Overly aggressive tables are generally not
good places for novice players to be. The reason for that is
that more experienced players, in different degrees, are able to pick
up on more subtle elements of the game, and so simply operate out of
higher levels of awareness when it comes to making hand decisions.
In a fast moving game where a lot of money is coming out, novice
players will be overwhelmed quickly and will lose their money quickly.
So if you find yourself playing at that kind of table early on, you're
better off going to another room which has slower, softer type play.
With that said the first thing that
you're going to want to consider is your starting hand strength.
The first two cards that you are dealt, also known as your "hole"
cards, are your's alone to use, and constitute your pre-flop hand
strength. The best starting hands include:
1st Rank) AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK suited, 10 10
2nd Rank) AK, AQ suited, 99, AQ, AJ suited
This gives you a pretty good idea of the first two
ranks of starting hands, the best of them being on the top left, a
pair of Aces, going to least of them being on the bottom right, AJ
suited.
At this point I am going to have to give a basic
run-down of the course of play, so that I can put the hand strength
selection lesson into context:
There are usually six to ten players at a table,
though many or most online sites run with 9 player max tables.
Everybody is dealt two hole cards, which only they can see and use.
Then there is the ante, which gets posted in the form of one full bet
by position 2, also known as the Big Blind, and one half bet, posted
by position 1, also known as the small blind. After the cards
are dealt and the blinds are automatically posted, the rest of the
players, starting with the player to the left of the BB, and moving
around the table clockwise until it reaches position 9, also known as
"the button", have the opportunity to call, raise, or fold the value
of the big blind which has been posted.
After that three more cards are dealt in the middle
of the table. This is called "the flop", and
these cards are for anybody who is still left in the hand to use to
make the best possible hand they can, together with their hole cards.
After the flop there is another round of betting. Then another,
4rth card is dealt in the middle of the table, which is called "the
turn" card. Again this can be used by anyone still left in the
hand to improve their own hand. There is another round of
betting, followed by the a 5th and last card dealt in the middle,
which is called "the river" card. There is a last round of
betting, and then there is the "showdown", when the player's cards are
turned up. The player who has the best 5 cards out of the 7
existing cards they can use, (which again include their own hole card
hand(2 cards), plus the flop(3 cards), plus the turn(1 card), plus the
river(1 card)=7 cards)-wins the pot. In the case of a tie, the
pot is split between the tying hands.
Every hand one player acts as the Big Blind, and
whoever has this position on a given hand has to put up the designated
amount of the blind. Again the person to his right, the Small
Blind, puts up half that amount. In 5/10 Limit, for example, the
Big Blind must post 10$ at the beginning of hand, and the small blind
must post 5$. That is done to initiate the betting and to insure
that there is always something in the pot to play for, so every hand
is a live hand. After the hand is over the position of the Big
Blind and the Small Blind moves one to the left, so everybody has
their turn acting as the Big Blind and the Small Blind. Here is
an illustration to make it easier:
Notice that when looking at the top chart
movement of play can appear to go to the right, but imagine if you are
a player sitting on a seat, facing the center of the table, the
movement is always going to your left.
In any given hand, position 9, or the "button", has
the best position. The reason for this is the betting order.
The betting order is as follows:
1) After the first two cards are dealt and the
blinds are posted, P3-the player to the left of the big blind must act
first: He or she must decide weather to call, fold, or raise the
amount of the big blind. If P3 decides to raise then it moves
left to P4, who can call the raise, re-raise, or fold. This
continues until play gets back to the BB(P2). Along the way the
Small Blind (P1) has the option to complete the half bet he posted,
raise, or fold. He does not have to complete the bet. If
he doesn't, his half bet is forfeit and goes into the pot. After
the SB acts, the BB has the option to call, fold or raise. Since
he already has a full bet posted, if the pre-flop betting round comes
to him un-raised, then he can just "check" if he wants to, which means
to allow the round to go off un-raised, and the flop to be dealt.
In a Limit game, in any round, raising can be done a
maximum of three times, for a total of 4x the amount of the initial
bet. A max raise is known as a "three raise".
2) The flop is dealt. After the flop betting
no longer begins with P3, it begins with P1, the small blind and moves
clockwise until it reaches position 9, the button.
So P9 from here on out is the last to act.
That is why his position is the best and the strongest, because he or
she gets to see what everybody else is doing-betting, raising,
calling, or folding, before he or she has to act. Therefore P9
has more information on which to base his decisions than anyone else
at the table. Position 8 is also strong, because only one person
acts after him or herself.
