Texas Hold Em advice?

by Ms Betty
I understand basic poker stradegy and how position and being selective on the cards you play make a big difference. Most of the time I unless I run into a bad beat, I can do fairly well at a tournament or cash game. However, what do you do when you end up with a final four players who call absolutely everything, one who always raises 2-3x the blind, and the board is not playing by the same rules meaning AK, KK, AA, and suited connectors are not winning hands. It is cards like 72 off, Q4 off, and 22 that people are calling and raising with and hitting on the flop. And if you get lucky enough to have AK hit a A on the board, someone else either hits the two pair or will hold out all the way to the river to catch the flush or straight. How do you play players when the cards are not playing the way the odds calculators and "basic stradegy" rules say the game should be played? When the cards aren't hitting and the trash hands don't fold, what do you do then? EXAMPLE: Holding Q Q, Blinds 15/30 Bet 200 in last postion, one caller who re-raises 200. Called. FLOP Qc 8c 3c Bet all in 2200 (tournament chips) Player calls. I expect something like 2 clubs, AA, KK..... something that caught part of the board. He has Ah 10h. Odds calculator say less than 16% of that hand winning. I am feeling pretty good about the set. Two running hearts come up on Turn and River. Lose to a FLUSH. LOL I felt like it was more of a crap shoot rather than poker as these players just played everything to the river.


Posted by Miss☆R at: 2008-03-09 22:24:26
Thats a bad beatbut listen in Holdem there are always players who will "CHASE" the river till the endand even if Odds are in your favor if its not 100% They can win Luck is also an important key to Texus Holdem. You gotta know the players and their attitudes/style of playing it may helpbut then again, LUCK trumps all hands.


Posted by Sem L at: 2008-03-11 06:03:48
Bad players are always going to be in the game - and guess what - that right where you want them. Over time you'll begin to realize that the bad calls and bets by other players are your best friend. Also, that bad beats are part of the game. That being said The hand you described needs a few comments. Other have pointed out the need to understand stack size, but I am going to assume that they were pretty similar in this case since you were in level 1 of your tournament. The 15/30 blinds tells the story. I am also going to assume that you were playing a small buy-in sit-n-go rather than a multi-table tournament. Small buy-in SNGs are a free for all and watching people push their stacks on draws is very common. When playing any tournament you need to decide upon the strategy that you are going to take to win the tourney (then adjust as needed). Some players are comfortable in being very agressive and pushing it to the limits in building their stacks early, others play the early levels of tournaments very conservatively and only play premium hands in the early rounds - waiting for the antes to enter the pot before really making a move to accumulate chips. Your play by moving all in on the flop was not really necessary. You bet 6.7x the BB pre-flop (200) and got re-raised!. The flop came and there was a flush draw on the board. While it is important to protect your hand, you risked your tournament when you clearly could have been behind. Your opponent could easily had a hand of AA, KK, AKc, KJc, TJc - if that was the case as you suspected - why go all in? While you could have been in the lead (AA, KK, any other pair), you also could have easily been behind (flush). You should have made a bet equal to one-third to half the pot to see where you stood rather than risk your tournament during the first level of the sit-n-go. Chances are your opponent may have folded to your bet. My suggestion is for you to begin playing some larger multi-table tournaments and practice your chip management. Also, read the first 2 Dan Harrington tournaments books - it will help give perspective in playing tournaments. Cheap sit-n-gos are not tournaments, but rather a race to the top 3 places. No one cares if they lose $10 - $20 making bad calls or raises. -My two cents. - John


Posted by Chris W at: 2008-03-09 23:37:20
How you respond depends a lot on your chip stack and table image. If you know you're going to get called no matter what, just wait for solid starting hands and move in. If you don't have enough chips to be patient, you may have to play back at them harder and hope to get lucky. A lot of the times when you're that deep into the tourney a lot of the strategy goes out the window because you are playing with people who don't really play correctly anymore. Often the end of a tournament is determined by luck more than anything else.


Posted by Lost at: 2008-03-10 09:47:30
If you're looking for tips Doyles Room has a great library of poker lessons on their site, they're very useful! http://www.doylesroom.com/education/


Posted by Ms Betty at: 2008-03-10 16:19:13
You said the flop was 3 clubs, two running hearts would not give them a flush Anyways When you are down to a small table every body loosens their starting hand requirements. You can't sit around and wait for big hands when you are going to be a blind 1/2 the time. When you do have solid hands you have to be aggressive. However, I don't like you all in play there. You bet all your chips when there were still too many possibilities of other hands to beat you. And any poker player knows not to expect each opponent to follow standard poker protocol. That would make the game too easy.


Posted by JohnCT at: 2008-03-10 16:24:06
The hand you've described was simply a dumb call by the other player and really bad luck as others have already said. You do need to change your strategy when playing at a table with 6 or fewer players though. Preflop you can play more hands as the number of players at the table decreases. You have to play Ax, Kx, more connecters, and just plain random cards at times. Stealing the blinds becomes more important when you're towards the end of a tournament at a table with 6 or less too. You have to take chances preflop and raise with hands you normally wouldn't raise with in order to try and take down some blinds preflop to prevent your chip stack from being eaten up by the blinds. Because others will be using this strategy as well, you'll have to "defend" your blind more too at this point. Basically you have to be a lot more aggressive when you're at that point in the tournament. Don't be stupid about it and put all your chips in with nothing, but you must take chances, and put pressure on your opponents. You cannot sit around and wait for big hands at that point, you have to out play your opponents. As another answers already pointed out, a lot of how you play will also depend on the size of your chip stack in relation to your opponents chip stacks and the blind level. One quick example is that you want to get into hands with people who have the smallest chip stacks, but avoid big hands with people who have bigger chip stacks unless you have a monster. That's just one obvious example. I would recommend reading a poker book to learn about how to manage your stack size in relation to these factors. The Harrington on Hold 'Em books are very good.

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