Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Weak pre-flop raise leads to tough beat

I haven't been playing much, but I promised this analysis to an opponent who made a bad play tonight. Here is the hand:

http://www.pokerhand.org/?2574181

The player is UTG with AKs with 710 in chips at 50/100. He min-raises. He puts in 29% of his stack before the flop. This is an obvious push situation. But at the very least, he should make a standard raise. With a super premium hand like KK or AA, maybe a min raise might be profitable, but not here. But the read of the table is also important. Perhaps an AKs min raise might be good if the player expected another player to come over the top before the flop. That was not going to happen at this table. The stacks were too short and the players weren't capable. Anyway, so he makes a min raise.

Getting 3.5 to 1 pot odds, this is an easy call for me with just about any two cards. The fact that I had a suited two gapper helped. But it also helped that I was familiar with the player and had a feeling I could outplay him. So I call. I didn't know where he was at. To be honest, I couldn't range him here. Thinking about it again, I would have put him on a strong hand, but I didn't do that here. because that's how he plays his premium hands. Mistake on my part.

So I flop a double belly buster. I practically put him all in. He goes into the tank and calls me with ace high. I hate the call. He has ace high and doesn't know where he's at. Here's the thing - if he's going to call with ACE HIGH after the flop, then he should absolutely have pushed before the flop when he his hand had more relative strength.

Next time, if a standard raise represents more than 30% of his stack, he needs to push. That's how you play short chipped poker. Be the aggressor. Be the first in the pot.

Like I read in my first poker book and didn't understand initially . . .

if you bet, you have two ways to win - he could fold or you could have the best hand.

If you call, you only have one way to win - having the best hand.