The Biggest No-Limit Hold'em Myth

Big stacks can 'bully' the table,

by Ed Miller | Published: Oct 24, 2007

Live $1-$2 and $2-$5 no-limit hold'em cash games can, for many
players, be some of the most lucrative games in the cardroom. Several
years ago, I was a committed limit player (and even wrote a couple of
books about it), but nowadays I'm sold on no-limit. It's great because, at
least at the low levels, learning a winning strategy isn't too difficult. And
furthermore, a wide array of approaches can win, as long as you play
accurately and with discipline. My Card Player columns will focus on
teaching you how to beat this great game.
"What a bully!" the big blind said lightheartedly as he threw in his cards.
"That's just the way the big stack is supposed to play," mused his friend
next to him.
They were talking about me. I had just stolen the blinds in a $2-$5 nolimit hold'em game. After a series of fortunate events, I had run my stack
up from the maximum buy-in of $500 to around $1,300, enough to have
everyone at the table comfortably covered.
The big blind and his friend had unwittingly repeated what I consider to
be the biggest no-limit hold'em myth: Big stacks can "bully" the table,
and short stacks have to sit and take it. I hear this idea everywhere from TV commentators, from table coaches, and even in a book or two.
I once overheard someone counsel a friend not to buy into a $10-$25

game because he had only $2,000 that day to play with. (He had a lot
more in his bankroll.) "The big stacks will eat you alive. You gotta have
at least five dimes to play that game. You might as well take your two
dimes and burn it. If you can't buy in full, don't buy in at all. You gotta
give yourself a fighting chance."
They're all wrong. Big stacks don't hold any inherent advantage over
small stacks. Just because you cover everyone doesn't mean you have
any special mathematical privilege to bully the table. And if you try to do
so against astute opponents, you might find yourself the one busted by
the end of the night.
Now, I'm talking about cash games here, not tournaments. In
tournaments, the "bullying" concept has some merit, though it's hardly
what some people would have you believe. In cash games, however, it's
utter hogwash. A deep stack holds no inherent advantage whatsoever
over shorter stacks - none.
Let's see why. Let's say you and I are playing heads-up $2-$5. We each
have $3,000 in our pockets. You buy $3,000 worth of chips. I buy $300
and leave the rest in my pocket. Naturally, we're playing with the tablestakes rule, so once I've bet my entire $300 on a hand, we're all in and
there's no further betting. That means that the most you can bet on any
hand is $300, the same as me. Even though your stack is 10 times the
size of mine, when we play a hand, all of your excess money sits
harmlessly unused, just like the money in my pocket.
Strategically, it's completely irrelevant that you have a big stack and I

have a small one. If you try to "bully" me by raising a lot with weak
hands, I can punish you by reraising more often with better hands. If you
want to avoid steadily losing your big stack over time, you'll have to put
on the brakes and play a more "normal" strategy.
"Sure," you might say, "that's obvious. If we both start with $3,000 and
you buy in for $300, it doesn't matter on the first hand whether I buy in
for $300 and keep the rest in my pocket or if I buy in for $3,000. Either
way, we're playing for $300. But what happens over time? You're a lot
more likely to bust out than I am."
That's true. If we both play equally well (which is not likely if you waste
your money trying to bully me), I'm 10 times more likely to lose my $300
than you are to lose your $3,000. Fortunately, I have 10 $300 buy-ins,
while you have only one $3,000 buy-in. If I rebuy for $300 every time I
go broke and we play until one of us has all the money, we both have an
equal shot. The fact that I've played the short stack throughout doesn't
affect my chances one bit.
Indeed, if the rules would allow it, I could buy in for just the $5 big blind
every time and still have totally equal chances. All you could do with
your mighty stack is call my big blind and watch the boardcards
helplessly.
So, what's the deal? Why does everyone talk about big stacks bullying
and short stacks getting bullied? In cash games, it's primarily a
psychological thing. Typically, someone gets a big stack by winning a
few big hands in a row. Naturally, it can be a bit intimidating to watch

one of your opponents drag a few monster pots and sit in front of a miniEverest of chips. You start thinking that your chips might be the next
addition to the mountain.
Don't think that! It's not true. Maybe your opponent is a great player, but
chances are that he mostly just ran good for a few hands. You have
nothing to be afraid of, and your opponent's big stack confers no
advantage whatsoever. Don't buy in to the myth. If you have $200, it
doesn't hurt you at all if your opponents have $2,000 or even $20,000.
You're playing for $200, and when your opponents play against you,
that's what they're playing for, also.
If you're the one with the big stack, you don't have a mathematical
advantage, but you may have a psychological one. I've noticed that
after I build a big stack in a cash game, some players start to play
scared against me. Where they might have check-raised a good hand or
tried a bluff against me before, they'll play more cautiously now. You can
take advantage of the timid play by - bullying. But always remember,
you aren't bullying because you have a bigger stack; you're bullying
because your opponents are afraid of you.
So, that's it, the biggest no-limit hold'em myth. Go ahead and buy in for
whatever you desire. Those sharks with deep stacks aren't going to get
the best of you. In fact, you may well be getting the best of the sharks,
because while it's not true that big stacks have an inherent advantage
over short stacks, the opposite sometimes is true! You actually could
give yourself an edge merely by buying in short. I'll show you how it
works in the next issue.

Ed will personally answer your questions at his online poker advice

column, www.notedpokerauthority.com. He has authored four books on
poker, most recently Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume 1.

The Virtues of Playing the Short Stack

Two major advantages
by Ed Miller | Published: Nov 13, 2007

In the last issue, I tackled the biggest no-limit hold'em myth: Big stacks
can bully small stacks to gain an advantage. Not only is it not true, small
stacks can actually gain an edge over big stacks! Before I tell you how,
let's revisit the biggest myth.
It's very common to hear people talking about big stacks "bullying" small
stacks, usually by playing loosely preflop and raising a lot.
Unfortunately, in a cash game, this tactic doesn't actually offer any edge
to the big stack, since the extra chips don't play. That is, if you have
$100 and I have $1,000, we'll be all in after the first $100, and my
remaining $900 plays no role whatsoever in the hand. I could put that
extra $900 in my pocket, and it wouldn't help (or hurt) you at all.
But if you have $100 and everyone else at the table has $1,000, you
actually have an advantage over your opponents. In fact, you have two
major advantages.
Avoiding Mixed-Stack Play
Mixed-stack play is one of the most complex aspects of no-limit hold'em.
Strategy can change dramatically due to different stack sizes. If you are
playing $1-$2 blinds, with a given hand you might push all in with a $20
stack, just call with a $200 stack, and perhaps raise (but not all in) with
a $1,000 stack. When your opponents in a hand have very different
stack sizes (that is, you're playing against mixed stacks), your best play

could be different against each of them due to their different stack sizes.
For instance, let's say that you have $500 in a $1-$2 game. A tight
player under the gun goes all in for $20. A weak player with $400 calls
next. You're on the button with the 2

. What should you do? I'd

call, since I might flop a set and win a nice pot off the weak player. But if
the weak player had folded instead, I'd fold, since I'd likely be either
about even money (against overcards) or a big underdog (against a
bigger pair), and I'd probably be taking the worst of it alone against the
all-in player.
Unfortunately, even with the weak player in the pot, I'm still taking the
worst of it against the all-in player. The weak player's call doesn't
change the fact that I have to beat the tight player to win the $63 main
pot. I'm calling despite the all-in player, because I think the chance of
winning a big pot off the weak player is worth it. Because of the mixed
stack sizes, I have no perfect play. If I want to win money off the deep
stack, I have to cede equity to the short stack.
Now put yourself in the shoes of the tight all-in player. Let's say that you
have the Q

. You just got called by not one, but two players as a

big favorite. You have a great chance to triple up. And you got called by
the second player only because his stack was a lot deeper than yours. If
he had had only $20, also, he would have folded. He called only
because he and the weak player were much deeper than you.
Playing against mixed stacks complicates your decision-making and
forces you to take compromises. Playing short allows you to face a

uniform stack size (yours), and enables you to benefit when your
opponents face mixed-stack situations.
Fold Equity Without Risk
Fold equity is the value you get from opponents who fold. The typical
way to generate fold equity is to bet or raise. Your opponents will
sometimes fold, and your chances to win the pot improve. This fold
equity comes at a risk, however, since you could lose whatever amount
you bet. When you're a short stack, though, sometimes you can get fold
equity without having to risk anything.
Let's say that you're playing a $1-$2 game, you have a $20 stack, and
you have the J

. Two players, each with a $500 stack, limp in to

you, and you push all in. They both call. The flop comes A

(Doesn't an ace always seem to come?) Your opponents both check.

The turn is the 10
is the K

. One player bets $20, and the other folds. The river

. Your opponent shows the Q

10

, and your jacks hold up.

Then, the other player starts to complain: "Why'd you have to bet? I had
a king! I would have won." Because your opponent bet the turn for you,

and your other opponent folded, you won a pot that you otherwise would
have lost. That bet carried fold equity, not just for the bettor, but also for
you. But unlike the bettor, you didn't have to risk anything to get the fold
equity. It came automatically.
If everyone had started the hand with $20, you would have lost the pot.
Because your opponents had extra money, however, you turned a loss
into a win. That's the second advantage of having the short stack at the
table; you can gain fold equity without risk.
"But," you might say, "having a short stack means I can't push anyone
off a hand. Maybe I get fold equity for free sometimes, but I also can't
generate fold equity when I want it because I don't have enough to bet."
That's true. But it doesn't invalidate either advantage of being the short
stack at the table. It's just a result of what I said at the beginning, that
different stack sizes require different strategies. You have a very
different set of options at your disposal with $20 in a $1-$2 game than
with $200. All I'm saying is that if you're going to buy in for $20, you're
generally better off if your opponents all have $200 than if they have
$20. And likewise, if you're going to buy in for $200, you're generally
better off if your opponents all have $2,000 than if they have $200.
The peddlers of the biggest myth will tell you that having a shorter stack
than everyone else puts you at a disadvantage. Not only are they
wrong, but the opposite is true. No matter what stack size you play, you
enjoy advantages when your opponents play much deeper stacks.
Next issue, I'll teach you how I use some of these ideas to beat real no-

limit hold'em games.

Sizing Up a Game
Developing a ritual when entering a game
by Ed Miller | Published: Nov 27, 2007

Many students want to know how I size up a game. Once the

brushperson assigns me a table and a seat, what do I do then? How
much do I buy in for? What's my strategy on the first few hands? What
am I looking for? How do I use those initial moments to gain an
advantage that will last throughout the session? I'll share with you how I
approach these initial decisions. Other players I know do things
completely differently, so know that my way isn't the only way. But even
if you do things differently, you might find it useful to know how other
people approach the game.
I beat no-limit hold'em games by outthinking my opponents. In order to
do that, I need two things: knowledge of their weaknesses and a
strategy to exploit them. Without those two, I can't outthink anyone, and
I'm stuck relying on fundamentals to beat the game. Over time, solid
fundamentals will win, but a custom-tailored exploitative strategy will win
faster and better.
When I first sit in a game, I want to learn about my opponents as quickly
as possible. To that end, I generally buy in for about half of the
maximum. For instance, in a $2-$5 game, I'll often buy in for $300 rather
than the $500 maximum. In previous columns I pointed out that playing
a shorter stack than your opponents bestows a couple of inherent
advantages. So, when I first sit down in a game, while I still know
relatively little about my opponents, I harness those advantages by

playing short. Usually after an orbit or two, I top-up my stack to the table
maximum. But occasionally if I think I'm better off playing short, I won't
buy more. Buying in for less than the maximum gives you flexibility:
Before any hand you can always buy more chips, but you can never
take chips off the table.
I also play tight. I personally find that I'm more observant when I'm not in
a hand than when I am. Perhaps the emotional involvement clouds my
thinking, but my hand reading is sharper and my strategic thinking is
cleverer when my money isn't on the line. So unless I get dealt
something obviously worth playing, I sit out the first 10 hands or so and
let my brain focus totally on profiling my opponents and formulating
strategies.
What sorts of things am I looking for? First, I want to know what the
"standard" preflop raise size is and how often people call it. In online
games, initial preflop raises generally stay fairly small, but live games
frequently will have their own standard size that can range from three
times the big blind to 10 times or even more. (I've played in $1-$2
games in which players were routinely opening for $25 or $30.) I don't
always stick to the standard raise - not at all, in fact - but I need to know
what the other players expect and what looks ordinary and out-of-theordinary to them. I also want to know how many players call preflop
raises. Let's say two players limp in a $2-$5 game, and then someone
makes it $30. Are those limpers likely to call the raise or fold? Should
the raiser expect one opponent or four? These observations help me to
determine what hands I'll raise preflop and how big a raise I'll make.

Next, I'll look for a player who seems to be playing very loosely. If
someone limps in and calls a raise more than once, I'll begin to focus on
him. Not only are loose opponents very profitable, but also since they
enter so many pots, it's likely that I'll play hands against them.
When I focus on a player, I try to develop a model for his post-flop
decision-making. Just because someone is loose preflop doesn't mean
he'll be loose throughout the hand. Some players are quite the opposite,
in fact; they are happy to see the flop for a raise or reraise with a weak
hand, but reluctant to play for big post-flop bets without a monster.
That's my favorite kind of opponent, so I'm always delighted to see that
pattern. I'll suspect such a player if I see him call a few preflop raises,
but then fold to flop or turn continuation-bets.
Some loose players aren't so obliging. If they aren't folding, I try to figure
out what sorts of hands they're calling with. Do they call the flop
automatically, even if it seems they've missed? Do they call outsized
bets with draws? (Just recently, within my first 10 hands at the table, I
saw a loose player call a $900 all-in bet on the turn in a $200 pot with
just a flush draw. Naturally, he got there on the river.)
I also look for tricky or aggressive players. When your opponents are
docile, waiting for strong hands to make big bets or raises, you can get
away with a lot of shenanigans. For instance, if it looks like no one
wants a $40 pot, you can bluff only $5 or $10, saving considerable
money when you get called. Or if you have a decent top pair but don't
want to face a big bet, you can make a smallish value-bet, confident that
you'll be raised only by better hands and called by the ones you beat.

These shortcut plays can turbocharge your win rate in a soft $1-$2 or
$2-$5 game.
Against aggressive players, however, they can backfire. Tricky players
will sniff out your weakness and pressure you with bluffs and thin valueraises. So I try to figure out which players won't punish me for "getting
out of line," and which ones might, and I don't use the shortcuts against
the dangerous players.
That's my ritual when I begin a game. I buy in short, knowing that I can
always buy more chips but can't take chips off the table. I throw away
most of my early hands, and I spend my mental energy on identifying
game conditions (especially how much people are raising preflop and
how often they're calling) and profiling a few interesting-looking players.
If someone seems particularly loose, I'll watch his post-flop play and try
to develop a model for how he makes decisions. Then I'll tailor my
strategy to exploit his mistakes. All the while I'm on the lookout for
dangerous players who might prevent me from using some of my more
obvious ploys.
In my next few columns, I'll put these ideas into practice, choosing some
hypothetical game conditions and explaining how I'd react to them.

A Foolproof Strategy for Wild Games

Buy in a little shorter and get your money in early with
good hands
by Ed Miller | Published: Dec 05, 2007

Recently I was in a crazy $2-$5 no-limit hold'em game. I could tell it was
a crazy game even before I watched one hand. The maximum buy-in
was $500, but at least $8,000 was on the table. Four players each had
more than $1,500. Either the game had been going with the same
lineup for a very long time or people were playing a lot of all-in pots,
sloshing money around to one another (and rebuying over and over).
While not completely reliable, the amount of money on the table is a
reasonable indicator of how aggressive the game is. If all of the stacks
are short and medium, expect a quiet, perhaps even weak-tight game. If
everyone is deep, you probably should expect fireworks. If one player is
really deep and everyone else has a normal-size stack, there's a good
chance the deep player is loose and aggressive. It's not always the case
- he could be deep just because he got really lucky or because he's
been glued to the seat for 48 hours (look for 32-ounce coffee cups and
bloodshot eyes) - but loose-aggressive players are the most likely ones
to build deep stacks in a game with a maximum buy-in.
Back to my crazy $2-$5 game. Usually I would buy in for the maximum,
$500, to give myself the best chance to win a big pot. But I wanted to try
out a strategy that I consider foolproof for beating crazy no-limit games.
I bought in for $300, 60 big blinds. Last issue, I said that I often buy in
for around that much to scope out a game. After all, I can buy more

chips before any hand, but I can never take money off the table.
But this buy-in was a little different, because the foolproof strategy relies
on a short buy-in in order for it to work. In a crazy game, many players
will play very loosely preflop, even for a raise. After watching a few
hands (and after losing my first buy-in right off the bat with pocket jacks
against 6-5 on a 6-5-2 flop), I saw that the "standard" preflop raise at the
table was to $30-$40, and, typically, between three and six people
would call it. So, a typical hand would see five or six players to the flop
for around $150 - a crazy game, indeed.
Naturally, if five or six players are seeing every flop, their standards are
none too high. Many players were playing (for raises) any two suited
cards, nonsuited connectors, and hands like K-7 offsuit. Now, if
everyone at the table has $2,000 in front of him, and if everyone is
playing loose like this, the low standards don't actually hurt anyone. To
get an advantage in poker (or to get taken advantage of), someone
needs to adjust his strategy to exploit the weaknesses. If no one is
taking advantage of it, playing loose is harmless.
But the foolproof strategy is designed to take advantage of it. First, you
don't have $2,000 in front of you. You have only $300, making the $30
preflop bet a sizable 10 percent of your stack. And, by the elegant
symmetry of the table-stakes rule, it's also 10 percent of all of your
opponents' stacks when they're playing against you. (Remember, their
extra money is irrelevant when they're playing against you. It's as if it
weren't even on the table.)

Playing K-7 offsuit for 1 percent of the stacks can work out fine. Playing
it for 10 percent is a recipe for disaster. They simply can't outflop or
outplay you often enough to make up for building such a big pot with
such a stinker of a hand.
So, what's the foolproof strategy? Buy in for 40 to 60 big blinds. Wait for
strong starting hands: pocket pairs, big aces, and K-Q. In position, you
can add some more hands. Ask yourself, "Is this hand better than what
my opponents are probably playing, or am I playing this to try to get
lucky?" If you're playing to get lucky, don't play. For instance, if you see
the 8

, throw it away. It can be a good hand when the stacks are

deep and you have some control over your opponents, but it will only
cost you money in a wild and woolly game.
So, you're waiting for good hands. If you have a medium or big pocket
pair, or two big cards, raise preflop. With small pocket pairs or on the
button with your somewhat weaker hands, you can just limp.
If the pot is raised and you hit the flop well, move all in. For instance,
let's say you raise to $35 preflop with the K

and five players call.

The pot is $210 before the flop, and you have $265 remaining. The flop
comes Q

. If everyone checks to you, push all in. Even if

someone bets in front of you, push all in. The pot is too large to consider
folding a hand as strong as yours. Indeed, that's what makes this
strategy "foolproof." Your goal is to get your money in early with good
hands, so that there are no tough decisions. You aren't relying on your
hand-reading skills or your creativity to give you an advantage; you're
relying on raw math.

That's the basic idea. Obviously, you won't push with every hand on
every flop. If you raise preflop with pocket jacks and the flop comes A-K6, check and fold. If you have A-K and the flop comes J-9-7, check and
fold. If you limped in preflop with pocket fives and the flop comes Q-103, check and fold. But if you connect solidly with the flop, the pot will be
big enough and your stack will be small enough that you can just put
your money in and be confident that, over time, your bets will earn you
money.
You can mix it up a little bit. For instance, you can try limp-reraising if
you get a strong hand in early position. Or, you can try a squeeze-bluff if
a loose player raises and a few people call. For example, if someone
raises to $40 and three people call, you can try moving all in with the J
9

. If no one calls, you win $160 for your $300 risk. If you get

called, you're getting 3-to-2 on your money, enough to compensate you

even if you run into A-K.
The reason many people have trouble in wild games is that they
repeatedly leave themselves in a no man's land. They flop a decent
hand, but then the big bets start pouring in, and they second-guess
themselves. By buying in a little shorter, you can get your money in with
confidence and with a mathematically guaranteed, foolproof advantage.

Crushing Wild No-Limit Hold'em Games

The foolproof strategy in action
by Ed Miller | Published: Dec 19, 2007

Wild games give many players fits. The betting gets so big, so fast, it
takes them out of their comfort zone. "Sure, this top pair is better than
what I usually see out of my opponents, but do I really want to bet $500
on it?"
If you avoid wild games, though, you're missing out on some of the
easiest poker money there is. Last issue, I outlined my foolproof
strategy for beating wild games. The basic idea is to buy in somewhat
short, 40 to 60 big blinds, wait for strong starting hands, and get your
money in fast preflop or on the flop. It's foolproof because if you do
faithfully wait for the good hands and keep your stack short, you
eliminate the chance that you'll get outplayed by your crazy, but
sometimes clever, opponents. They may intimidate you or read your
hands well, but they can't outmaneuver the math.
Here are a couple of examples of the foolproof strategy in action:
You have the A

on the button in a $2-$5 blinds game. Your stack

is around $250 (50 big blinds). A loose player opens for $30, and three
players call. Move all in. It's a no-brainer. Obviously, you're at least
going to call, which would make a pot of $157. You can raise $220 more
for the chance to win without a fight, or you can just call and hope to
catch a pair against four (or more) opponents. Overall, you're much
better off trying to pick up the sizable pot immediately.

Some of you may be saying, "I don't like it. This is just another guy who
likes to overplay A-K." But I assure you, it's not overplaying; indeed, not
moving in would be a big mistake. It's all because of the pot size
compared to the stack size. You intentionally bought in short, so while
your raise is all in, it's not for that much actual money. And because of
the loose raise and several loose calls, there's a lot of dead money in
the pot.
The only hands you're concerned about are A-A and K-K. If someone
with 6-6 calls you, it might appear at first to be a "coin flip," but it's really
not. Sure, you'll be about 50-50 to win the pot, but you're risking $250 to
win $370 (or even more, depending on who calls). Getting 3-to-2 on an
even-money shot is a terrific outcome! Don't disparage it with the term
coin flip. If I could flip coins over and over while getting 3-to-2 each time,
in a month I'd be the richest man in the world.
So, you're really worried only about A-A and K-K. Those hands aren't
likely. The original raiser is loose, so he could have any number of
hands. And the callers are even less likely to have a monster. This is a
soft situation, and it's a perfect place to pounce with impunity.
Indeed, I'd move all in here with A-Q, or 8-8, as well. And depending on
how wild the game really is, I might do it when even weaker. See, I told
you the strategy is foolproof. Even a fool can move all in with A-K after a
raise and a few calls.
Here's another example: You have the K

on the button. The

same loose raiser opens for $25, and this time only one player calls.
You call with your $250 stack. The big blind calls. The flop comes K
3

. The blind checks, and the preflop raiser bets $50. The next

player calls. Move all in again. You'd obviously at least call, which would
make the pot $250. You have only $175 more, so you can make a
natural raise of three-quarters of the pot size to protect your top pair. In
this wild game, you may get called by weaker kings, by flush draws, or
possibly even by weaker hands. Don't worry about whether your top pair
is good or not; there's more than enough in the pot already to
compensate you for those times that you run into a better hand.
Again, it's the foolproof strategy at work. If you had bought in for more,
you might have had a tougher flop decision. You would think twice about
losing $600 or $1,000 in this $200 pot with just top pair with a moderate
kicker. But your short buy-in makes the play automatic.
Wild games cause some people trouble because their hand-reading
skills get out of whack. It feels sort of like playing "blind." Add in the big
and fast betting, and crazy games can present some problems. While
buying in full can help you get the most out of wild games if you're
already a master at playing them, buying in short is the key to a
foolproof strategy. Limit your exposure to the crazy betting, and get your
money in fast - preflop and on the flop. Doing that enables you to
harness the built-in advantage of playing better hands. You can ride that
advantage to a solid, long-term winning strategy.

Beating No-Limit Hold'em Games With

Just a Chip and a Chair
A theoretical discussion that's worth the effort
by Ed Miller | Published: Jan 02, 2008

My last few columns have been about the advantages that short stacks
have over deep stacks in no-limit hold'em and about how to harness
those advantages to beat wild games. I want to step back now and
explore what I mean by the advantage a short stack gives you.
A few issues back, I said that short stacks have two main advantages
over deeper stacks: They avoid mixed-stack play, and they gain fold
equity without risk. Strategies differ depending on the stack sizes: You
might play a hand very differently with 200 big blinds than you would
with 40 big blinds. So, if you have two opponents, one with 200 big
blinds and one with 40 big blinds, oftentimes you have a problem. You
can't play perfectly against either of them for fear that the other one will
get the better of you. So, you have to compromise. Mixed-stack
"compromises" ultimately cost you money. If you play short, generally
you will never have to play these mixed-stack situations, and thus will
never have to compromise.
Furthermore, if you are the short stack against two deep stacks,
sometimes your opponents will still be duking it out in a side pot after
you've gotten all in. If one gets the other to fold, you've gained winning
chances without risking anything extra. That's a bonus you'll get only if
you're a short stack.

Typically, I like practical poker advice. Theoretical discussions make my

eyes glaze over. But I'm going to break that pattern here by going
theoretical for a bit. I think it's worth the effort.
Let's say you are playing in a sixhanded game against five copies of
yourself. You play well with deep and short stacks, and your opponents
play exactly as you do. It's a $1-$2 no-limit hold'em game, and you each
buy in for $200 (and rebuy every time you dip below $200). Thankfully,
this game isn't raked. If you play it for a long time, you should expect to
break even, and you should expect the same for each of your five
opponents. Getting a long-term edge in poker depends on imbalances.
It depends on exploiting weaknesses. If you play the same way your
opponents do, you won't have an edge, and ultimately you'll just break
even. So, you against five copies of yourself is a break-even game for
everyone.
Now let's say you are playing in a sixhanded game against five copies
of yourself, but you buy in for $100 while your opponents all buy in for
$200. You play only three hours at a time, so after every three hours of
play, the stacks are reset to their original sizes. You should expect to
make a profit in this game. Even though you're playing against players
as good as yourself, the inherent advantages of playing a short stack
will win the day and make you money over time.
Now let's say you are playing in a sixhanded game against five copies
of yourself, and you are allowed to buy in for $2 (just a chip and a chair)
while your opponents all buy in for $200. You always rebuy for $2 if you
go broke, and after three hours, all of the stacks are reset to their

original sizes. You still should expect to make a profit at the expense of
your normal-stacked opponents! Perhaps this conclusion seems
ridiculous to you. After all, how can you "beat the blinds" if all you have
is one big blind in your stack?
When you play with one big blind, the table-stakes rule says that your
opponents play with only one big blind, as well, when they're in a hand
with you. Imagine a game in which you play against five copies of
yourself and everyone has only $2. It's a break-even game for
everyone. Sure, someone for this hand has the crippling disadvantage
of posting the blind, but that will rotate for the next hand, and eventually
everyone will share the burden of the blinds equally. Since no money
leaves the table and no one has an inherent advantage, everyone
breaks even.
Because of the table-stakes rule, however, when you play with $2, it is,
to you, as if everyone were playing with just $2. Sure, they have more
money with which they play against other players, but to you that money
is irrelevant. So, if you would break even at a table full of $2 stacks, you
will at least break even against bigger stacks. But you'll actually do
better than that, as the advantages of a short stack will once again kick
in. For instance, let's say you limp in, someone raises, the blinds fold,
and you're heads up. The pot is $7, and you have only one opponent.
You're getting 5-to-2 on your money, and you have to beat only one
player. Those are very attractive odds, and they come from the shortstack advantage.
When I say that short stacks have a natural advantage, this effect is

what I'm talking about. Obviously, you won't find yourself in a sixhanded
game against five copies of yourself very often, so one might dismiss
this entire exercise as impractical. But it's not. Sure, if you're the best
player at a table full of gamblers looking to drop their stack on the first
gutshot they see, you'll probably make the most by buying in for the
maximum and waiting for your payday. But if you find yourself in a wild
game full of cagey players (and plenty of these exist), remember that
you can get the best of a table of players who are just as good as you
merely by buying in short.
There are two other real-life lessons from this mythical game against
five copies of yourself. First, when you're in a tournament and you have
just a tiny stack, don't give up! You may have lost most of your winning
chances, but remember that your remaining chips are more powerful
and more valuable than they might at first seem. Second, don't take the
short stacks too lightly. If you try to "bully" them too much with loose
raises, you just may be playing into their hands.
So, while you perhaps shouldn't try to buy in to every game for just one
big blind, know that if you could and if you tailored your strategy to make
the most of your miniature buy-in, your chip and chair would ultimately
rule the day.

Conquering Crazy Games

Four simple steps
by Ed Miller | Published: Jan 16, 2008

Several issues ago, I gave you a foolproof strategy to beat wild no-limit
hold'em games by buying in short. Since then, a number of readers
have asked me the natural question, "So, I use your strategy and double
up. Then what?"
Good question. Fortunately, the strategic ideas stay much the same.
Just follow these four simple steps:
Prepare Yourself Mentally to Get Stacked
You will get stacked in crazy games. It's not uncommon to get stacked
two or three times in a session. You can't protect yourself from this. If
you plan your strategy around not getting stacked, you will lose. Sure,
you won't lose it all in one hand, but if you refuse to get all in, over a
series of hands you will eventually lose it all. Wild players will escalate
the betting and challenge you to play all-in pots. Don't hide from it;
embrace it. Big pots are fun, after all. They're even more fun when you
have the edge, which you will if you keep reading.
Always bring at least five buy-ins with you to the cardroom. If that's too
much money, drop down in stakes. If you can't drop down, buy in for
less. You are far better off splitting your $300 into six $50 buy-ins than
you are buying in for $200 and playing like a wimp.

Play for Made Hands, Not Draws

In crazy games, a large percentage of the money gets bet preflop and
on the flop. If you've bought in short, you might be all in on the flop. But
even with 100 big blinds or deeper stacks, oftentimes, half or more of
your stack will be bet by the flop, and you'll essentially be committed to
your hand. You don't have time to draw. If you're playing $1-$2 with
$200 stacks and it's $20 four ways preflop and $80 on the flop, you've
likely already passed the point of no return.
For instance, let's say five players limp, and you make it $20 to go with
A-Q. Four players call, so there's $100 in the pot. The flop comes A-J-8
with two of a suit. Everyone checks to you. You could move all in
immediately. Or, depending on the situation, you could bet
approximately the size of the pot. But by betting less, you're not holding
back so that you can fold if things get a little scary. That money is going
in eventually, just not this minute. If a scary turn card comes and
someone else bets, you're calling. This is a crazy game, after all, and in
crazy games, people do crazy things. You have only $80 left, and
there's already at least $380 in the pot. There's no folding.
That's why you want made hands, not draws. Even if the stacks are 100
or 150 big blinds, your most critical "should I stay or should I go"
decisions will still come on the flop. You want to make that decision
when holding a flopped set or top pair, not a gutshot draw or bottom
pair.
Keep an Eye Out for Dead Money

Dead money makes crazy games worth playing. What's dead money?
It's all of those preflop calls made by people with hands like 7-6 that
make gutshots or bottom pair. If you're playing $1-$2 and you see the
action go raise to $15, call, call, call, you can be fairly certain that a lot
of that $60 pot is dead money.
It's dead because those callers generally can't back up their $15 with
the rest of their stack. Take advantage of that fact by putting in reraises
with hands with which you might not normally think of trying them.
For instance, I was in a wild $2-$5 game once with about a $500 stack.
Before the flop, a player limped, and I also limped with pocket deuces.
The next player made it $50 to go and got five calls back to me. I moved
all in.
You might think I was crazy. As many people are happy to point out
when I relate the hand, deuces are either a "coin flip" or are way behind
a bigger pair. If I had gotten called, I likely would have been a significant
underdog.
But the dead money makes the play. Whenever five players have
entered the pot, you can be certain that many of them have weak
hands. They called the $50 with 9-7 or A-4 or K-10, hoping to catch a
good flop. Unfortunately, that's too much initial risk to take with those
hands. Since you know that your opponents figure to have weak hands,
you have a good chance to pick up all of the dead money.

After I moved all in, the initial raiser thought for a bit and folded. The
next four players all folded quickly. The final player, who originally
limped in from under the gun, thought for a long time. He kept repeating,
"I know you don't have a big hand," and, "I probably have the best
hand," to try to rattle me. Eventually, he too folded, showing me his K-Q.
Given that I likely would have at least called the original $50 with my
deuces, I risked $450 more for the chance to win the $350 pot
immediately. Even if the K-Q player had called, I still would have made
out well for the hand. I'd have been a very slight favorite, and I'd have
been risking $500 to win $750. Getting 3-to-2 odds on an even-money
shot is nice, though not quite as nice as winning without a fight. Either
way, my all-in move had a strong upside, and it was financed by the
dead money.
Act Decisively
Beating wild games is about taking calculated risks for big chunks of
your stack. Don't chicken out! There was a time in my no-limit career
when I would have talked myself out of the deuces play. "I limp after a
limper, and now all of a sudden I represent pocket aces? No one's going
to believe me. Someone's going to call with a pair, I just know it."
The fear is justified. The story could have ended very differently, and in
a future hand when I try it again, I may get the play stuffed back in my
face. But that's how you win. It's not taking the sure thing that makes
you a great player. Everyone knows how to take the sure thing. It's
taking the risk the good risk that other players either never think of

or talk themselves out of that enables you to stand above the crowd.
So, the formula is fairly simple. Stick to pocket pairs or big cards before
the flop. Look for opportunities when you know the pot is fat with weak
calls, and then seize the moment by moving in preflop with your small
pocket pair or on the flop with your modest top pair. And if and when you
fall on your face and the pot goes the wrong way, hold your head high,
get out your wallet, and shout, "Rebuy!"

Three No-Limit Hold'em Plays

Try them today
by Ed Miller | Published: Jan 30, 2008

The unwillingness to try new things dooms many poker players to

lackluster results. It's very easy to develop a style, a pattern of play, and
just follow it without thinking. How do you play? If you flop a set, do you
always check it on the flop? If you flop top pair, do you always make a
small raise to "see where you're at"? In similar situations, do you always
tend to adopt a similar approach? If you're honest with yourself, the
answer is probably that you do tend to play on "autopilot" much of the
time.
Unfortunately, if you never try new things, you'll never improve. Unless
you're consistently taking thousands of dollars per month out of your
game, chances are that you don't play perfectly. You do stuff wrong. So
the next time you play, why not try to break your pattern? Force yourself
to try out something you don't normally do. You might be surprised with
how well it works. I suggest trying out these three plays the next time
you're at the table.
An All-In Semibluff
Do you usually play your draws passively? If you flop a flush or straight
draw, do you immediately start thinking, "Hmm, do I have odds to call?"
Do you typically check and call, perhaps occasionally throwing in the
occasional cheeky flop bet? Try going for the full monty next time. Push
all in.

Here's an example: You're playing $1-$2 and everyone has around a

$200 stack. An early-position player makes it $10 to go, and one player
calls. You call with the K

on the button. The big blind calls.

There's $41 in the pot, and you have $190 remaining.

The flop is Q

, giving you a flush draw, an overcard, and a

runner-runner straight draw. The preflop raiser bets $30, and the next
player folds. Try moving all in for $160 more.
Obviously, it's not guaranteed to work. Your opponent might have A-Q
(or maybe even better) and call. It's a calculated risk, but it's a fairly
solid one. Your flush draw will come in at least one time in three, and
sometimes catching a king will also be enough to win.
There are a couple of rules of thumb. Don't try it if your raise will be
more than twice the size of the pot. In this example, there was $41 in
the pot preflop, $30 from your opponent, and $30 worth of call from your
push, making the pot $101. Your raise was $160 more, less than twice
the $101 pot.
Don't try it if someone has shown exceptional strength in the hand. If a
really tight player who never reraises preflop without pocket aces
reraises preflop, don't try it. If there's a bet and a raise to you on the
flop, don't try it. Try it only when the action is "normal," as whenever
that's the case, there's a good chance that your opponents won't have
the hand strength to look you up.
A River Value-Bet

A lot of no-limit players, if they flop a pair, will bet once on the flop and
then check it down on the turn and river. It's a safe option, but it also
wastes a lot of value. If you're a chronic pair checker-downer, try a river
value-bet next time out.
For example, let's say you have the A

10

in the big blind. Again, it's

a $1-$2 game with $200 stacks. Two players limp, the small blind folds,
and you check. There's $7 in the pot. The flop comes K

10

giving you middle pair. You bet $5, hoping either to win immediately or
to get called by a weaker hand. The first player folds, and the second
calls. The turn is the 8
river is the 7

. You check, and your opponent checks. The

. Try a value-bet of maybe $10 or so.

Your opponent called your small bet, with position, on the flop. That play
doesn't necessarily represent strength. But since you're out of position
and don't have much hand yourself, you check the turn. When your
opponent checks, also, it suggests a weak or moderate made hand
(likely no better than a weak king) or a draw. When another blank
comes on the river, there's a fairly good chance that you have the best
hand. In addition, with all the weakness you've shown, your opponent
may not be able to resist seeing a showdown with a small pair for just
$10 more.
This may seem like small-time stuff. After all, we're talking about only
$10. But when I play, I see one player after another check down decent
pairs with which they could have won an extra $10, $20, or $50 if they'd
had the guts to bet it. All of that money adds up. It's not about winning
$10 on this hand; it's about learning to find all the situations where you

can win a little extra.

A Double-Barrel Bluff
Bluffs and golf swings have something in common: follow-through is a
key to both. Throwing out one $25 bet may seem like a cheap way to try
to pick up a pot. But sometimes it just isn't enough, and you need to
back that first bet up with another one.
If you're a chronic chicken when it comes to backing your bluffs up with
the big money, throw caution to the wind the next time you play. Give it a
shot.
Here's an example: Everyone folds to you on the button, and you have
the 10

. You make it $15 to go in your docile $2-$5 game. Only

the big blind calls. The flop comes K

, giving you a flush

draw. Your opponent checks, you bet $20 into the $30 pot, and he calls.
The turn is the A

, and your opponent checks again. Try a $50 or $60

bluff into this $70 pot.

Your opponent could have called the flop with a wide range of hands.
Good hands like a set, two pair, or top pair are all possible. So are

weaker hands like a smaller flopped pair or pocket pair, a flush draw, or
a gutshot draw. The offsuit ace on the turn weakens most of your
opponent's possible holdings. In addition, since you raised preflop, your
opponent has to worry that you might hold an ace. Your second barrel
has a good chance to win immediately.
Force yourself out of your comfort zone. Sharp poker doesn't feel "right"
at first. It's not cozy. It may even make your stomach queasy. Push
yourself. Try out these three plays at your next session. If they don't
work out, try them again the next time - and again the time after that. If
you practice them enough and incorporate them into your game, you
may be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Plays That Tip Your Hand

Three no-limit hold'em 'giveaways'
by Ed Miller | Published: Feb 13, 2008

Being too readable can really hurt your no-limit hold'em game. Winning
no-limit hold'em depends on fear and surprise. If your opponents are
uncertain about your holding and fear the hands you could have, you
can steal a lot of pots. And if they are surprised by what you have when
you get all in, you can win some monster pots. If you're too readable,
you won't have fear or surprise on your side, and your results will suffer.
Readable opponents are always my favorite. I don't care if they are tight
or loose; if I know what they have a lot of the time, I will pick them apart.
One key to reading many players is to pick up on plays that I call
"giveaways." They are specific plays that are very reliable and
immediately enable me to narrow my read to just a few possibilities.
Here are three common plays that I consider giveaways:
The Weak Continuation-Bet
A player opens for $20 in a $2-$5 game. The button calls, and the big
blind calls. Everyone has at least $500. The flop comes K

The big blind checks, and the preflop raiser bets $25. This less-thanhalf-pot bet is often a telltale sign of weakness. The board is big and
coordinated. The preflop raiser got called in two places and believes he
should make a continuation-bet. But he's not feeling good about his
hand or chances, so he throws out a small bet. If you're on the button,
raising to $75 or so will quite often win this pot immediately.

Most players - if they flopped a hand they were proud of, like A-K would bet more on this semidangerous flop. They'd want action with
their good hand, and they'd want to protect it. If they flopped a monster,
like top set, they might underbet or even check. But even if they made a
smallish bet every time they flopped a monster, they'd still have a weak
hand far more often than not (weak hands being far more common than
monsters).
Some very sophisticated players have learned to turn this play around,
betting small intentionally to invite a bluff-raise. But many players aren't
sophisticated and are happy to give away their hand strength with a
weak bet.
The Turn Give-up
This giveaway is similar to the weak continuation-bet and is just as
simple. A player opens for $20 preflop, and just the button calls. Both
players have more than $500. The flop comes K

raiser bets $30, and the button calls. The turn is the 4

. The preflop

, and the raiser

checks. This too is generally a giveaway for a weak hand.

Often, the preflop raiser will fire one barrel on the flop, hoping to take
the pot down. When called, he'll give up on the turn and just check-fold.
Again, some players have learned to reverse this giveaway by
sometimes check-raising the turn. Since any player, no matter how
good, will sometimes play a weak hand exactly this way (raise preflop,
bet the flop, and give up if called), you should indeed sometimes mix up
this pattern by check-raising the turn with good hands.

The Preflop Overcall

Someone raises (maybe after a limper or two). Another player calls.
Then, someone else calls. This third player has overcalled - called a
raise after someone already called. For a large majority of amateur
players, this preflop overcall is a giveaway for a marginal or drawing
hand. It could be a small pocket pair, it could be suited connectors, it
could be a suited ace, or it could even be the A

. But it's not

pocket aces, and it's not pocket kings. Why am I so sure? Because
most players would always reraise with these hands. People sometimes
get tricky with big pairs when they're first in the pot, or even when
they're heads up against a raiser. But once multiple players have
entered the pot, most players play their monsters "straight," raising and
reraising, given the opportunity.
This giveaway also usually holds for overlimps - a limp after one or
more limpers - but it's not quite as reliable.
There are two ways to use this information. First, you can try a preflop
squeeze, whereby you put in a big bluff-reraise in a pot with one or
more overcallers. Your bluff is more likely than average to work
because, by overcalling, your opponents have defined their hands as
likely too weak to call a big raise.
Second (and more rarely), you can sometimes pick off some
spectacular bluffs. Let's say a loose-aggressive player open-raises, and
three players call. You make a big reraise from a blind with pocket tens.
(Assume the stacks are such that this raise makes sense.) The original
raiser folds, as do several of the callers. But the last caller, a tricky

player who reads hands and sometimes makes plays, moves all in from
the button. You can call, because this play is more likely than not to be a
bluff. Your opponent almost certainly wouldn't overcall from the button
with A-A or K-K. She couldn't expect you to raise from one of the blinds,
since you typically don't. She called with a medium-strength hand that
plays well in multiway pots. But after you raised (a possible squeeze,
she's thinking), and everyone else folded, she saw an opportunity. She
reraised as a "resqueeze." Her original overcall is a reliable enough
giveaway that it's safe to call. You won't run into a better pair very often.
This last example is an exception to a general hand-reading principle. If
your opponent takes an early action for small money that suggests one
thing, but a later action for larger money that suggests another, the later
big-money action is far more likely to represent what your opponent
actually has. Limp-reraising follows this principle: Your opponent limps
early, a seemingly weak move, but then reraises strongly for much more
money, implying a strong hand. Usually, your opponent will indeed have
the strong hand. It's a principle that will serve you well. This overcalling
giveaway is an exception, however, because for many players, it's
nearly 100 percent accurate. Many players will literally never with
pocket aces merely overcall a raise and three calls.
Final Thoughts
You can use these giveaways in two ways. First, look for other players
making them in your next session. Chances are, you'll see each of them
a number of times. By pairing your sharp reads with the guts to try a
bluff or two, you can take your no-limit game to the next level.

Second, watch your own play for these giveaways. Don't try to eliminate
the plays entirely from your play. After all, sometimes you have to give
up on the turn. Just reverse the plays sometimes or mix things up
enough so that you won't be an easy target for any of your opponents
who may have read this column, too.

Plays That Tip Your Hand

Three more no-limit hold'em 'giveaways'
by Ed Miller | Published: Feb 27, 2008

All poker players like to think they're sneaky, but some aren't quite as
unpredictable as they think. In my last column, I discussed three
"giveaway" plays that will tell your opponents what kind of hand you
have - if they're paying attention. In this column, I have three more
giveaway plays for you to look for when you play.
The Fooling-Around Raise
This play has been around forever. I saw it in limit hold'em games, and
now I see it again in no-limit hold'em games. Only a few players do it,
but those who do tend to do it again and again. I'll call it the "foolingaround" raise.
Here's how it goes in no-limit: Some guy limps in, or maybe he calls a
regular-sized raise. Then, another player behind him raises. There might
be a call or two, and then our original caller decides to reraise. But it's
not a big reraise (that might imply a big hand). It's a small raise, perhaps
a minimum raise. Recently in a $1-$2 game, I saw this fool-around
raiser call $2, and then when it was $12 back to him, he made it $22 to
go. He had pocket threes.
Then, after a $10 raise and a call, I saw him make it $20 to go. He had
J-9 that time.
Then he limped in for $2, and I made it $15 with pocket queens. A tight

player called from one of the blinds (very likely a small or medium
pocket pair or A-K). The fool-around guy made it $30 to go. I reraised
$60 more. The tight player whined about wanting to see a flop and
folded. Then, the fool-around guy grinned and folded.
I've seen these fooling-around raises regularly for as long as I've been
playing. Again, only a small percentage of players make them, but those
who do tend to make them regularly. They usually choose drawing
hands, such as connectors or small pocket pairs. Be on the lookout.
They are very exploitable, so if you find one of them in your game,
rejoice.
The Nervous Raise
A player who typically makes preflop raises of $30 or so in a $5-$10
game makes it $60 to go from under the gun. For some players, this
raise screams one thing, "I have pocket jacks!" It could be tens, maybe
A-K, perhaps queens. But that's about it. And the prime suspect? Jacks.
The psychology is simple. The raiser is thinking, "I know that pocket
jacks is a good hand, but I hate it. I always seem to lose with it. I'd
rather everyone just fold so that I can pick up the blinds. Let me raise an
extra-large amount this time to help make that happen." The irony is that
the out-of-position, extra-large raise often just creates difficult situations
that a normal raise wouldn't. That's especially true if you call gleefully
behind them, knowing exactly what they have. But irony aside, for some
players, this nervous raise is a dead giveaway.
The Speech

If you play live, or if you've watched live play on TV, you've heard it. You
make a bet, and then your opponent goes into the tank. He starts
babbling. "You must have hit it. You hit it, huh? You made a flush. You
made the darn flush on me." Blah, blah, blah.
The speech means one of two things: Your opponent is genuinely in the
tank and is retching about whether to call or not, or he's Hollywooding,
has the nuts, and wants to seem weak so that he can get the last of
your cash.
The giveaway, then, is how your opponent reacts after the speech. If it's
the river and he just calls, he was honestly in the tank. If it's the river
and he raises, however, he was Hollywooding and actually has a
monster. People don't give the speech and then raise as a bluff. The
speech followed by aggression is a dead giveaway for a huge hand.
I played a hand recently that made me think of this giveaway. It was a
$2-$5 blinds game, and my opponent had about $450 total. I had him
covered. I had the 2

in the big blind and called a $5 raise in a

fourhanded pot. The flop came 7

checked around. The turn was the 2

called. The river was the 9

. I checked, and it was

, and I bet $35. Two players

, putting a possible straight and a backdoor

flush on board. I had a somewhat bluffy image (I thought so, at least) at

the time, so I bet $200, hoping to perhaps get a suspicious call. The
next player started with the speech. "You hit the backdoor flush, huh? I
knew I should have bet earlier. Darn flush." Blah, blah, blah.

After about a minute of the speech, he moved in for a little over $200
more! The other player folded, and I called. He showed 7-7 for the
flopped full house.
Giving the speech and then raising is such a strong giveaway for a
monster hand that it's getting close to correct for me to fold my full
house! I'm getting nearly 4-to-1 to call, but once he mentions that he's
"afraid" of the backdoor flush and then puts me all in, the worst hand he
really can have is the nut flush - or maybe a king- or queen-high flush.
And, of course, he could have a full house in numerous ways. With the
worst-possible full house, I'm a significant dog. Getting 4-to-1, I'm not
going to worry too much about it, and if my call was wrong, I don't think
it was too bad. But this example just shows the giveaway power of the
speech. If he had just quietly raised all in, I would have called and
expected to win. Since the speech came first, though, I was expecting to
lose when I called.
As a footnote, the speech becomes more reliable the later in the hand

you get. If your opponent hems and haws preflop, and then says, "I
guess I'm ready to go home now," as he pushes all in, that's not
necessarily pocket aces. It could still easily be, but sometimes your
opponent legitimately is on the fence about what to do, and just says,
"What the heck," and pushes. But on the river, no one hems and haws
legitimately and then pushes all in. If you hear the speech and then your
opponent moves in, he was putting you on.
Final Thoughts
I see giveaways frequently when I play. Sometimes all they do is
confirm what I was already planning to do, but occasionally they can
really change dramatically the way I play a hand. In particular, hearing
the speech on the river has helped me fold straights and flushes that I
never would have folded otherwise. Learning to use giveaways is a fun
and lucrative skill to add to your playing arsenal.

Fearsome Check-Raise Bluffs Made

Easy
Playing out of position
by Ed Miller | Published: Mar 12, 2008

Playing out of position in no-limit hold'em puts you at a big

disadvantage. Consequently, I recommend avoiding it as much as
possible. Does that bully in seat 4 keep raising your blind? For the most
part, I say, let him have it. When you're playing with $200 stacks, a
measly $2 blind isn't a big deal. And it's quite easy to lose a nice chunk
of your stack by trying to "take a stand" with a hand like J-7 after a 7
flops. So, I usually just fold the J-7 and wait until I have the button.
But you can't help but play out of position sometimes. Let's say that you
have K-Q in the big blind, and a loose-aggressive player raises from the
cutoff. You have too much hand to fold. Calling is good, as is reraising.
(I would choose one or the other depending on the specifics of the
situation.) Let's say that you call. Now, you're playing out of position.
The hand will continue most commonly as follows: You will miss the flop,
you will check, and your opponent will bet.
Aggressive players will continuation-bet the flop a large percentage of
the time. Some players will bet every time. If you simply fold every time
you miss, you are playing into your opponent's hands. To win your due,
you sometimes have to check-raise bluff.
But you definitely don't want to check-raise bluff every time. If you try

that, your opponents will catch on and your success rate will plummet.
So, you have to pick your spots. Here's my guide to choosing the best
situations:
Pick on Loose Players: Joe McRock has just opened from under the
gun. He is ultratight from up front, so you think he probably has pocket
aces, kings, queens, jacks, or A-K. One player calls, and you call from
the big blind with the 3

. The flop comes J

. You check,

Joe bets two-thirds of the pot, and the other player folds. This is a weak
opportunity for a bluff. Your opponent's range of hands is simply too
strong, on average, to bluff profitably.
This would be a much more attractive bluffing opportunity if the raiser
were loose. If you could expect the raiser to sometimes have hands like
the A

,8

, or K

, a check-raise bluff would work much

better.
Watch the Stack Sizes: Stack size is the most critical factor in nearly
every no-limit decision, and bluffing is no different. When you checkraise bluff, you don't want the stacks too shallow or too deep. You want
them just right.
They're too deep if your opponent might think that he can call your
check-raise and "wait and see" what happens later in the hand. For
instance, let's say that you're playing $1-$2 with $500 stacks. Someone
opens for $10, and you call from the big blind. The pot is $21. The flop
comes, you check, your opponent bets $15, and you check-raise to $50.
It's $35 to go to your opponent, but there's still more than $400 left in

the stacks. Your opponent may call with hands as weak as a gutshot or
a weak pair, reasoning that the betting hasn't really gotten "big" yet. If
you check-raise bluff with these deep stacks, you should be prepared to
sometimes fire another barrel later in the hand if you get called.
Now let's say that your opponent has a $60 stack. He opens for $10,
and you call. The flop comes, you check, he bets $15, and you checkraise to $50. Since that's all your opponent has left, he might well call
you with just modest draws or weak made hands, figuring that he can't
lose a whole lot even if he's beat.
You want the stacks to be deep enough for your opponent to fear losing
a big pot, but not so deep that he believes the betting isn't even big yet.
Attack Weak Bets: Your opponents will often give away information
about the strength of their hands as early as their flop bet. The natural
inclination for many players is to bet more with good hands and less
with weak ones. When they're weak and just want you to fold, these
players might bet half the pot. And when they're fairly strong and hoping
to protect their hand, they might bet closer to the full pot.
If you pick up on a pattern like this one, you can choose to check-raise
when your opponent makes a smaller bet and let it go against a bigger
one.
Leverage Dry Flops: A dry flop is one that naturally hits few hands. For
example, the 7

is an extremely dry flop. No flush or straight

draws are available, and to have a really strong hand, you need to hold

the card that people are least likely to raise preflop, a deuce. Your
opponent is far more likely to miss a dry flop than a coordinated one (for
instance, Q

10

), and therefore your bluff is more likely to

succeed.
Indeed, 7-2-2 is maybe even a little too dry to make for a perfect bluffing
flop (though it doesn't have to be perfect to be worth check-raising). It
has two problems. First, your opponent will likely have at least two
overcards, which may be enough to convince him to continue. Second,
your opponent, if he is thinking, will know that it's hard for you to have
hit the flop, as well, and may suspect a bluff and play back at you.

A flop like the K

is somewhat less dry, but it makes for a

great bluffing opportunity. If your opponent doesn't have either a king or

a fluke monster hand, you'll likely get the fold you want as long as the
other conditions are in place (namely, your opponent has a wide range

of hands, the stack sizes are right, and perhaps his continuation-bet
was on the weak side).
A Fearsome Check-Raise Bluff: So, that loose-aggressive player from
the opening example makes it $8 to go from the cutoff in a $1-$2 game
with $200 stacks. You call from the big blind with the K
comes J

. The flop

. You check, your opponent bets $10, and you make

it $35 to go. Your opponent folds instantly.

This well-timed bluff worked because:
1. Your loose opponent could have a wide range of weak starting hands.
2. The stack sizes threatened your opponent with a big loss if you
actually showed up with the 7 you were representing.
3. Your opponent's continuation-bet size didn't exude confidence in his
hand strength.
4. The board was a dry one that would hit only a relatively small
percentage of your opponent's possible holdings.
Keep these guidelines in mind, and you'll soon be winning your share of
pots when you happen to be playing out of position.

The Squeeze Play

A good way to mix up your play
by Ed Miller | Published: Mar 26, 2008

The squeeze play has a bit of a daring and clever feel to it. It's a bluff (or
semibluff) perpetrated against not one, but several opponents.
Someone bets, one or more players call, and you raise. When it works,
you feel like a champ, and you rake a big pot. When it doesn't work,
"Oops."
Here's a quick-and-dirty squeeze example:
You're playing $5-$10 no-limit hold'em with $1,000 stacks. A loose and
aggressive player makes it $30 to go. Two average players call. You're
in the big blind with the Q

. You raise to $150. Everyone folds, and

you pick up the pot.

The squeeze is a terrific weapon, and it's one that every no-limit player
should use. At first blush, it seems risky, since you're trying to bluff a
number of players at the same time. If any one of them calls, you're
toast. But actually, its risk/reward profile is often quite good. Here's why:
1. Since you're bluffing after a bet and several calls, the pot is bigger
than a "usual" bluff. In the above example, there's already $105 in the
pot when it's your action. Your bluff is $140 to win $105, so it has to
succeed only about 58 percent of the time to be profitable.
2. After you get past the initial raiser, oftentimes the callers will go down

easily. Calling tends to put an upper limit on hand strength. For

instance, the loose-aggressive raiser could have pocket aces (though
he would raise with lots of hands). The first caller could also possibly
have aces, but it's less likely. And the second caller is even less likely to
have aces. After all, few players would flat-call with aces after a raise
and a call. So, once you get lucky and the raiser folds, the callers (who
could only call the first time) often go down easily.
3. The initial raiser is "squeezed." That is, while the callers will usually
fold, sometimes they'll be sitting on a monster (or sometimes they'll just
be stubborn). If the callers didn't exist, the raiser could call with position,
closing the action. But since they do exist, the raiser could call, only to
get reraised or overcalled. That danger might induce the initial raiser to
fold a marginal calling (or reraising) hand.
An additional advantage to trying the occasional squeeze is that it
balances your play. If someone raises preflop and two players call, with
how many hands will you make a "straight" big reraise from the big
blind? Not many, only the very best. If you never try a squeeze, that big
blind reraise gives away far too much information about your hand.
When no-limit games first started being spread again in Vegas (in
2004), many of the "good" players in the games had this problem. If
they made a big reraise from the big blind, they had pocket aces or
kings every time. You can't play like that! You have to mix it up, and the
occasional squeeze is a great way to do that.
You can use the squeeze on any betting round, not just preflop. Indeed,

the play is equally useful after the flop. I remember a TV hand from
several years ago in which Gavin Griffin pulled off a remarkable
squeeze play. I don't recall the details of the hand, but the gist of it went
like this: They were playing the final table of a World Series of Poker
event, and all of the relevant stacks were deep. Gavin opened the pot
from middle position with 8-7. Someone called from the button, and the
big blind called. The flop came 6-6-5, giving Gavin an open-end straight
draw. Both of his opponents were excellent players. The big blind bet,
and Gavin called. Then, the button raised. The big blind called, and
Gavin made a big reraise squeeze! Both players thought, and eventually
folded.
This play relied on Gavin's opponents being tough players and excellent
hand-readers themselves. Gavin opened the pot, and the flop came 6-65. From Gavin's perspective, the big blind could have a wide range of
hands, including many bluffs. After all, how many "raising hands" does a
6-6-5 flop hit? His opponent could be betting nothing just trying to pick
up the pot.
Gavin had a straight draw, though, so he called. Then, the button raised.
Could it be a squeeze? It might be. The button had position, and neither
player had shown much strength yet on the 6-6-5 flop. He might be
trying a squeeze or putting in a raise with a weakish holding to define
his hand.
When the big blind called, it defined his hand much more strictly.
Obviously, he had something, or else he would have folded. But with
trips or a full house, he might have reraised again. So the call indicated

a hand of medium strength, with a lingering possibility of a monster.

Gavin took a shot by reraising big.
He knew that his opponents couldn't mistake his reraise for anything
other than a slow-played monster. The call-reraise play on a 6-6-5 flop
was unmistakably a huge hand: a full house or maybe A-6. His
opponents would need a similarly big hand to call. Given the action so
far, combined with the already large size of the pot, the squeeze had a
good risk/reward profile. He had a good chance of success, and he'd
win a big pot. And if he got called by trips, he'd have a chance to draw
out with a straight.
That squeeze relied on finely tuned hand-reading and solid opponent
familiarity. Most squeezes aren't so dramatic. There are two main
conditions for a squeeze to possibly work:
1. The player who made the original bet or raise is marked with a broad
range, including bluffs and other weak hands. Don't try to squeeze
someone who will bet the flop only with a set! Many aggressive players
will bet with lots of hands. They are your targets.
2. The calling players aren't so clueless that they'll just call the raise with
whatever they called the original raise. They have to know that a reraise
usually means business. Most players do.
Once those conditions are met, try the occasional squeeze. It will mix up
your play, and let you experience the unique poker satisfaction of
executing a well-timed bluff.

How Suited Connectors Cost You

Money
They're played too often
by Ed Miller | Published: Apr 09, 2008

You're playing $1-$2 no-limit hold'em at your local casino. Everyone

folds to you in middle position, and you limp in with the 9

. Another

player folds, and then someone with about a $150 stack raises to $10.
Everyone folds to you. You call, eager to see what prize the flop will
bring.
Does that story sound familiar to you? If it does, I fear that I'm the
bearer of bad news. Suited connectors are costing you money!
Most players play suited connectors too often and not-so-suited
connectors and suited not-so-connectors. We can be inclined to play
any of these hands if we're antsy to see some action.
Sometimes suited connectors are fine to play, but often they're not, and
it pays to know when is when. They're fine to play if and only if your
primary plan with them is to find a place to steal the pot. If you're going
in thinking, "Let's get lucky and hit the flop hard and stack these
donkeys," I think you're making two mistakes. First, you're
overestimating how often you'll hit the flop hard. You're a huge underdog
to flop two pair or better, which means that most of the time, "hitting the
flop hard" will mean flopping a draw. Draws can be good hands, but a lot
of their value comes from stealing equity.

Second, you're overestimating how much you'll win on average when

you do hit the board hard. Let's say you have the 6
and flop the K

, for instance,

. That's a decent flop, but not a great one.

Why? Because everyone and his brother will notice if a third heart
comes, and they'll be cautious, so you'll rarely win a monster pot by
making your flush. And when you do play a big pot, you'll find yourself
up against a bigger flush fairly often. Your big pot-winning chances are
generally better if you make a straight than if you make a small flush.
The bottom line is, small-card hands (excluding small pocket pairs)
aren't that great at winning huge pots. Sure, they win huge pots
sometimes, but A-K wins huge pots sometimes, too. When you play a
small-card hand, you should be thinking, "Maybe they'll let me slip into
the pot and then steal it."
I play a lot of hands on the button. I avoid stuff like J-4, but I often play
hands like 10-8 offsuit or 6-3 suited. I'll raise preflop with them.
Sometimes I'll even call a raise with them (usually only if the raiser is the
only other player in the pot, and is someone I believe I have control
over). My plan is to try to find a spot after the flop to steal. Maybe it'll be
as simple as, raise preflop, bet the flop, and win. Maybe it will be a more
complicated steal that relies on a read of weakness. Maybe I'll flop a
draw and try a big semibluff. Having the button is flexible and lets me
formulate new plans on the fly. But the majority of the pots I win when
playing these hands, I win by stealing, not by making a big hand.
In fact, when I do accidentally make a monster with one of the trashy
hands, I often end up just "stealing" the pot anyway. The harder I hit the

board, the less likely it is that my opponent hit it, too. You can't win a big
pot without your opponent's cooperation.
I don't touch any of these hands when out of position. And while 9-8
suited is better than 10-8 offsuit or 6-3 suited, it's not that much better. I
usually don't play 9-8 suited when out of position, either. It's harder to
steal when you don't have position. It's harder to play your draw when
you don't have position. It's harder to win a big pot when you don't have
position. You don't make your money playing out of position. It's that
simple.
Let's go back to the hand with which I started this column. You limp in
with 9-7 suited, a player with position and a $150 stack makes it $10 to
go, and you call. This is a bad situation for 9-7 suited. You're out of
position, so it will be hard to steal. If you do happen to hit the hand,
most of the time you'll have nothing more than a weak bottom or middle
pair. If you flop a flush draw, it will be a small one that could get you
stacked by a bigger flush. And even if you do happen to make a big
hand and get paid, you'll win only $150 on your $10 investment. That's a
decent score, but it's not enough to make up for all the small and
medium losses. When you strip away the hopes and dreams of flushes
and straights, all you really have is a mediocre hand, out of position.
So, what would I do with the 9

in middle position? I'd fold it the

first time around. If something came over me and I happened to throw

$2 in the first time around, I'd definitely fold it to the raise. And then I'd
wait for the button to come around to me before thinking again about
playing any of those small suited cards.

Playing Big Slick Against a Reraise

Consider pushing
by Ed Miller | Published: Apr 29, 2008

Recently, I was playing in a fairly loose $2-$5 live no-limit hold'em

game. An early-position player with about $300 limped in. I was two off
the button and made it $20 to go with the A

. The button, with

about $325 total, made it $75 to go. He was an unremarkable, slightly

loose player. The limper thought for a while, and then called. I had both
players covered.
1. How should I respond? Should I fold, call, raise a bit, or move all in?
2. What's my plan for the rest of the hand (should I need one)?
Answer those two questions for yourself before you read on.
I'll tell you what I did.
I pushed for $325 total, roughly a pot-sized $250 raise. The reraiser
folded fairly quickly. The limper/cold-caller lingered, then folded pocket
queens faceup.
Why did I push? It's in the fold equity: I turned my hand into a semibluff.
My all-in four-bet looks very much like aces to my opponents. Indeed, if
they'd read Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, they'd think it was almost a
certainty that I held aces. So, I can expect many players to fold good
hands, up to and including pocket queens.

Naturally, some will call with pocket queens and perhaps even weaker
hands. That's where the semibluff aspect comes in, as I still have solid
equity against those hands. (Indeed, I have so much equity against
pocket queens and worse that I'd be willing to call if they had gone all in,
instead, provided I knew they had queens or worse.)
At my turn to act, there's $177 in the pot. By pushing, I risk $280 more
against the $300 stack and $305 more against the $325 stack.
I think it's quite unlikely that the limper/cold-caller has aces or kings.
He's had two opportunities to raise and hasn't, and I find that the
overwhelming majority of the time, a player with those hands will find
either an initial raise or a limp-reraise. The way he thought about his
cold-call further confirmed my suspicions, as it seemed he was
genuinely concerned by the action, not putting on an act to conceal
strength. I think he's most likely to have a pocket pair, queens or lower.
He also may have unpaired cards such as the J

10

and simply be a

loose preflop caller.

Naturally, the preflop reraiser could have aces or kings, but given even
a relatively tight reraising range of pocket aces through nines and A-K,
he'll have me dominated only a modest fraction of the time (15 percent
of the time, in this instance). If he's a looser reraiser (and I thought he
might be at the time), it's fairly unlikely that I'm in real trouble.
So, I think that most of the time, let's say at least 75 percent of the time,
I'm not up against either aces or kings. In those situations, I have a very
profitable semibluff, risking $280 to win $177 with roughly 50 percent

equity when called. When I'm up against kings, I'm still OK, as I have
about 30 percent equity and I'm getting more than 1.5-to-1 from the pot.
It's not enough to break even, but it will help cushion the blow.
Calling makes little sense in this situation due to the stack sizes. If I
were to call, there'd be one pot-sized bet remaining, and I'd be first to
act on the flop. On an ace or king flop, I'd have good winning chances,
but the flop might scare off lower pairs. On a non-ace or king flop, I'd
have poorer chances, but I might risk getting bluffed by a weaker hand.
In any event, my opponents stand to gain more by seeing a flop than I
do.
Folding is the most natural alternative to pushing. If the reraiser were to
have an exceedingly tight range, folding might be the best play. As it
was, however, I thought the reraiser might be a bit loose, so I rejected
folding.
The stack sizes in this hand were very well-suited for pushing. Since
only one pot-sized bet remained after the preflop reraise, a final preflop
semibluff push was a natural play. If the stacks were a bit deeper,
however, I may have folded, as the risk of pushing might have been too
great. And if the stacks were deeper still, I may have called, hoping to
flop well and win a huge pot.
Also, if my opponents see me push all in with A-K, they may be more
likely in the future to call my preflop all-in bets with small and medium
pocket pairs, so I may make more money thereafter when I hold pocket
aces and kings.

This hand is not an isolated one-off; it represents an important concept.

Because it has decent equity against a number of potential calling
hands, A-K often makes for a powerful preflop all-in semibluff. In
general, if one or more players have cold-called a preflop raise (or
reraise, as in this example), they are potentially vulnerable targets for a
semibluff. So, the next time you have big slick, consider pushing against
a raise and some callers as long as the stacks aren't too deep. You may
be pleasantly surprised with the results.
For more examples of this concept, see Page 259 of my book (coauthored with David Sklansky) No Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practice.

Resisting the Raising Reflex in No-Limit

Hold'em
Often, calling isn't so bad
by Ed Miller | Published: May 14, 2008

No doubt, you've heard from many a person that the key to poker is
never to call. Raise or fold. If you can't raise, throw it away.
It's perhaps useful advice for a casual player who hasn't yet seen how
powerful aggression can be. But I think it's also very limiting advice, and
it completely fails to explain how to play a class of very common
situations.
Often, calling isn't so bad. This is especially true when you have
position, and there's still plenty of money behind. The ability to wait and
see is a very powerful positional weapon, and if you're overeager to get
your money in the middle, you'll forfeit it.
For instance, let's say we have Q-J in the cutoff with $500 in a $2-$5
game. A couple of players limp in, and we raise to $25. Everyone folds
to the big blind, who calls, as does one limper. The pot is threehanded
for $82.
The flop comes Q-10-7 with two clubs. The big blind checks, and the
limper bets $45. The action is on us. The flop bettor is an aggressive,
but not crazy, player. He would bet hands like flush and straight draws,
top pair, and perhaps even a weaker pair. But he would also bet hands
like two pair or a set. What should we do?

I would strongly consider just calling. The decent top pair probably isn't
strong enough to profitably play for stacks, and if we raise, the pot will
be large enough that the next bet will surely commit all of our money.
If we call, the big blind raises, and the flop bettor pushes all in, we have
an easy fold. If, as is more likely, the big blind folds and we're heads up
on the turn, we're doing fine. If a good card comes on the turn, like an
offsuit 4, and our opponent checks, we'll bet our hand for value. If a bad
card comes, like the A

, and our opponent makes a big bet, we'll fold.

If a good card comes and our opponent bets anyway, we'll have to make
a decision. Calling keeps us in the hand and enables us to gather more
information before we have to make a final decision for our stack. That's
the power of position.
Whenever you have position and there's lots of money behind, you're in
a flexible situation. Sometimes it's good to keep them guessing.
In limit hold'em, protecting your hand is a central strategy. If you have
top pair on the flop and someone bets into you, the large majority of the
time you should raise. One goal is to build a pot with the best hand. But
another important goal is to protect your hand - or really, to protect the
pot. Since the pot is generally large (maybe eight or 10 bets) compared
to the size of a raise (one bet), it's often worth it to throw in an extra
raise in an unclear situation to try to fold your opponents and
consolidate your winning chances. If you get reraised, it's still only one
more bet that, compared to the pot size, isn't too big a penalty.

Good limit hold'em players develop a flop raising reflex. They learn to
raise top pair, draws, middle pair, and sometimes overcards or even
worse. Since the pot is so big compared to the raise, it's the right thing
to do.
In no-limit, though, you need to unlearn that reflex and rethink some of
the aggression. Sometimes the pot is still large compared to the bets
(usually when the stacks are short or when a lot of money went in
preflop). In that case, it's often still best to push and pray. But when the
pot is small (especially if it was just limped around preflop) and the
stacks are deep, the risk-to-reward balance often no longer supports
raw aggression. If you flop top pair and charge in headlong with raises
and reraises, you could end up losing a bundle in a pot that was just a
few chips when you got started; not good.
When the pot is small, protecting your hand -- really, the pot -- doesn't
have much value, since there isn't much there to protect. If you miss a
raise and then someone draws out on you, it's no big deal -- if you fold
before losing a big chunk of your stack. In other words, you have two
main priorities when you flop top pair in a small pot: get value from
worse hands and avoid losing a big pot. Losing a small pot is no big
deal. Protecting your hand is only a modest consideration. You want to
get value from worse hands without losing a big chunk of your stack.
Often, the best way to achieve both goals is to play it slow on the flop by
calling. With position, you always will have the final option to bet for
value. So, you will have the opportunity later to build the medium-sized
pot worthy of your top pair. And by just calling, you avoid bloating the

betting and keep the pot size comfortable for the strength of your hand.
Calling can be best even if several players are yet to act. Again,
protecting your hand doesn't have nearly the urgency that it does in
limit. If someone draws out, it's no big deal as long as the pot is still
small. You want to avoid losing the big pots, and, frankly, you're a lot
more likely to lose a big pot if you build one by raising.
Naturally, you should raise top pair sometimes, also. If you're against a
loose-aggressive player, or a loose and predictable player, you don't
have to fear losing a big pot as much, because the aggressive player
will build a big pot with worse hands, and the loose and predictable
player won't make a big move without a monster. But raising is far from
imperative, and often it's best to simply call and see what happens. If
everyone else folds and your opponent checks the turn, you can get
your value-bets in on the turn and river. On the other hand, if a raising
war breaks out, you can quietly fold, knowing that your position,
combined with your wait-and-see attitude, has saved you a tidy sum.
Ed is a featured coach at StoxPoker.com. Also check out his online
poker advice column, NotedPokerAuthority.com. He has authored four
books on poker, most recently Professional No-Limit Hold'em: Volume
1.

How Wide Are Your Ranges?

Generally, widen your hand ranges
by Ed Miller | Published: May 21, 2008

We poker wonks tend to like to analyze individual hands. I had this and
did this. Then my opponent did that. Then I did this, but actually I think
doing this other thing might have been more profitable.
Then we write a thousand-word column about the merits of doing this
versus doing the other thing.
Analyzing individual hands has value, but if you do it too much, you can
fall into a bit of a trap. You begin to think of poker as a series of
independently played hands. There's a "right" way to play this hand,
then a "right" way to play the next, and so on.
Poker doesn't quite work that way. The hands aren't independent. What
happens on one hand can affect the outcome of a future hand. It won't
affect the actual cards dealt, of course, but it will affect how your
opponents read your hand and react to your plays.
In other words, your goal isn't to make sure that every hand you play is
as profitable individually as it can be. Your goal is to have the most
profitable overall strategy. You'd happily give up a penny on this hand if
that would mean winning a dime on another.
When you think about poker this way, you soon come upon a key
insight: From your opponent's perspective, you don't hold a specific

hand; you hold a range of hands. Here's a quick example: Let's say you
raise preflop and get called. The flop brings three low cards, and you
bet and get called. Another low card comes, and you bet and get called.
The river is another low card. Your opponent checks, and you move all
in.
Your opponent can't know exactly what hand you hold. But he can think
of all of the possible hands you could have that you'd play this way. You
could have pocket aces. You also could have pocket kings. You also
could have any pocket pair that would form a set with any of the cards
on board.
Let's say those hands are the only hands you would play specifically this
way. They would comprise your entire possible range of hands. This is a
very narrow range. You have only a few possible holdings, and they're
all fairly strong.
If I had watched you play for a while and knew you well enough to know
that this was your entire hand range, I would never call that final river
bet with less than two pair. Calling with top pair is futile, because every
hand in your range beats it.
So, narrow hand ranges have a problem: The narrower your range, the
more perfectly your opponent can play against you. I'm never going to
pay you off with top pair if, when you raise preflop and bet all three
streets, you never hold a hand weaker than top pair. I'm going to call
only with hands that I think will make money, and since your range is so
narrow, I'll have a good idea of exactly which hands those are.

So, for the most part, it pays to have wide hand ranges. Generally
speaking, the wider your hand ranges, the more uncertainty your
opponents will have about how to react to you, and the more mistakes
they'll make. (Obviously, if your ranges are too wide, you'll be shoving
money in all the time with terrible hands and your opponents can just
attack you as if you're playing blind.) When you have the opportunity to
widen your hand ranges, generally, you should do it.
What does that mean? Let's say a loose and aggressive player opens
for $30 in a $5-$10 no-limit game. A weak player calls from the button.
Everyone folds to you in the big blind, and you have the 10

. You

consider three options: folding, calling, and reraising. Let's say, for the
sake of argument, that you're blessed with infinite mathematical
prowess for this particular decision. You can mystically calculate
perfectly how each option will perform, on average, over every possible
outcome.
Folding nets you $0 (if you consider the $10 big blind already part of the
pot). Coincidentally, reraising to $120 nets you $0, on average, also.
Calling does a little worse at -$2, on average. (I just made these
numbers up to demonstrate a principle. How the hand will actually
perform obviously depends on your opponents.)
So, folding and reraising both average $0. From an individual hand
profit perspective, you're indifferent to either option. So, which one
should you choose? Some people would say that you should fold
because it reduces your variance. After all, why gamble money when

you don't have an edge?

I disagree strongly, however. I think, for sure, you should reraise. Why?
It widens your range. Think about what hands you'll be reraising here.
You'll reraise pocket aces and kings, and perhaps queens, jacks, and AK. You should probably reraise a number of other strong hands, as well
(depending on the stack sizes and opponents).
If you reraise only good hands, your range will be narrow and weighted
toward strong hands. As a result, your opponent will find your reraises
fairly easy to play against. But when you add weak hands to your
reraising range, you become much trickier to play against. If you can
add those hands "for free," because reraising averages the same as
folding, adding the hands is a no-brainer. You won't make any profit
directly on the weak hands, but widening your range will net you
significantly more profit when you hold aces or kings. The individual
hand may not be profitable, but reraising it makes your overall strategy
more profitable by getting you more action on your good hands.
I wrote a couple of issues back about the squeeze play. Your opponent
raises, someone calls, and you put in a bluff-reraise. It's a good bluff to
throw in against players who raise preflop with lots of weak hands in an
attempt to control the table. They won't be able to call your bluff with
most of their hands, and the individual play will show a profit.
But even when the individual squeeze play is, on its own, break-even or
even slightly unprofitable, adding it to your game can improve the
profitability of your overall strategy by widening your range, confusing

your opponents, and encouraging them to make mistakes.

Aggression pays in poker. Everyone knows that. But sometimes when
people sit down to analyze specific aggressive plays such as squeezing,
they don't look quite so strong on paper. "Sure, you're attacking
weakness, but your bluff has to work 65 percent of the time to break
even, and that's a tall order."
But aggression does pay. It makes you hard to read and encourages
your opponents to play badly against you. One day you'll reraise preflop
with pocket aces and get called by J-10 because your opponent saw
you squeeze before. You'll shove a 10-high flop and get paid. That's
when you'll see the dividends.

Using Your Opponents' Words Against

Them
A fairly reliable verbal tell
by Ed Miller | Published: Jun 11, 2008

People ask me questions about talking tells all the time. "While I was
thinking about calling a big bet, my opponent kept saying, 'You should
fold.' Should I have believed him or not?"
It's a difficult question to answer, because the meaning varies from
player to player. Some players will say, "You should fold," when they
want a call. Some will say it when they want a fold. And some will switch
it up. I frequently just ignore statements like this one, because the
information isn't reliable enough for me to act upon it.
When in doubt, ignore anything that comes out of your opponents'
mouths. Don't let it affect your decision-making. If you aren't sure about
what something means, yet go ahead and use it to make your decision,
you've been manipulated.
I've learned of a few things I can do or say that tend to make average
players somewhat more likely to call on the end. When I say one of
these things to a player, the last thing I want him to do is to ignore it. I
want him to try to use my words against me, because most people do it
wrong, and I end up getting more calls.
So, if your opponent says something to you and you're tempted to treat
it like a puzzle and try to decode it, stop! You're being manipulated.

But some words, you actually can reliably use against your opponents.
Here's an example of one talking tell that I've found to be very reliable.
I'm playing in a great $2-$5 no-limit hold'em game. The game is
medium-loose preflop and tight for the big bets, and players aren't using
position very well. I was under the gun and made the minimum raise to
$10 with the 7

. (I was varying my play with some other favorable

conditions thrown in the mix.) Two players called, and then the big blind
called. I had about $500, and everyone had me covered.
The flop came A

, giving me a small flush draw and a gutshot.

The big blind checked, and I bet $30 into the $42 pot. Only the big blind
called. He exhibited the game's characteristics very strongly; he was
very loose preflop, but he'd tend to call the flop only with a decent pair
or draw, and he'd play for big money only with a big hand. So, after his
call, I thought his most likely hands were an ace, a flush draw, two pair,
or a set.
The turn was the 2

. He checked, and I bet about $50 into the $102

pot. Since an ace was his most likely hand that I beat, I wanted to bet
an amount that I thought he'd call with just an ace. Instead, he checkraised me to $130 total.

I went into the tank. He wasn't the sort to make a check-raise bluff like
that with just the K

. He had a hand. But I thought it could be a set or

two pair, as well as the obvious bigger flush. I thought 4-3 for the
gutshot wheel was unlikely, given his flop call. So, I started breaking the
action down in my head. What hands could he have? How likely were
they? How was he likely to play hands that I beat, such as two pair, from
this point forward?
As I was thinking about all of this, my opponent started talking. "What
did you do, flop a set of aces? You made that weird preflop raise you
have aces, huh?"
I folded right then. Everything I needed to know was in what he said.
Generally speaking, when someone who has made a big bet is waiting
for the other player to act, he is thinking one of two things: "Call me
please," or, "Please don't call."

Sometimes he will have an in-between hand and not know what he

wants. But usually he'll feel fairly strongly one way or the other.
If players start talking about hands you could have, they'll almost never
mention a hand that beats them. If they think that you might have a set
of aces, and they can't beat it, they'll keep their mouths shut and hope
that you decide to fold. If they start talking about your aces, they aren't
worried about them. Thus, when he asked if I had aces, I was pretty
sure that he could beat a set. Since I didn't think a straight was likely, I
thought he almost certainly had a flush.
After I folded, he flashed the Q

It's not something that comes up too often, but it's quite reliable. If your
opponent is waiting on you to react to a large bet, and starts mentioning
hands that you could have, he likely can beat every hand he mentions.
Obviously, there may be exceptions, but I've found this tell to be one of
the more reliable ones that I use.
But again, if you don't instantly recognize what your opponent's words
mean, ignore them. If you try to decode them at the table, the only
person you're liable to outplay is yourself.

