Four Dogs
Legend
Silver Level
A recent thread by one of my favorite posters, Chuck T, got me thinking that this might be a good time to run a (controversial?) concept that’s been crawling around in my head for a while, by the rest of you. I've been meaning to work it into a post for sometime and Chuck T's post KJ in MTT, raised limped pot seemed about right. In fact, this thread started out as a reply before I realized that War and Peace looked like a short story by comparison. In his post, Chuck asks for confirmation that his decision to raise from the button with KJ was a good play in the face of 2 limpers and the blinds to follow. My reply was going to be something like this. “I like the way you played this Chuck, because…”
And then this gushed out.
Since I've been tracking my sessions with Poker Tracker, I've noticed that on a whole, I am as close to break even as is possible. In fact, on any given day I'm up or down a meaningless $30 over approximately 14000 hands. At the same time I've shown a consistent profit at short table and heads-up situations. The difference is significant enough that I actually decided to give up on cash games altogether and play only heads up tournaments. Well, this would make sense if I was only playing for the money, but the cruel truth is that I play for entertainment and, well...I really enjoy sitting at a full table either for cash or tournament chips. So, I was left to wonder if there might not be something I could take from my Heads-Up success that I could apply to a full or partially full table, and there was.
First off, let me outline my approach to heads-up play. My heads-up style is super-aggressive as compared to my tight aggressive (Harringtonian) full table style. In HU play, raw aggression rules the day. It is not uncommon for me to play 80-90% of the hands. Cards don’t matter so much as pot odds, and fold equity. The idea is to take advantage of favorable pot odds with less than premium hands, while denying your opponent the same luxury. This is done by raising 3 to 4xbb with any average or better hand from the SB/Button and limping with the remaining hands. Assuming your opponent will check OP, it is never correct to fold from the SB, however, occasionally folding the most hopeless of starting hands gives your opponent the (false) impression that you actually do have some standards, which should induce more fold opportunities; otherwise, your opponent will quickly get a read on you and call every hand, in effect, merely raising the blinds for both of you with no exclusive benefit to yourself. When your opponent raises (not all-in) you’re usually still getting the correct odds to call with any 2 cards.
From the BB your strategy is to check every time with garbage, call every bet with average hands, and raise with any better than average hand to include any pair, any suited connectors, any 2 high cards, and any hand with an Ace or a King. Re-raise only with premium hands. This strategy will keep your opponent off guard and will more than pay for itself in pre-flop folds and overlay. Overlay is the amount of money already in the pot beyond what the participating players have invested. In HU this is just the blinds, but at a full table, dead money from non-participatory limpers is also overlay. Overlay is especially important in HU play when you consider that given the, built in, better than 1:1 pot odds, you would be technically wrong not to at least call every hand, assuming of course that overall you and your opponent will each receive essentially equal starting hands throughout the match.
So, how can this be applied to a full table? Well, first of all, what keeps you from betting or calling when a pot has been raised? Usually just one thing. Fear! Fear of being up against a better hand, fear of being out of position, and fear of being outplayed post flop. Conventional wisdom as defined by notoriously tight (but undeniably great) players like David Sklansky and Dan Harrington has conditioned us to avoid situations where we could potentially get into a lot of trouble and capitalize on situations where we probable have the best of it, the low hanging fruit if you will. What Sklansky and Harrington readily admit is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. If Daniel Negreanu or Gus Hansen were to write a book it would probably be more encouraging of “Outside The Box” thinking. In heads-up play, such a conservative style will most often get the worst of it. In a tournament, or at a cash game, a little more restraint is advisable.
But lets not get carried away with restraint. Some of the same principles that make aggression the more correct style for HU also apply at a full table. 1) With a strong hand, you should attempt to get yourself in as many heads-up situations as you can, using the blinds and dead money as overlay. Do this by raising heavily from late position or the blinds. Don’t worry about who might call, or what they might have. Play the odds. If you’re beat then so be it. Just be ready to bet out or lay down your hand if you think the flop hit your opponent harder than you. In heads-up, you can’t let pride get in the way of a smart fold. And 2) If you think you can safely get 3 or 4:1 pot odds pre-flop (or more), call with any 2 cards. In a cash game this will always be true, in a tournament, other considerations might override this advice.
One of the side effects of a super aggressive style is that you’ll notice greater swings of variance, in both directions. In heads-up play, you should NEVER count an aggressive opponent out, no matter what the chip differential might be, and never give up yourself no matter how hopeless things look. The same applies at an MTT. Don’t sweat the losses. If you stick to your guns and don’t lose your nerve you have a strong chance of getting back in the hunt. At the same time, don’t get too comfortable when you have a big chip lead. If you continue with your aggressive style expect to take a hit or two. Another (entertaining) side effect is that you become the most reviled player in the game. It’s fun to go head to head against a premium hand like AK (with the right pot odds) and clean him out when he bets out on a rag flop that he thinks couldn’t possible have hit anyone. After all, he raised. Expect a lot of name-calling.
I think the reason this approach is more obvious HU is that the benefits are immediate and in your face. At a full table you don’t enter every single hand expecting to win; and HU you don’t expect to win every game. You play, you win, you lose, and you start a new game, without disappointment or elation. After 10 or 20 games you realize that you’ve won more than you’ve lost. This kind of stoicism is harder to maintain when you’ve invested hours and possibly hundreds of hands in a tournament or cash game, but even though the scale might be different, the same logic should apply.
In my opinion, in most cases, tight Aggressive is still the overall superior style of play for No-Limit Hold’em, but the best players in the world understand the benefit of being able to play under any condition. It has been said of Johnny Chan that he has the ability to switch gears at the table. And… don’t you think that Harrington understand this too? After all, they don’t call him “Action Dan” for nothing.
And then this gushed out.
Since I've been tracking my sessions with Poker Tracker, I've noticed that on a whole, I am as close to break even as is possible. In fact, on any given day I'm up or down a meaningless $30 over approximately 14000 hands. At the same time I've shown a consistent profit at short table and heads-up situations. The difference is significant enough that I actually decided to give up on cash games altogether and play only heads up tournaments. Well, this would make sense if I was only playing for the money, but the cruel truth is that I play for entertainment and, well...I really enjoy sitting at a full table either for cash or tournament chips. So, I was left to wonder if there might not be something I could take from my Heads-Up success that I could apply to a full or partially full table, and there was.
First off, let me outline my approach to heads-up play. My heads-up style is super-aggressive as compared to my tight aggressive (Harringtonian) full table style. In HU play, raw aggression rules the day. It is not uncommon for me to play 80-90% of the hands. Cards don’t matter so much as pot odds, and fold equity. The idea is to take advantage of favorable pot odds with less than premium hands, while denying your opponent the same luxury. This is done by raising 3 to 4xbb with any average or better hand from the SB/Button and limping with the remaining hands. Assuming your opponent will check OP, it is never correct to fold from the SB, however, occasionally folding the most hopeless of starting hands gives your opponent the (false) impression that you actually do have some standards, which should induce more fold opportunities; otherwise, your opponent will quickly get a read on you and call every hand, in effect, merely raising the blinds for both of you with no exclusive benefit to yourself. When your opponent raises (not all-in) you’re usually still getting the correct odds to call with any 2 cards.
From the BB your strategy is to check every time with garbage, call every bet with average hands, and raise with any better than average hand to include any pair, any suited connectors, any 2 high cards, and any hand with an Ace or a King. Re-raise only with premium hands. This strategy will keep your opponent off guard and will more than pay for itself in pre-flop folds and overlay. Overlay is the amount of money already in the pot beyond what the participating players have invested. In HU this is just the blinds, but at a full table, dead money from non-participatory limpers is also overlay. Overlay is especially important in HU play when you consider that given the, built in, better than 1:1 pot odds, you would be technically wrong not to at least call every hand, assuming of course that overall you and your opponent will each receive essentially equal starting hands throughout the match.
So, how can this be applied to a full table? Well, first of all, what keeps you from betting or calling when a pot has been raised? Usually just one thing. Fear! Fear of being up against a better hand, fear of being out of position, and fear of being outplayed post flop. Conventional wisdom as defined by notoriously tight (but undeniably great) players like David Sklansky and Dan Harrington has conditioned us to avoid situations where we could potentially get into a lot of trouble and capitalize on situations where we probable have the best of it, the low hanging fruit if you will. What Sklansky and Harrington readily admit is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. If Daniel Negreanu or Gus Hansen were to write a book it would probably be more encouraging of “Outside The Box” thinking. In heads-up play, such a conservative style will most often get the worst of it. In a tournament, or at a cash game, a little more restraint is advisable.
But lets not get carried away with restraint. Some of the same principles that make aggression the more correct style for HU also apply at a full table. 1) With a strong hand, you should attempt to get yourself in as many heads-up situations as you can, using the blinds and dead money as overlay. Do this by raising heavily from late position or the blinds. Don’t worry about who might call, or what they might have. Play the odds. If you’re beat then so be it. Just be ready to bet out or lay down your hand if you think the flop hit your opponent harder than you. In heads-up, you can’t let pride get in the way of a smart fold. And 2) If you think you can safely get 3 or 4:1 pot odds pre-flop (or more), call with any 2 cards. In a cash game this will always be true, in a tournament, other considerations might override this advice.
One of the side effects of a super aggressive style is that you’ll notice greater swings of variance, in both directions. In heads-up play, you should NEVER count an aggressive opponent out, no matter what the chip differential might be, and never give up yourself no matter how hopeless things look. The same applies at an MTT. Don’t sweat the losses. If you stick to your guns and don’t lose your nerve you have a strong chance of getting back in the hunt. At the same time, don’t get too comfortable when you have a big chip lead. If you continue with your aggressive style expect to take a hit or two. Another (entertaining) side effect is that you become the most reviled player in the game. It’s fun to go head to head against a premium hand like AK (with the right pot odds) and clean him out when he bets out on a rag flop that he thinks couldn’t possible have hit anyone. After all, he raised. Expect a lot of name-calling.
I think the reason this approach is more obvious HU is that the benefits are immediate and in your face. At a full table you don’t enter every single hand expecting to win; and HU you don’t expect to win every game. You play, you win, you lose, and you start a new game, without disappointment or elation. After 10 or 20 games you realize that you’ve won more than you’ve lost. This kind of stoicism is harder to maintain when you’ve invested hours and possibly hundreds of hands in a tournament or cash game, but even though the scale might be different, the same logic should apply.
In my opinion, in most cases, tight Aggressive is still the overall superior style of play for No-Limit Hold’em, but the best players in the world understand the benefit of being able to play under any condition. It has been said of Johnny Chan that he has the ability to switch gears at the table. And… don’t you think that Harrington understand this too? After all, they don’t call him “Action Dan” for nothing.
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