The last three positions in a full ring game, a game
with 9 players, are known collectively as "the back". The middle
three positions are appropriately known as, "the middle". And
the first three position are known as "the front". So P9 is the
best position, and P1(SB) is the weakest and worst position. For
that reason it is considered sound to call or raise with somewhat
weaker hole card hands from the last three positions, especially from
P9, the button. So again, after your first two cards are dealt,
in considering weather to call, fold, or raise, you need to consider:
1)Strength of your starting hand
2)Table Position
3)Level of Table Aggressiveness
In considering factor number three, the level of
table aggressiveness, this affects all of the possible options that
you might choose: calling and folding, as well as raising or
re-raising. From an early position or middle position, for the most
part, you must consider the level of table aggressiveness in general,
in terms of what has gone on in past hands, because you do not yet
have all the information that you need to know weather or not somebody
is likely to raise the pot(there are still too many players after you
left to act). Certain hands, from certain positions, that you don't
want to raise with pre-flop, are hands that you might call if you
think that there is not likely to be a raise and you can get a chance
to look at the flop cheaply(for the value of a single bet). At a
table which is not very aggressive you might call, but at a table
which is very aggressive you know better, and you will probably want
to fold them. A good example of this would be if you were dealt
Q,10 suited in position 4 or 5.
From later positions you have the luxury of being
able to consider both the general level of table aggressiveness, and
the specific level of that hand, which has occurred in the form of the
betting and raising which has taken place before it became your turn
to play. Many hands that are playable from late positions, hands
that you might actually raise with, such as A,10 off suit, are hands
that you should fold if the pre-flop betting action has already been
raised. A pre-flop raise from early positions greatly diminishes
the value of having a late starting position, because it suggests the
presence of a hand that is superior to many of the lesser hands that
you might act aggressively with from P8 or P9.
So you must learn to balance all of these different
elements in order to make correct pre-flop decisions. Here are a
few examples:
Example 1) I am in P9. I have J,10 off suit.
The table I am at is not very aggressive-there is not a lot of betting
or raising going on. Betting comes around to me: P4 has called,
P7 has called, everybody else has folded. I call.
Explanation: The call from an early(middle)
position(P4) indicates either a marginal to decent Ace hand or mid
level pocket pairs, such as a pair of 8's. I'm not likely to get
P4 off his hand with a raise, and P7 would call the raise most likely
for the pot odds. Besides that its just not a strong enough hand
to raise with, even from P1, especially if we are talking a Limit
game. However for a single bet, from the button, my J,10 is a
good multiway hand(a hand that plays well with more than two people
left after the flop) and I want to see a flop.
Example 2) I am in P9 again, and again I have J,10
off-suit. The table I am at is quite aggressive, lots of betting
and raising, lots of fast play. P3 raises from the front.
P4 and P5 fold, P6 calls, P7 re-raises, P8 folds. I fold.
Explanation: Same cards, same table position as
Example 1, but an increased level of aggression, a raise, and a
re-raise force me to fold a moderately decent hand from last position.
My J,10 off suit is going to get run over in this situation and I know
it.
Example 3) I am in P4. I am dealt AA in the
hole. The table I am sitting at is extremely aggressive. P7
raises. I re-raise.
Explanation: I am in a poor table position, the
table is extremely aggressive, and I am raised to, however I have the
best starting hand that it is possible to have. I am already
100% in the lead no matter what; the best anybody can do is tie me on
the minute chance that somebody else has been dealt the other two
Aces. So it is now in my interest to get as much money into the
pot as I can. Also, my re-raise will likely cause at least one
person to fold who otherwise would have called a single raise.
Aces are more valuable when facing two or three other players than
when facing, say five other players. If there are too many
players in a hand there is a better chance that one of them will get
lucky and catch a straight or a flush. I am looking at once to
get a few people out of the hand and get more money from those that
decide to stay, since I am holding the likely winner.
In a general way, that's what good poker play is,
balancing any number of different elements in a very short space of
time in order to make correct decisions. I realize that to a
beginner that may sound daunting, but look at it this way:
Think about other areas of your own life, maybe at
your job, where you have no choice but to multitask. You are
doing five things at once but you think nothing of it, simply because
you are practiced in it, and you are used to it, even though its
actually very complex. Poker is the same thing. After
playing thousands of hands, and going through hundreds of different
situations multiple times, after a while you don't even have to think
about it any more, at least those basic parts. In the meantime I
want to talk a little bit more about the concept of aggression.
There are a lot of different styles that players can
adopt over time. Some very advanced players, like Phil Hellmuth,
will remain relatively passive, and some will become very aggressive.