Firing the Third Barrel

Try it
by Ed Miller | Published: Jun 25, 2008

When was the last time you three-barrel bluffed? Was it months ago?
Years? Never? Let me back up a bit. A three-barrel bluff is when you
make a bluff bet on all three of the post-flop streets. You bet the flop and
get called. You bet the turn and get called. And then you make another
bluff on the river.
Admittedly, if you fire three barrels every other hand, you'll be broke by
lunchtime. But most players don't do it enough. Some never try it. They
will give a bluff one shot, or maybe two if they feel frisky, but never
follow up with the final barrel.
If you never three-barrel bluff, you've got a problem. Your play is too
readable, and you're also missing some big and profitable bluffs.
I believe very strongly that if you want to improve your game, you have
to force yourself out of your comfort zone. We all get into familiar
patterns. We play these hands and fold those preflop. When we flop a
pair, we bet here, check there, and hope to stay out of trouble. When
you play every hand on autopilot, you aren't improving. And when you
aren't playing creatively, you're letting your opponents off the hook.
Break it up. Try new moves. If you can't remember the last time you
three-barrel bluffed, try it during your next session. Pick a hand with
which you'd normally bluff once or twice, and just shove the third bet out

there. It might work, and it might not, but either way, you'll be breaking
new ground and improving your game.
If you don't have the courage to shove half of your stack in on a big river
bluff, move down. Go play in a 2-4 game once a week and use that
session to try your new moves. If you don't have the guts to try it in a
normal game, do it there. Raise from under the gun with J-9 suited and
see how it turns out. Give that loose-aggressive style you've always
wondered about a try. Launch a big re-squeeze bluff. Get yourself into
weird situations in which you normally wouldn't find yourself. Try firing
three barrels once or twice and see how it turns out.
Here's an example of a hand in which it would be reasonable to bluff all
three streets against some players:
You open for $7 from the button in a $1-$2 game with 10

and a

$200 stack. The big blind calls.

The flop comes 9

, giving you a straight draw. Your opponent

checks, you bet $15, and he calls.

The turn is the Q

. Your opponent checks, you bet $40, and he calls.

The river is the K

. Your opponent checks. The pot is $125, and you

have $138 left in your stack. You can bluff here against many players
and expect to win often enough to profit. You might get away with a bet
of $80 or $90, but I'd probably go ahead and just move all in.

Preflop, you have a relatively straightforward steal play from the button.
Even if you don't win preflop, you'll be playing a decent hand with
position.
On the flop, you have an open-end straight draw and, again, a fairly
straightforward continuation-bet. After the flop call, your opponent could
have a number of hands, from a flopped pair to a draw (straight or
flush), two pair, or a set, or even an unimproved ace high or overcards.
The turn is an offsuit overcard, which is often a good type of card at
which to fire a second barrel. Your opponent calls again. Depending on
the player, this might narrow his range down to almost exactly one pair
(assuming that your opponent would fold naked draws and check-raise
with two pair or better). Or, against a loose player who likes to draw, the
call could suggest a bit wider range that includes big and small flush
draws.

On the river comes another offsuit overcard, which is sure to scare any
one-pair hand that doesn't also include a king. If your opponent was on
a flush draw, he missed. If he holds a hand like Q-J or Q-10, he won't
like the river card one bit. Those holdings are very plausible, given the
way your opponent has played thus far, and most players would lay
them down to a big river bluff.
Overall, your opponent is significantly more likely than not to hold less
than a pair of kings, so a big bluff will likely show a profit against all but
the loosest callers.
A fair amount of feel goes into running big bluffs successfully. The best
way to get that feel is to try and succeed, but also to try and fail. If it's
too scary or too embarassing to try in your regular game, find a limit and
a room where you can feel free to try whatever crazy play you desire.
It'll make poker more fun for you, and you'll play better, too.

The Pitfalls of Slow-Playing

Many slow-plays are ill-considered
by Ed Miller | Published: Jul 09, 2008

Slow-playing is seemingly one of the most tempting no-limit hold'em

strategies. Flop a huge hand, and, in the immortal words of Elmer Fudd,
"Be vewy, vewy quiet." It fits with the image of poker as a game of
deception; little do your opponents know that you're waiting in the
weeds, ready to strike with the nuts.
The reality of slow-playing, however, is not as attractive. First, it
undersells your hand. What good is flopping a monster if you don't win
much money from it? Second, while you might be deceptive when
you're betting small, once you do break out the big bet, you'll be much
more readable than if you had just come on strong all along. Small bet,
small bet, big bet is a telltale pattern for a slow-play. Big bet, big bet, big
bet, and I won't know if you're strong, if you're bluffing, or if you're just
crazy.
Slow-playing has its place, certainly, but many slow-plays are illconsidered. With that in mind, let's examine a hand that a reader posted
on my message board:
It was a 50-$1 game in which most of the players had around $100
stacks, except for the big blind, who had only $20.
One player limped to our hero on the button, who limped with the 7
. The small blind completed, and the big blind checked.

The flop came 7

, giving our hero top two pair on a very

coordinated board. The small blind bet $2 into the $4 pot, the big blind
called, the limper called, and our hero called.
The turn was the 7

, completing a possible flush draw but giving our

hero the nut full house. The small blind bet $4 into the $12 pot, the big
blind called, and the limper minimum-raised to $8. Our hero called the
$8, the small blind called, and then the big blind moved all in for $9
more. The limper called the $9 raise, and it was hero's action.

I would have played the hand very differently, raising a few times before
this point.
The limper had a full stack, and our hero had a suited connector on the
button. I would have raised this hand preflop. Suited connectors don't
make good hands often, but they flop draws, so they make good

semibluffing hands. When you have the button and a suited connector,
generally speaking, you'll make the most from it in a medium-sized pot
against one or two players. You want to use the leverage of position and
the remaining stacks to steal more than your share of pots. Limping in,
trying to make a hand, is not as good a way to play, because it simply
won't make a hand often enough to show a big profit.
Among the exceptions to raising preflop is if the player who already has
entered the pot is exceptionally loose and wild. But if he's a "normal"
player who folds often to flop and turn continuation-bets, a raise to
about $4 or $5, I think, will offer the best overall results.
After limping in, our hero was in a small, fourhanded pot. The flop gave
him top two pair on a very coordinated board. It might seem like a
vulnerable situation, but against typical players, this hand is in fairly
good shape. Our hero had position. Many of the hands that would play
against our hero were draws -- a pair and a straight draw, a flush draw,
and so forth -- and top two pair likely had an equity edge against those
hands. The pot was still small, so our hero could put in a raise without
yet committing to his hand. I'd make it somewhere in the $12-$15 range
and see what happens.
It's not a sure bet, of course. One or two players could call, a bad card
could come on the turn, and our hero could be in a precarious situation.
But I think our hero can rely on his position to help him. He might be
able to check a bad turn card and induce a river bluff.
We know that our hero called. An excellent (perhaps perfect) card came

off on the turn. Our hero now had the top full house, and would lose only
to a straight flush. He needed to raise, raise, raise! There's no reason to
mess around with flat-calling tiny bets and minimum-raises. Our hero
had a great hand, and there was a bet, a call, and a raise in front of him.
He could have been up against a 7, a made straight, or a flush, and
could have gotten good value from any of those hands. He should have
just tried to get the money in. The way that he played it is bad for three
reasons:
1. If no one reraises the turn, the pot will be artificially small, and our
hero will have just one betting round remaining to get value for his hand.
If he's up against another big hand and he raises the turn, he'll likely
stack his opponent. He's far less likely to stack another big hand if he
waits for the river.
2. If someone has the A

, he's likely to pay for it on the turn, but he

won't pay anything if he misses on the river (which he'll do roughly 80

percent of the time). If someone has made trips, a straight, or a flush
and a fourth spade comes on the river, our hero will lose action from
those made hands.
3. If someone reraises the turn (as actually happened), and our hero
can reraise again, his strange call, reraise action will tip the huge
strength of his hand. If I held a flush on this board and saw someone
call the small bet and then make a big reraise when it came back to him,
I'd be on high alert for a full house; whereas, if the player raised
immediately, I would give him credit for a wider range of hands,
including trips, straights, and smaller flushes. I might get stacked by the

straightforward action, but get away from my hand against the

suspicious call, reraise action.
So, on our hero's first action on the turn, I'd have made a very solid
raise, maybe to $30 or $40.
Consider the overall plan for the hand. Our hero called (rather than
raised) preflop, looking to flop a big hand and get paid. The flop was
good, but he was cautious. The turn was perfect, and he still played it
slowly. Our hero is playing the suited connector to flop big, but when he
does flop big, he doesn't get value. If he never raises his hand, how is
he going to make his speculative preflop call pay off in the long run?
No-limit hold'em is about leveraging position, using semibluffs to take
pots away from your opponents, and getting value for your big hands.
Each of these factors requires well-timed aggression. If you limp a lot,
you're going to lose a lot of $1 hands. When you slow, slow, slow-play,
you end up not making enough on your good hands to compensate for
that steady $1 drip.

Avoid Adjustment Tilt

Adjust to opponents correctly, not blindly
by Ed Miller | Published: Jul 23, 2008

Recently, I benefited from a serious case of what I call "adjustment tilt." I

was in a live $2-$5 no-limit hold'em game. Most of the players, including
me, had helped to start the game a few hours earlier, so we were
familiar with each other's play.
Some of the players had modestly weak-tight tendencies, so I made my
usual adjustments: I played (and raised) more loosely preflop in
position, and I challenged for more pots on the flop and turn. My
strategy was working reasonably well, except that I had gotten caught a
few times on some of my bigger bluffs, so I was about even for the
session. I never showed down a bluff, but twice I made a sizable bet
and then folded to a raise.
Most of these conspicuous plays had occurred within the first two hours
of play. After that, two relatively uneventful hours passed. Then, this
hand arose:
Three players -- two loose ones and one with weak-tight tendencies -limped in. I limped from the button with the K

. The small blind

raised to $10 (a minimum-raise), the big blind folded, and all of the
limpers called. There was $55 in the pot, I had about $500 behind, and
my opponents had varied stack sizes.
The flop came K

, giving me top and bottom pair. Everyone

checked to me. I bet $45. Everyone folded to the weak-tight player, who
called. The turn was the 4

. She checked, and I bet $100. She

hemmed and hawed briefly, and then called. The river was the 9

. She

checked, and as she did so, she glared at me and said, "You need to be
careful." She had about $200 remaining, but I bet $125.
She hemmed and hawed a little bit more. Then she said, "I think I'm in
trouble." Then she called. I showed my two pair, and she nodded. She
said, "I was in even worse shape than I thought," and she flipped over
the A

, for just middle pair on the flop.

About 30 seconds later, as the next hand began, she said to someone
else, "He was bullying so much before."
This woman was not a loose player. If she limped in and I raised from
the button, she generally folded immediately. She hadn't gotten out of

line once in the four hours I'd played with her. Yet, she called nearly
$300 in bets after the flop against me with a hand with which she likely
wouldn't have called $20 against someone else. My earlier failed bluffs
had silently put her on a tilt that had lasted several hours.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't adjust to your opponents. If you see
someone launch several unsuccessful bluffs, definitely use that
important information in the future. But don't over-adjust. Don't start
calling down blindly with any old piece of the flop. Even a player who
bluffs a fair bit will tend to have a strong hand after making sizable bets
on the flop, turn, and river.
So, how might you adjust correctly to a suspected bluffer? Let's say you
have a draw on the turn, and your typical, non-bluff-happy opponent
makes a decent-sized bet. You don't think you have the right odds to call
to hit your hand, and you think that if you raise all in, you'll get called a
bit too often to make the semibluff work out. Against this player, you
should just fold your draw.
But against a player who you know bluffs fairly frequently, you might not
fold. You still won't have the odds to call to hit your hand, but raising as
a semibluff will work better. You'll get called less often, because every
time you catch your opponent bluffing, he'll fold. So, if you have a
borderline drawing hand on the turn, you might fold it against a solid
player but shove all in with it against an aggressive, bluffing player.
That's a reasonable adjustment.
On the other hand, calling down three streets with a flopped middle pair
against someone who bet the flop into four opponents is asking for

trouble against all but the craziest players. That's adjustment tilt.
Here's the point of the story:
1.Put all of your observations into context. Just because you saw
your opponent bluff once or twice doesn't mean he's bluffing
every time. Try to remember all of the situations in which he
could have bluffed, but instead just folded, checked, or called.
That should give you some perspective of his real bluffing
frequency.
2.Watch for tells. My opponent dropped a doozy in this hand.
After her turn call, I wasn't exactly sure what sort of hand she
had. I suspected A-K, among other possibilities. But then she
tried to scare me into checking down the river by telling me to be
careful. This classic tell suggests a hand with which your
opponent wants to show down but doesn't want to call a bet.
After she warned me to be careful, I knew that she likely had
exactly one pair, and it was a pair she was worried about. That's
why I chose the $125 bet. I was concerned that if I pushed all in,
she might come to her senses and fold. If I hadn't picked up the
tell, I might have bet a different amount, and I might not have
gotten such a good result.
3.If you find your thinking still focused on a hand that happened
several hours ago, you're probably on tilt. You don't have to lose
a big pot to go on tilt. Indeed, I hadn't played a significant hand
against this player the entire session. But she saw one or two

hands and convinced herself that I was trying to run over the
table, ignoring the countless hands with which I quietly had
folded preflop or on the flop. That's tilt. If you find yourself
fixated on a particular opponent, and it's not because he's the
weakest player at the table and you're trying to figure out how
best to get his money, chances are that you're on tilt. Take a
deep breath, take a walk, forget about that one player, and
refocus on how to beat the entire game.

