If you want to increase your poker skills and learn to crush games, check out Jonathan Little’s elite training site at PokerCoaching.com.
A common misconception among poker players is that they should always try to protect their decently strong made hands. This is because they think that the worst thing that can possibly happen is to get outdrawn by an inferior hand.
While winning pots and not getting outdrawn may sound like good things, it is even more important that you do not play gigantic pots when you happen to be crushed, which is exactly what happens when you blast money into the pot with your strong, but non-nut hands.
Getting Yourself Into Trouble
Suppose in a $2-$5 no-limit cash game with $500 effective stacks, two players limp from middle position and everyone else folds to the button. The button looks down at a hand like J-J, A-Q, or A-J.
A shocking number of players think they are supposed to raise to an amount that forces their opponents to fold because that protects their hand. So, they raise to something huge like $60 and hope everyone folds, which happens most of the time.
However, from time to time one of the initial limpers or someone yet to act will reraise to $160 or so. Once this happens, it should be clear that A-Q, A-J, and perhaps even J-J are in bad shape and should be folded.
But a lot of players simply cannot make the disciplined fold. They do not properly understand the reraiser’s range and only focus on their normally-strong preflop hand. Instead, they call to see the flop (or go all-in, resulting in them drawing thin.)
The Problem With Seeing The Flop
With hands like A-Q, you will find that you are usually dominated by the player who reraised to $160. This usually leads to you either folding to a flop bet when you miss, winning a small pot when you hit, or losing your entire stack when you happen to flop top pair but still have the worst hand.
Suppose the flop comes Q-6-3. A-Q is an unfoldable hand on this board, resulting in you losing all your chips when you are against the somewhat likely A-A, K-K, or Q-Q, and winning a small pot against A-K. On A-8-6, you lose your stack to A-A and A-K and win a small pot from K-K and Q-Q. On 8-5-2, you lose by folding to a continuation bet.
That is a lot of losing!
Finding Some Preflop Discipline
Instead of making a gigantic preflop raise and then calling the reraise, you should make a smaller preflop raise to $40 or so. This will result in your opponents calling with much wider ranges that you are in excellent shape against. While you will get outdrawn from time to time, you also keep your opponents in the pot with many inferior hands.
This strategy does requires you to play well after the flop. But with study and experience, you will find this works out much better for you in the long run than forcing your opponents to fold their junk.
Level Up Your Game
If you want more resources to help you improve your game, check out the Card Player Poker School powered by PokerCoaching.com.
Sign up and get access to nearly 70 FREE courses such as the Five-Day Preflop Challenge, Mastering The Fundamentals, Crushing Small Stakes Cash Games, How To Beat Loose Live Games, and 25 Biggest Leaks And How To Fix Them. Students also get free downloadable preflop GTO charts, interactive hand quizzes, and free training every week.