But whatever their individual style may be, at a root level, any
advanced player knows to get out of the way of aggression when they
have a weak hand(that is known as playing "tight"), and also betting
heavily and fast when they have a strong hand(that is known as
"aggressive"). Together these two player qualities are known as
"tight-aggressive" play.
Tight-Aggressive play is the #1
cornerstone of successful Texas Hold-Em strategy:
folding down when you have a weak hand and betting a lot when you have
a strong hand. Even though most poker hands are not black and
white, and many hands require making some really difficult decisions
based on marginal factors of competing elements, Tight-Aggressive play
remains the key in the long run. Over time, a tight-aggressive
player is the most difficult to beat. So when faced with a table
of aggressive players you will have to tighten up, play less hands,
and fold more often.
When faced with a single aggressive player, also
known as a "maniac", you have to tighten up on marginal hands.
You might be folding Q,8 suited to hit 3,7 off suit, but if he has you
calling multiple raises with only Q,8, he pretty much has you where he
wants you. To beat a guy like that, if he's raising pre-flop
every other hand, and is in the hand with at least a call about 75% of
the time, what you need to do is wait until you get a generally
superior hand, not necessarily the very best hand, A,10 off suit for
example, and then re-raise him. Most of the time your A,10 will
ruin his 7,8. But you shouldn't just call a player like that.
You need to wait until you have a strong enough hand and then punish
him in the form of an aggressive re-raise, for his over-aggressive
playing.
Otherwise, if you find yourself in a position where
someone has made a bet, and you're struggling to figure out if you
should call or fold, you should probably fold. Most of the money
made in poker is made when a player is making an aggressive play,
actively betting or raising, at an appropriate time, either when he
knows he is in the lead, or when he is uncertain that he is in the
lead, but he is at least in on the hand in some solid fashion, and he
believes that the player he is facing will fold to a large enough bet
(in the case of NL), or continuous and fast betting(in the case of
Limit). It is not made by calling raises with marginal hands and
hoping to hit a flop, or draw something on the turn or river.
Let me sum it up this way:
Appropriate Aggression= making $$$
Calling bets and raises trying to draw a straight or
flush, or make an over-card pair=losses
In some situations, you might call a bet, or a
series of bets, maybe even to the river, and be correct in doing so,
but this is usually not the case. One example of this might be
if there was a lot of raising pre-flop and you decided to go along
with AK suited, of diamonds. The flop comes J,10 of diamonds,
and a 5 of hearts. You now have such a good chance of making a
winning hand relative to the amount of money that's already in the
pot, that you really can't fold. That's called being "pot
committed". And the rule that you are following in this case is
the rule of "pot odds":
1) 200$ in the pot
2) it will cost you 80$ more to call to the river.
3) the better is putting in another 80$= 280$ pot
versus your 80$ to call
4) 80$ is 28.5% of 280$. With your two
overcards, inside straight draw, and flush draw, you have a 48% chance
of making your draw.
5) 48% is greater than 28.5%, so that's a profitable
call over time-Pot Odds tell you to call.
But again, that is the exception, not the rule.
You have to be experienced, or at least be able to deduce your
percentages based on how many outs (an "out" is any card left in the
deck that will give you a winning hand) that you have, versus what the
value of the pot will be by the time you get to the river, to be able
to correctly make those decisions.
A little more about pot odds: To determine pot odds
correctly you have to be able to first figure out how many "outs" that
you have, or cards that are left in the deck which can give you a
successful winning draw. Using the example above, you have any
diamond, which is 10 outs(14 total less the two in your hand and the
two on the board), any queen(only 3 because one of them is the queen
of diamonds which you already accounted for when you counted the
diamond outs, and then most likely any Ace or King, (depending on the
strength of your opponents hand) which is another 6. So that's
10+3+6=19 outs. You can adjust for the fact that 6 of those
outs, the Ace or King, may not win you hand by cutting the number of
them that you count in half, so count them as 3 instead of 6, which
would give you 16 outs. Now you can refer to the outs chart in
the quickcharts section to see that with 13 outs after the flop you
have a 48.10% chance of making your draw. You then have to
compare that figure to the ratio of investment you are going to have
to make to call until the river, versus the amount of money that you
are likely to win if you make your draw. Its an involved
process, but if you practice the different counts that you need to
know, you can learn to do it pretty quickly.
If you play Texas Hold Em regularly, and strive for
correct play, over time your skills will improve and basic concepts
like hand strength, position, tight aggressive play, and pot odds
become so enmeshed in your thinking that they become automatic.
At that point generally people get into more advanced strategies
involving different kinds of player analysis, and creating deception,
for example. The game becomes more psychological and more
subtle. But those basic factors of successful play remain as the
foundation-they never become invalid or unnecessary.
