Two Texas Hold 'Em Questions

[james33]

Two questions for folks who know more than me about Hold 'Em, which is most of you, since I seldom venture outside of my monthly home game, and when I do, it is low stakes, playing a small $50 buy-in probably once a year when I'm in Vegas or somewhere else with poker tourneys.

1) During WSOP heads-up play last night, the announcers said that Farber (the amateur who made it to heads-up) must have been advised to raise every time when he was the button during heads-up play, and that this was good advice.

My understanding of the button is that the button is the small blind, and is the first to act during the first round of betting only. (Let's get that out of the way in case I'm misunderstanding things).

When I've played and got to heads-up, like Farber, when I'm the button, I never just call the big blind, because I prefer either raising or folding to checking. I raise about 75% of the time, but fold about 25% of the time. My metric has been pretty simple: always raise with a King High or better, and raise some of the time with less than that, randomly, in order to steal. Is my pre-flop button strategy superior or inferior to Farber's?

2) In watching the WSOP a couple two nights ago, when the table had 7-9 players, I was surprised at how much post-flop calling of initial bets was being done vs. raising. I had recalled advice I had received about raising or folding usually being the right move. Any advice on situations in which it makes more sense to call vs. raise, and how you make the determination as to whether to call vs. raise?

[baldgriff]

To answer #2. Calling post-flop can maximize your gains (should you hit your draw) or allow you to use position to steal more effectively from someone in early position by representing you made your draw.

[Pauly]

In heads up play, the button acts first pre-flop and then acts last in every other round....wait I think you got that already. Nevermind. Your strategy is pretty common.

[johnnya24]

Two questions for folks who know more than me about Hold 'Em, which is most of you, since I seldom venture outside of my monthly home game, and when I do, it is low stakes, playing a small $50 buy-in probably once a year when I'm in Vegas or somewhere else with poker tourneys.

1) During WSOP heads-up play last night, the announcers said that Farber (the amateur who made it to heads-up) must have been advised to raise every time when he was the button during heads-up play, and that this was good advice.

My understanding of the button is that the button is the small blind, and is the first to act during the first round of betting only. (Let's get that out of the way in case I'm misunderstanding things).

When I've played and got to heads-up, like Farber, when I'm the button, I never just call the big blind, because I prefer either raising or folding to checking. I raise about 75% of the time, but fold about 25% of the time. My metric has been pretty simple: always raise with a King High or better, and raise some of the time with less than that, randomly, in order to steal. Is my pre-flop button strategy superior or inferior to Farber's?

2) In watching the WSOP a couple two nights ago, when the table had 7-9 players, I was surprised at how much post-flop calling of initial bets was being done vs. raising. I had recalled advice I had received about raising or folding usually being the right move. Any advice on situations in which it makes more sense to call vs. raise, and how you make the determination as to whether to call vs. raise?

1) In heads up poker the player in the SB acts first preflop, and second post flop. The button is the SB.

The modern heads up game is very much a leveling war. It depends on your opponent and the reactions and responses to your actions. Both players raised about 95% preflop. It's what comes afterwards that matters. Riess won because his next level play (in this case 3 and 4 betting) was far superior to Farber. Farber was more happy to take flops and let position and aggression play out. Since Riess was the more aggressive, he was winning more pots. Riess was 3 betting and 4 betting at a much higher frequency and taking down "bigger small-pots" more often. If Farber was winning 3/4 BB's from a small pot, Riess was winning 4/5 BB's. That tells in the end, and chips away at the confidence of the losing player.

Look at the opening raise PF as the 1st bet - opening the action - almost an automatic play. It's what happens after that matters. Heads up poker is not about making hands (although that helps), so seeing flops etc isn't really the point. Like Antonio said all night, it's hard to make a hand, and the more aggressive player will win most of the hands when neither have anything.

You can't really afford to have a "metric" playing heads up. If your opponent is good, and they play you often enough, they will solve your tendencies and ranges and hammer you. The story of isildur's rise and fall is proof of that. You can't afford to be predictable so raising almost every hand is just the first step in solving that.

Riess also ran like GOD!

There was one point when Farber worked his way back up to 72 million chips, and Riess was looking a bit flustered (after he hero-called the Q high). Rather than let the momentum get away from him, Riess took charge and 3-bet twice, and then 4-bet within 3 hands (each time with nothing) ... he won all 3 hands, and took about 8-10 million chips in the process. That shifted momentum back the other way. Then Farber went into a backward slide from which he never recovered from. Farber wasn't experienced enough to deal with the momentum shifts. Heads up poker requires a lot of experience. Farber didn't seem to know how to wrestle back momentum, and in fairness, the way Riess ran, even the best HU player would have had little chance. Riess just always had it in the big hands: Farber shovess his st8 draw, Riess sitting with top pair; Farber shoves Q5s, Riess sitting with AK; Farber turns 2 pair, Riess river a set -- it was like that all night

Great online heads-up players are often very poor at other forms of the game. Deep stack HU is a different animal. It's almost a different game.

2) Calling a raise in position is a strong play. Anyone who says otherwise is an idiot. There is nothing wrong with ever calling in position, as long as that is not all you are doing. Calling from the blinds is much more questionable because you are OOP post flop. There is nothing worse than playing a strong player who has position on you and keeps floating your c-bets ... IT SUCKS!

There are exceptions if you stack size is in the 10-20 BB range. You really need to think hard about calling-off your chips. With a small stack you need to use your whole stack as a weapon.

As a standard rule, if you are playing the same people regularly, you need to balance your range, so you should be 3-betting your very strong hands (AK, AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT ... and occasionally down to 77/88) as well as a selection of your garbage (K9, Q8 and worse ... anything in fact). You can then be calling your medium and decent strength hands in position (AQ, AQs, AJ, AJs, AT, s-cons, small-mid pairs etc). That will put your opponent on the back foot, and when you do win a 3-bet hand and show your garbage, you will get action and full value when you raise your AA and KK.

[senorsheep]

2) Calling a raise in position is a strong play.

Agree. "Raise or fold, never call" was good old school wisdom once upon a time, but that kind of algorithmic hyper-aggression doesn't really work in the modern game. Too many effective counter-strategies have evolved since Super System, and most of them employ positional and situational calling.

It's a truism that poker is a game of well-timed aggression. Eliminating pre-flop calling from your playbook restricts your ability to time your aggression. The best time for aggression is often late in the hand, and if you're folding all your non-raisable hands pre-flop, you're losing a lot of opportunities to capitalize on board action that is favorable to you, or unfavorable enough to your opponents to create an opening to steal.