When
you are faced with a raise, the hand you’re holding quickly
changes categories...
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FOLDING, PART 2
by: Lou Krieger©
In the first installment of this short, two part series, after
I told you how I spent the better part of a year chasing down
the monkey who stole my hat in the Costa Rican jungle, we
began to examine poker’s most common play: folding.
This is the conclusion of this short series.
Folding In Hold’em
In hold’em you frequently see players who call with hands
they should have folded. This is particularly true when players
cold-call a raise. You need a much stronger hand to call a
raise than you do to raise the pot yourself. After all, calling
a raise requires a hand that figures to be better than the
one held by the guy doing the raising.
I’ve held many a hand that I was preparing to raise with,
only to have an opponent snatch the rug right out from under
my feet by raising before the action got around to me. Most
of the time that hand I was considering raising with is no
longer even a calling hand, and winds up in the muck. When
their initiative is filched from right under their noses,
many players become irritated. You see it all the time, an
angry slam-down of a hand like A-T because a player raised
before they could act. These players are wearing their emotions
inside out. Instead of being upset, they ought to be thankful.
Their opponent’s raise probably saved them money, and
they should be relieved, not angry. After all, money saved
is just as spendable as money won, and anytime I can get a
free pass out of a pot knowing my hand is probably a longshot
that won’t be offset by the pot odds, I’m a happy
camper.
When you are faced with a raise, the hand you’re holding
quickly changes categories: Most likely it becomes either
a folding hand or one you should reraise with; it’s seldom
a calling hand. If I’m in the cut-off seat or on the
button, and someone raises in front of me, I’m going
to throw away hands like A-J or A-T æ even if I would
have raised with those same hands if no one had entered the
pot before the action reached me. On the other hand, if I’m
holding a big pair I’m going to make it three-bets in
hopes of playing heads-up against the initial raiser. When
that happens I feel like I have a big advantage going into
the flop. Not only did I get the last raise in, I’ll
have position on my opponent throughout the entire hand.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to play that hand down
to the river æ if, for example, I made it three bets
with J-J and the flop contained an ace and a king, I’d
be a fool to keep playing if there was any appreciable action.
But if no over cards fall, I’m a favorite over anyone
who would raise with a pair of nines through a pair of aces,
as well as A-K, A-Q, A-J, and K-Q.
Later Folds
The longer you’re involved in a hand, the more difficult
it becomes to fold. Often the size of the pot has grown big
enough to make drawing correct, even when your chances of
winning might be pretty slim. The opposite can be true too.
If you’ve flopped a straight draw against only one opponent
in a hold’em game, chances are you will not be getting
the right odds to keep calling.
Sometimes you’ll find out via the betting and raising
that you are not the favorite even when you hold what ordinarily
is a good hand. You might have been the aggressor before the
flop with A-K, been fortunate enough to see an ace hit the
board, and yet watch with shocked indignation when there’s
a bet, a call, and a raise before it’s your turn to act.
Top pair, even with top kicker, is probably not good anymore,
particularly if the board contains three cards of the same
suit, or an obvious straight draw. Even if there’s no
flush possible, one of your opponents might have made a set
and is not a big favorite. You can keep calling æ your
opponents will love you for it if you do æ or you can
do the smart thing and save your money for a better proposition.
Sometimes you’ll find situations that are easy folds;
other times they are strictly judgment calls based on how
well you read your opponents and your analysis of the betting
and raising that’s transpired before the action gets
around to you. Experience helps. So does your willingness
to see things as they really are, and not play poker with
a denial mindset that allows you to talk yourself into calling
with top pair because some part of your brain wants to believe
that your opponent really did not make a flush and your hand
æ top pair with top kicker æ is still good despite
overwhelming empirical evidence to the contrary.
What Makes Poker A Game You Can Beat?
The fact that the odds are always shifting about in poker,
and that you don’t have to play a hand to its conclusion
just because you called a bet or two on earlier rounds, is
what enables good players to win at poker. You don’t
have this option in table games. You make a bet and for the
most part that bet is still working until the particular confrontation
you’ve wagered on has ended. And even if there is a "surrender"
option, guess who figures to have the better of this deal,
you or the house? But in poker you have the ability to opt
in and opt out. And it’s often the ability and willingness
to fold your tents and steal away into the night æ saved
money clutched tightly in your hot little hands æ that
provides the resources allowing you to play another hand when
you have the best of it.
I know you came to play. And getting involved in a hand and
slugging it out with the guys is a lot more fun than sitting
on the sidelines. But that’s what you have to do most
of the time to be a winning player. Watch the good players.
They play far fewer hands than you do. If you don’t believe
me, just clock them and see for yourself. It only seems like
they’re always in there slugging because they play very
aggressively whenever they do enter a pot, and that’s
what you remember. But the one play they make above all others
is the simplest and most boring in poker. They fold.
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