I am a bit reluctant to write this piece because I believe the average poker player worries too much about table image and broad, bland descriptions of opponents’ play styles. In most instances, the correct play has nothing to do with any of that. If you have AA or AKo, you should almost certainly re-raise. If you have 72o, you should almost certainly fold. That holds in less extreme cases as well.
At the margins, in cases where the decision is close, it pays to have a game plan. Rather than making a spur of the moment decision about whether or not to open 76s in early position, or whether to check-raise that set you just flopped, it is best to think in advance about what kinds of mistakes other players at the table seem to be making and how you should adjust.
For example, in a loose game with lots of pre-flop calling and several short-stacked players, you want to fold the 76s in early position. Small suited connectors rely on fold equity both before and after the flop. In a loose game, you are unlikely to steal the blinds and semi-bluffing with a draw isn’t likely to be profitable. Multi-way pots are much harder to win with aggression than heads-up pots and short-stacked players are harder to push off of hands.
A common misconception is that 76s is an “implied odds hand” that performs better in loose games where you are more likely to get paid off if you make a straight or flush. This ignores the difficulty of making a straight or flush in the first place and it overstates the likelihood that you will win a sufficiently large pot to compensate if you do make one.
Winning a big pot from out of position is difficult. It often requires getting a lot of money in the pot before your hand gets there, which is not a winning proposition. If you are going to put significant money in on a draw, you really want fold equity to go along with it.
Being out of position also makes it harder to conceal the strength of your hand when you do get there. If you check and call the flop and the turn, then river a flush, you have two options: check and hope someone else bets (unlikely, given how obvious the draw is, unless they have a higher flush) or bet and make it fairly obvious you just improved to a flush. The latter strategy is less bad in a loose game than in a tight one, but that does not make it good.
By deciding in advance that game conditions incentivize you to err on the side of folding marginal opens in early position, you are more likely to make the right decision when the opportunity arises. Without such a game plan in place, you will end up going with your gut, and your gut is too often influenced by being bored or stuck. Because opening this hand would be only a small mistake, even in a loose game, it would be easy to talk yourself into doing it if you had not committed in advance not to.
If you are familiar with the regulars in your live or virtual card room, you might be able to form a game plan as soon as you take your seat. If not, you should consider doing so after about an hour. Either way, you should periodically revisit your plan whenever table conditions change, especially if players leave or arrive, or if you or someone else wins a big pot.
Tournaments, with their mandatory table changes and breaks every two hours, provide built-in opportunities to reassess your game plan. You should take the opportunity to do so, because game conditions change frequently in tournaments. Players come and go, stacks get shorter and larger (with a general trend towards shorter as the tournament progresses), and survival may be of more or less value depending on where you are relative to the bubble and the final table.
I learned the value of such planning years ago while playing a World Poker Tour event. I had sold action to a few friends and on each break I was sending them quick emails updating them on my chip count and telling them a bit about the table. Without really intending it, I was forming a game plan.
At the first break, I noted there had been a lot of pre-flop aggression. “I plan to be pretty tight for next hours,” I concluded. “Not a lot of opening, not a lot of calling raises in early position. If I do get a big hand in early position, I’m going to just flat and hope the action goes crazy behind me.”
About an hour later, that is exactly what happened. UTG opened, I called with KK UTG2, and by the time it got back around to me there had been a three-bet and a four-bet. Under other game conditions, folding KK could be reasonable here, but because I had my plan, I knew exactly what to do. I moved all-in, got called by AQ, and won a huge pot.
A few hours later, on another break, I described a new player at my table. “He’s got heaps of chips, he’s crazy aggressive post-flop, and he’s on my immediate left. I’m probably going to have to make a big call against him at some point. Will be high variance, but profitable. Buckle up.”
I ended up winning a big pot against that player by flopping middle pair in a four-way pot, checking and calling his flop bet (he was on the button) after everyone else folded, and then check-calling down on the turn and river to catch him in a big bluff. It was an uncomfortable spot where I would probably fold under normal tournament conditions and where I again think going purely on gut or spur-of-the-moment thinking leads a lot of people astray. Because I had a game plan, I already knew how to handle the situation when it came up. I was not sure I was going to win since even over-aggressive players make the nuts sometimes. But I was sure of the right play, given the information I had.
Admittedly, this tournament was an anomaly. You will not usually be able to call your shots as specifically as I did here. Even when you do this kind of planning, opportunities to implement your plan may not arise. But if you do not plan, then you may miss the opportunities when they do arise.
Questions Worth Asking
1. How loose is the table? In looser games, you should be less inclined to open marginal hands, at least from early position. You should also be more inclined to three-bet when your decision is close between three-betting and calling, such as with hands like AJo that suffer from inviting additional players into the pot.
2. How aggressively are the people on your left three-betting? More three-betting means you should make fewer marginal opens and also call fewer raises. It may also mean you should more frequently flat call raises with strong hands hoping to induce a re-raise. In extreme cases, you may even want to develop an open limping strategy.
3. How many short stacks are behind you? Even if you have a big stack, short stacks behind you should affect your hand selection. The more likely you are to contest a pot with a shorter stacked player, the more you should prioritize big cards with a lot of pre-flop equity over more speculative hands like small pairs and suited connectors. In tournaments, players behind you with good stacks for shoving over raises should cause you to tighten your opening range. Essentially, you should assume you will face more aggressive three-betting and consider the adaptations above.
4. Are there other savvy players who will be aware of these table dynamics? How will they adjust?
Especially in higher stakes games, it is common to see a table with one or two weak players and many strong ones. In these cases, the strong players must walk a fine line between exploiting the mistakes of the weak players while also combating the other strong players’ attempts to exploit their exploits. For example, if there is a loose-passive player on your right limping a lot of weak hands, you would like to raise him aggressively. However, you must be prepared for other strong players behind you to recognize what you are doing and re-raise you more aggressively. This will entail not getting too out of line with your raises and being willing to call and four-bet a bit lighter against three-bets than you ordinarily would. Likewise, if you see or suspect other strong players taking advantage of weaker ones, you should look for opportunities to take advantage of them.
There are as many potential adjustments as there are decisions to make at a poker table. Many you will have to figure out for yourself. But you probably will make a lot of the right adjustments, if you give yourself the opportunity to think about it. The key is creating the impetus for doing some big picture thinking and planning in the first place.
