Posts Tagged ‘world championships’
Poker Phils Strategy – Reraise With Nothing Part2
If someone raises a very small amount before the flop (less than 5 percent of my chips), I will often call with suited connectors and take the flop. When I do this, I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to read my opponents well. Sometimes it works out beautifully and I have a huge flop and win a big pot. Sometimes I have to scramble and make a great fold in order to save chips. Sometimes I bust myself because I can't get away from (can't fold) my hand after the flop.
I'm capable of trapping with big hands like a pair of tens, jacks, queens, kings, or aces, but I'm very careful that I don't trap myself with these hands! I rarely use this play, because it can be very dangerous in NLH.
I absolutely hate getting all my chips in with any hand. When you are all-in you can go broke! Of course, if I have the best possible hand on the last round of betting, then I love to get all my chips in. I try to avoid getting all-in in NLH unless it can't be helped.
More often than I probably should, I will throw away the best hand when I play NLH. I will throw away very strong hands if I believe that they're beaten, no matter how much money is already in the pot. When you can do this, you can escape losing situations and even consider that you've gained an emotional win. I folded pocket kings before the flop at the World Championships in 2001 when my opponent opened for $1,200,1 reraised him to $3,800, and he then moved my last $12,000 all-in. I thought he had pocket aces, so I folded my hand, rather than risk my last $12,000. As he was throwing away his hand facedown, I said, "Show me pocket aces!" Amazingly, he did show them.
The next day I folded my A-6 hand after a lot of money went in before the flop and the flop came down 3-[3-3- My opponent could have had [3~[3 or [3~f3> which would have given him a flush draw and top pair, but that would have made me and my two pair the winner. He told me later that he had [3~ PVJ, for two better pair than mine! Two days later I had more than $1 million in chips in front of me, and yet I would have been broke if I hadn't thrown away both those strong hands! The ability to throw away strong hands is a mark of an NLH champion.
I often protect my hands with huge bets and raises. At the preliminary NLH event at the WSOP that I won in 2001, I moved all-in with A-A after I was check-raised on a flop of ¡3" [3-[0. Even though I had the best possible hand and had good reason to suspect that the opponent who had check-raised me on the flop was drawing dead (had no wins!), I decided that I didn't want to take a chance that my opponent might catch two perfect cards. This was the classic slow-play situation because we were the two chip leaders at the time. Instead of smooth-calling my opponent's $15,000 check-raise on the flop (as 98 percent of the pros in the world would do), I went ahead and raised him his last $50,000, and he threw his hand away. (Did I mention that I went on to win the tournament?) Perhaps if I had slow-played my hand, my opponent would have caught an eight and a nine to make a ten-high straight with his A-10 and a board of A-6-7-8-9.
In the World Championship event in 2001, faced with an $18,000 opening bet and a $70,000 raise to go, I moved all-in for more than $550,000 with my A-A, to send a message that I had A-A! A lot of players would have raised less, to lure their opponent in before the flop.
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Poker Judgment Is Everything In Nlh
In NLH all manner of plays are possible. You can fold K-K before the flop or move all-in with 2-7 off suit, bluffing before the flop, if your judgment is good enough. By the way, I've folded K-K before the flop only a few times in my life, and every time I did, I was right, because my opponent did indeed have A-A! One thing you'll learn as you play more poker is that when someone has the best possible hand, he is often easily readable.
Quiz show hosts like to say, when the pauses are too protracted, "Go with your first gut instinct. That first instinct is always right." You'll find yourself in a lot of interesting situations in NLH where your judgment and your guts will be severely tested. Whether or not you make the right decisions will go far toward determining whether or not you'll win for the day (it helps to have good cards too). You think that you're under pressure at work? I've seen players who have all their money in the world on the table call other players' bluffs for all their money. In other words, if they're wrong, then they're busted!
One excellent rule for NLH is this: if you can't allow yourself to fold the best hand, then you can't win. In many of the tournaments that I've won I've had occasion to fold the winning hand. In the World Championships in 1989, when just four players were left, I folded pocket tens before the flop against Johnny Chan's pocket nines in a big pot, but I still went on to win the tournament! It's not who wins the battle; it's who wins the war. Don't be afraid to fold your hand in NLH if you think that it's beaten. If it was the winner, so what? You made your decision, and you're still at the table with chips. Stay focused on winning, not on looking back at your untimely fold.
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