A Big Hand from Little Cards in Online Poker Tournamentds

Raising middle pairs over limpers in the early stages (regardless of buy-in) is somewhat risky.  You are likely to get better long term value from set mining cheaply. In the early stages, loads of players are correctly playing for implied odds. A five times raise is not a big hit to their stack and you mostly just don’t narrow the field enough. You end up most times trying to decide whether to continuation bet into an overly large pot with over cards on the board and it all gets a bit too much like hard decisions for me.Sure you can open raise, but if there are multiple limpers I would just avoid attacking them when everyone is comfortable stacks and mzones.

You also can’t forget about the 2:1 odds. If the pot is 1.Five big blinds, with one caller, which makes it two now.5BBs. You now decide to raise to three big blinds, making the pot five.5BBs and the limper (assuming everyone else folds) has to call 2BBs to see a flop with 5.5BBs in it. So he is getting nearly 3:1 on his call.

You are pretty much never more than a 3:1 under dog pre flop, which is what Gus is on about. But there is a problem. Or rather a couple of problems.

The main problem is betting ability of a weak hand. You might have 95s and might be up against AK. The flop comes down 5 J Q. Even though your ahead, it’s difficult to know how much you can bet here? will you even be able to call a continuation bet if it comes? What if you lead into the pot? Then what are you going to do when he smooth calls? Do you fire again on the turn? It’s an expensive guessing game now with just bottom pair?

What about if you have 33 pre flop? With a board full of over cards,it’s still tough to bet even though statistically your opponent will have missed as well?

Sure you had right odds preflop here, but you are assuming you can get to showdown as well. But in deep stack situations you can’t. You still have 3 betting rounds before you get to fifth street.

However there is another problem as a result. You are out of position and that’s not good poker tournament strategy. What this also means is that when you do actually hit the flop, the pots will be smaller. It also means when you don’t make a big hand, you will lose more than your fair share because the player in position will bet you off marginal hands with a worse hand himself.

If you think about it, in deep stack play, you shouldn’t be concerned with pot odds too much. I am only ever looking at implied odds.. i.e. what is the size of my stack and my opponents stack. If we are talking about five percent or less of my stack, I am calling with a LOT of cards. If they have AA, and I have 53s, all the better. I want them to have AA when I am playing 53s for a raise. But if the raise is getting up to around 10% of my stack, then I fold all the weired stuff, except PPs. But in all of that the only thing I am thinking about is the size of the bet I have to call compared to the effective stack.

I might have 56s and be up against AK. But unless I make and OESD, Flush draw or 2 pair or better, I will be surrendering pretty much every pot on the flop especially if I am OOP. This may be an opportunity to play passively checking and calling if you haven’t had a low pair.

In Gus Hansen’s poker tournament strategy book, he often sounds angry at himself for calling early position raises from his big blind blind. Partly because, such calls often become more difficult place post flop. Gus can look at his opponent for tells, and after all his is The Great Dane. We don’t have physical tells and we are not Gus. Importantly also, our opponents are not Gus’ opponents. It’s also important to know if your opponent can get away from a top pair, or are more willing to let it ride.

If the pre-flop bet isn’t going to hurt you much, then look to the potential stacking off your opponent. Hey, you may play the hand anyway, but look at it from an implied stand point, not just pot odds. You have to know how to calculate poker odds when getting into hands like this becuase it may very well determine your long term success in tournaments. Just knowing Poker rules are not enough to win, you need strategy too.