A Play of Position

We were into Sunday morning after a fired-up Saturday night at Bellagio in Vegas. The game was full of loose tourists. You couldn't get them out of a pot with a gun. They just wanted to play! A very aggressive, loose tourist was firing away at every pot and sitting to my immediate right. Two loose-passive players called from early position. The aggressive tourist to my right raised, as he'd been doing all night. I was in middle position and looked down to see A-Q offsuit.

A-Q is a raising hand, many players would say, especially when a maniac has already raised the pot. I didn't see it that way, though. There were other variables to take into account. I had a decision to make on how I wanted to play the hand.

The texture of my hand, unsuited high cards, plays well with position and few callers. These hands have stronger value in situations in which one pair has a greater likelihood of holding up. When contemplating whether to try to force the field behind you out or to let them in, with unsuited high cards you'd pretty much prefer that they fold, unless they share a community card with you. In this situation, A-Q was also likely to be the best hand.

Those factors favored making a raise, to thin the field and get the best value from my hand. But in this particular game, raises did not intimidate the players. If they had a hand they wanted to play, they called, no matter what the cost was. And their hand selection was not exactly the tightest in the world. Raising would have no effect on thinning the field. I was going to have to show down the best hand at the river in order to win this pot.

If I raised, I would likely get callers behind me, although it might increase the likelihood of getting checked to on the flop. Part of the value of raising is to fold hands behind you and give yourself an option to take a free card if your opponents check to you, the raiser. While there would be some value in increasing my chances of taking a free card, much of that value would be lost if players came in behind me (as I suspected they would), because a player could then bet behind me if I checked. Also, with the texture of my hand, I wanted to be able to play it in a manner that would give one big pair the best chance of holding up. If I hit an ace or a queen and it was checked to me and my opponents had to call only one bet, they would come with any draw or conceivable draw. With a large pot, playing most draws would be correct against one pair. When your opponents have a correct draw, you will do better over the course of time if they fold. That concept would be even truer if I three-bet preflop, making the pot even larger and my opponents' calls after the flop that much better. Making one pair hold up against a large field of loose callers such as this one can be a mighty tough proposition, indeed.

If I flat-called the bet before the flop, the aggressive player to my right would bet the flop if an ace or a queen came. I could then raise, and even if the drawing hands did not fold, at least I could reduce the price the pot was laying them, thereby gaining equity in the pot. By flat-calling preflop, I would be setting up a play on the flop that would create a stronger situation for me if I flopped an ace or a queen. This was most important as far as the play of the hand was concerned.

I flat-called the two bets before the flop. Several players called behind me and we took the flop sevenhanded. The flop came J-8-5 with two hearts. The player to my right bet. I mucked my hand, not wanting to take the risk of either drawing very slim to my overcards should my hand be "all trapped up," or getting raised from any of the other players and having to call multiple bets.

When playing poker, you need to think ahead and have a good feel for the likely actions of your opponents in given situations. The ability to vary your play based on accurate predictions of future events is the sign of a world-class player.

Editor's note: Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas.