Becoming a Winning Poker Player

Yesterday I talked about the importance of not spewing chips and today I wanted to explore the opposite side of that equation in terms of how to make your opponents put more chips into the pot when they’re behind.

It’s the hallmark of winning players at the higher levels that they know how to eek out 1 or 2 BB more out of a pot than their opponents and how to avoid putting in more chips when they’re behind. When I watch great limit hold’em players that is truly the skill they employ most effectively.

For instance, the raising for a free card is a move every solid hold’em player had better master otherwise they cannot beat the game at mid and high limits. If you’re unfamiliar with how that works, let me explain.

You’re in position against an opponent on the flop where you’ve picked up a straight draw. You’re pretty sure that your opponent caught a piece of the flop because he’s bet into you. Many low stakes players call here and hope to hit their hand on the turn. Their belief is that they’re saving money. They’re wrong.

What if instead you popped your opponent for a raise? Chances are that unless he recognizes what you’re doing (and maybe even if he does) he’s going to think you may have picked up a hand too and notch down his aggression. He’ll check to the raiser (you) on the turn no matter what card comes off (barring him making trips or two pair). If the turn hits you then you can seize the initiative and bet and if you miss you get a free card and check behind hoping the river makes your hand.

Now, let’s do the math:

Calling:

Call on the flop = .5BB Call on the turn = 1 BB

Raising

Raise on the flop = 1BB

Obviously raising costs you less if you miss the turn. Plus there’s the fact that if you do hit on the turn and your opponent can read your hand then you’ve collected the maximum amount you could get out of him.

Now extrapolate that out over tens of thousands of hands and you can see how this one little move of saving a half BB can literally save hundreds of BB per year. And you get the added benefit of seeing the river for free which may not have been possible on some drawing hands given the pot odds of calling a turn bet and your odds of making your hand. So not only is it saving you money but it’s setting you up to take down more pots.

But being a winning player is more than just saving BB’s, it’s also about winning extra BB’s. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to cover every possible scenario and most things like the raising for the free card illustrated above are in most every poker text book so I don’t think there’s a need to repeat them hear. The important part is to work out what it means in terms of value and understand that it’s the small things like being able to squeeze an extra big bet out of every few pots that can make the difference between a winning and losing player.

Go back and read your Small Stakes Hold’em (Ed Miller) or similar books and really spend some time getting to understand how these plays impact your overall win rate. As I’ve said previously the biggest secret there is to being a winning poker player is that there is no secret. Everything you need to know is in your basic strategy books. The difference is the winning players master the material while losing players search for the elusive secret that will magically make their pocket aces hold up.