. I love to reraise. This is something I have picked up watching some of the more experienced players on Stars. Sometimes you are called but most they fold. You want to do this against medium stacks as they are the least likely to call. Another thing that is vital is stealing blinds. To do this successfully you need to be paying very close attention to what the 3 or 4 players to your left are folding too. You have to start doing this before it is stealing time. By doing this you will find out that they will fold to 2x the BB, 3x the BB, etc. Watch what hands they show and did they call a raise with it that way you know when they call you what range of hands they have. One last note is I am going to let you in on a couple of my favorite moves. One is the weak lead. This works great at an aggressive table. You have shown strength preflop and then hit a monster. It is big enough to actually check it (keep in mind I rarely slowplay when I’m leading out preflop). You opponent checks behind you. The turn is meaningless and I make a very small stab at the pot, usually 1/4 or less. This looks like a weak attempt from AK that has missed the flop and turn making a stab at the pot. If you are at a table with aggressive players then they will many times interpret this as weakness and move over the top expecting you to fold. Of course you insta-call with your set of QQ’s (or some other monster) and double through them. This actually does a couple of things. It allows you to double up when it works and it also sets you up for a post oak bluff later when you stay at that table for a while. Another move is when I have been at a table for a while and have been seen to regularly make continuation bets. I hit a big hand on the flop and I then go ahead and make my regular sized bet. This gets called. Sometimes they fold but I feel after I’ve been seen to make regular continuation bets the likelihood of being called is greater. I then check the turn and again this is interpreted as weakness and they make a move at stealing the pot. The trap was set and they stepped right in. Again, two things get accomplished. First, I doubled up. Second, I have shown that I will make a standard continuation bet with a monster. Keep in mind that once it gets toward the end of a tournament these players are paying attention to these things. It will set up your continuation bets to be respected down the road.

I’m sure there are many points here that can be argued both ways. I am not trying to persuade players to play a similar style. I am only giving a general overview of how and why I play the style I use. If I had to characterize myself I would say I am somewhat semi-loose aggressive. Semi-loose as opposed to tight because of the importance I put on position and my raising hand selection when in position is fairly wide. But I am still fairly tight when out of position in the fact that I am folding hands like AJ, KQ and pairs as low as 6's. Not to say I fold them every time but these hands have to have certain conditions that apply for me to play them. I hope this at least makes a little sense. If you have any specific questions feel free to ask them in the comments section here or PM me on PokerAnalysis.com. Keep in mind I have to approve all comments here so they will not show up immediately but I do check them almost daily.