Sniffing Out Bluffs

Use deductive reasoning
by Ed Miller | Published: Aug 06, 2008

Your opponent -- perhaps sensing weakness or perhaps taking leave of

his senses -- pushes out a huge bet and dares you to call. If he has the
hand he's supposed to have, you're crushed. But you think something is
amiss and decide that this is it. You're going to take a stand. Just after
you say, "Call," your opponent shakes his head and says, "You win," as
he tosses his cards into the muck.
Snapping off a big bluff is intensely gratifying. In fact, it's so gratifying
that many players seem to become addicted to it. Instead of giving their
opponents credit for a hand and folding, every time they see a big bet,
they begin to think, "Maybe this is a bluff, too. Maybe I can snap this
one off. Wouldn't that feel great?" And they talk themselves into a call.
Occasionally they catch a bluff, but much more often, they run into the
hand their opponent is supposed to have. Over time, the pots they win
don't make up for all the bets they lose. They turn into ATMs for their
opponents, paying off hand after hand.
But you don't have to suffer the same fate. There's a science to sniffing
out bluffs. You don't have to call bets at random or even wait until you
get that "feeling." You can detect a lot of the most common bluffs by
using deductive reasoning.
The key to bluff-catching is to look at your opponent's betting over the

entire hand and to think of all the legitimate hands he could have that he
would bet that way. If a number of perfectly reasonable holdings make
sense for your opponent's play, he's probably got one of them, and
therefore he's probably not bluffing.
But if the hands he would likely bet on the flop or turn don't figure to be
bet on the river, and he bets the river big anyway, it could be a bluff. A
bluff is especially worth considering if the flop featured a number of
drawing possibilities, none of which came in by the river. When the
number of legitimately strong holdings is small, but the number of hands
that could have stuck around but now are weak is large, there's a good
chance your opponent is full of it.
Let's look at two hands. You and your opponent start each hand with
$500 in a $2-$5 blinds no-limit hold'em game. I won't tell you what your
hand is, because it doesn't matter. Let's assume it's at least a pair, so
you can count on beating your opponent if you call and he's bluffing.
Your opponent opens from four off the button for $20. The button calls,
and you call from the big blind. The flop comes Q

. You

check, the preflop raiser bets $50 into the $62 pot, the button folds, and
you call. The turn is the J

. You check, and your opponent bets $80

into the $162 pot. You call. The river is the 4

. You check, and your

opponent bets $140 into the $322 pot.

Your opponent raised preflop, bet the flop into two players, and then bet
the turn and river. He started out on the flop with a nearly pot-sized bet.
On the turn, he bet about half the pot. And on the river, he bet a bit less

than half the pot. There's no possible flush on board by the river, but two
straights are possible: 10-9 and 7-5. Overall, however, this board is a
relatively unthreatening one to a hand like pocket aces, two pair, or a
set.
Your opponent appears to be trying to get value for a made hand. He
doesn't want to bet so much on the turn and river that it scares you off,
but he does want to get paid. What hands would he play that way? Well,
depending on his playing style, he might play that way with any hand
approximately A-Q or stronger. Pocket kings or aces are consistent with
the play, as are pocket queens, eights, or sixes for a flopped set. Also
potentially consistent are pocket jacks for a turned set, or Q-J for a
turned two pair. Even 10-9 for the turned straight would make sense
against an aggressive opponent. These hands are all plausible and fit
your opponent's play. He probably has one of them. Don't be a hero.
Just fold.
Now, let's look at a second hand. Two players limp in, and you make it
$30 from the big blind. The first limper calls, and the second folds. The
flop comes 10

. You bet $45 into the $67 pot, and your

opponent calls. The turn is the 8

checks. The river is the 2

. You check, and your opponent

. You check, and your opponent bets $140

into the $157 pot.

What hands would your opponent bet so strongly on the river? Typically,
a big river bet like this one indicates a hand at least as strong as two
pair. Let's say that 10-8, any set, and the straights J-9, 9-6, and 6-5
might make a big bet like this one on the river.

But what are we to make of your opponent's turn check? All of these
strong hands were made by the turn. All of them are vulnerable to a
possible flush, and two flush draws are on board. Furthermore, the set
and two-pair hands are also vulnerable to cards like jacks, nines, sixes,
and fives, which put a four-straight on board. One would expect most
players to bet these hands on the turn, not check them.
So, there's an inconsistency. Your opponent is representing a strong
hand on the river, but he presumably would have bet each of those
hands on the turn. Furthermore, several weak hands make sense up
until the river bet. A club-flush draw makes sense. Even a hand like A-J
makes sense. So, the hands that your opponent is representing don't fit
all of his actions, and he could have a wide array of weak hands with
which he might have decided to bluff. This is a reasonable situation to
try to snap off a bluff.
It's not at all guaranteed to work out. Sometimes you'll call and get
shown a set of deuces. Sometimes you'll find out that your opponent
inexplicably decided to check one of those strong hands on the turn. But
if you think your opponent is a bluffer and you want to try to snap him
off, your chances are a lot better in the second hand than in the first
one. If you understand and use this reasoning process, over time, your
nose for bluffs will become a whole lot sharper.

Macro and Micro Poker

Both are integral parts of winning play
by Ed Miller | Published: Aug 19, 2008

Periodically, I'll read an article about "feel" players versus "math"

players. The feel players lob a shell: "Math players just don't get it. They
make all their calculations, but they just play like robots. A little feel will
beat a robot any day."
Then the math defender strikes back: "At its core, poker is math. Math
can't be wrong; it is truth itself. To deny math is to deny your nose."
These arguments try my patience. Frankly, I don't think either the feel or
the math person gets it. Or, they both have a point, but neither fully
understands exactly what his point is or why it might be right.
What (I think) their points boil down to is what I think of as macro poker
and micro poker. I find the macro and micro distinction valuable; it helps
keep me thinking about the right things. I hope you'll find it valuable, too.
Macro poker is a set of winning principles. You don't have to know how
many outs a straight draw is worth to understand macro poker. Indeed,
macro poker is generally game-generic; macro poker works in no-limit
hold'em or deuce-to-seven triple draw or options trading.
Here's a typical macro-poker thought: "Total all the dollars you've ever
bet playing poker. The large majority of those dollars should have been
bet from late position. Only a small percentage of your total handle

should have been bet from up front." Virtually all profitable strategies
adhere to this principle.
You don't have to look at any cards or stare down any opponents or
solve any equations to know it's true. It doesn't "depend." Bet bigger
and more frequently from late position. Do that, and you're on your way
to playing profitably.
"Fold more when the pot is small compared to the bet size than when
it's big." That's another good one. "Play big pots with big hands and
small pots with small hands." That one's particularly useful in no-limit,
but it's good in many games.
I have a thought about seat selection that runs counter to what many
pundits think. They talk about having aggressive players on the right,
passive players on the left, smelly players across the table, and so forth.
I've read long sermons on the proper placement of the fellow with the
nervous habit of knocking his chips over when he flops bottom two pair.
My thoughts come straight from macro poker. Macro poker tells me that
money flows clockwise around the table. Thus, I want to sit so that the
largest "wave" of money crashes on me; I want the worst players on my
direct right. They are the largest money source, and I want to sit as
close to that source as possible.
I don't worry about how individual hands will play out. "Well, if the
aggressive players are on the right, then if I flop a set, I can more likely
check-raise the whole table." To me, that's delving into details when no

delving is necessary. I know that money flows clockwise, so I want to be

positioned to absorb as much flow as possible.
This is the power of macro poker. You can often solve problems
confidently with almost no analysis. The problem with analyzing the
details is that it's almost certain that you'll forget some. You'll think of 10
possibilities, but overlook two. Sometimes the two you overlook change
your answer entirely; it's better to make judgments when analyzing no
details at all if you can do so with reasonable assurance that you're
correct.
Macro poker is also great for adjusting to various game types. "How do I
cope with a maniac?" "What if no one will pay me off?"
Think in broad terms: "What mistakes do my opponents make?"
Maniacs put in too much money with weak hands. Weak-tight players
fold too often. Then think: "How can I exploit those mistakes?" You
challenge the maniac to play big pots with hands that you might fold
against typical players, and you bet "light" more often against the weaktight ones.
As you may have guessed, micro poker is the details. Micro poker is
figuring out how to play a flopped set against a weak-tight, aggressive,
and short-stacked player, in that order. Micro poker is deciding whether
A-10 suited is worth a reraise in this situation, or if you should stick to AJ suited or better. It's the "it depends" part of poker.
Don't get me wrong, good micro-poker skills are vital. You have to know
how to evaluate situations down to the detail. But I think too many

people get bogged down in details and ultimately go wrong because

they have too little perspective. This is the same error that Mike Caro
describes as "Fancy Play Syndrome." (I'm careful in using this term,
though, because anytime you make a play that's not 100 percent
obvious, someone out there will declare that it's FPS.) People get so
busy calculating (or, rather, miscalculating) fold equity and hand ranges
that they do silly things that they'd never do if they thought about macro
poker.
Here's an example from heads-up limit play. An important macro-poker
principle for heads-up play is that every bet and raise you make
commits you more to a showdown. The bigger you make the pot, the
more confident you need to be that you'll see a showdown. "Fold more
in small pots than in big ones."
Some heads-up players like to do things like three-bet the turn, planning
to fold to a four-bet. They'll build monster pots with multilayered bluffs,
but then give up for one more bet on the river. These plays should be
"every once in a while" deals. They should serve a balancing role in
your strategy. They keep your opponent guessing: "Hmm, a turn threebet means I'm beat usually."
Your main strategy, however, must conform to the macro principle: "Fold
more in small pots than in big ones." Three-betting the turn had better
mean that you are going to a showdown the great majority of the time. If
that's not the case, no matter how clever you are, you'll lose to any
competent, adaptive player. Your micro decisions need to support, not
challenge, macro principles.

While both macro and micro poker are important, macro is primary. To
win, your strategy should conform to macro principles. Your micro
decisions should be optimizations within that framework.
I think the feel defenders tend to champion macro ideas, and the math
defenders like the micro stuff. But I think people on both sides are
whistling in the wind, as both macro and micro are integral parts of
winning play.

The No-Limit Isolation Play

Identifying, understanding, and defending against it
by Ed Miller | Published: Sep 11, 2008

The isolation play is one of the most profitable weapons in the

professional cash-game player's arsenal. Yet, it is also one of the least
understood by most amateur players. Teaching the play thoroughly
would take a book, not a column, so my goal here is merely to try to
shed some light on the play. You'll learn to identify it, to understand it,
and, finally, to defend yourself against it.
Spotting the Isolation Play
I recently was playing in a $2-$5 no-limit hold'em game with a
mandatory $10 live straddle. A weak player with about a $2,000 stack
sat a few seats to my right. A friend of mine, a very strong professional
player, was directly to my right. He also was playing about $2,000. The
weak player raised most pots to $45. About one out of three of those
pots, my friend would reraise to $100. Frequently, everyone else would
fold, the weak player would call the $55, and they'd see a flop.
After this happened a few times, it became clear that most of the rest of
the players at the table thought they both were nuts. She was playing
nearly every hand for a raise. He was reraising way too often. No one
gets pocket aces that much, right?
This raising and reraising game put some of the other players on tilt. In
fact, one normally tight and cautious player decided to stack off with top

pair against my flopped set when he normally would have folded. He

told me later that the reason he paid me off was because I was friends
with the crazy guy who was reraising to $100 every few hands.
So, what was going on? Why was my friend making it $100 to go so
often? He was isolating the weak player. As long as no one is interfering
(I'll teach you how to do that at the end of the column), it's an extremely
profitable play. Here's how it works:
Understanding the Isolation Play
A bad player raises with two nearly random cards. A good player with
position reraises to isolate. The reraise should be sized to be relatively
small, so that there is still ample money remaining for post-flop play. But
it has to be large enough to reliably knock out anyone else who doesn't
have a big pocket pair or A-K. In our game, $100 was knocking almost
everyone out, and yet it still left plenty of play with the $2,000 stack
sizes.
What hands would my friend isolate with? He was likely waiting for
decent hands that had some post-flop value. He might isolate with a
hand like the K
J

or the 8

, but he probably wouldn't with the

. You don't need a great hand to isolate, but usually it should

have some sort of value, so that you have something to fall back on if
everything goes awry.
How does it work? The idea is to play as many pots with position
against the bad player as possible. You don't need a good hand

because your opponent who is playing nearly every hand will usually
have trash. Most of the time she will catch a weak pair or miss the flop
entirely, and you can force her to fold either on the flop or on the turn.
For instance, let's say one player limps for $10 to the bad player, who is
two off the button. She makes it $45 to go. You are on the button and
reraise to $100. Everyone folds to the bad player, who calls. You have
the Q

, and there is $227 in the pot. You and your opponent both

have about $1,900 remaining.

The flop comes 10

. Your opponent checks, and you bet

$120. If your opponent missed the flop (and you've chosen the right
type of opponent to try to isolate), she will typically just fold. Or, if she
has a weak draw, such as the 9
overcards, or the 5

for a gutshot, the K

for two

for bottom pair, she might call, intending to

fold on the turn without improving.

The turn hits, she checks, you bet $250 into the $467 pot, and she folds.
Obviously, sometimes she will flop top pair or better or make her draw,
and you'll lose. But in the meantime, you'll be picking up $200-plus and
$400-plus pots frequently enough to more than pay for the occasional
pot you lose.
The overall plan is to use position and the preflop initiative from
reraising to try to force your opponent to hit the board hard or fold. Since
she won't hit the board hard very often, she'll usually end up folding, and
you'll win a string of nice-sized pots.

Defending Against the Isolation Play

You may have read the last part and said to yourself, "But what if she
decides to turn the tables? What if she decides to throw in some bluffs?
Then, the isolator will be stuck with a usually weak hand and a big bet to
call. He'll be the one playing hit the flop or fold."
If you thought that, great, you're well on your way to thwarting any
would-be isolators. The isolation play works great against bad players.
And many players are bad because they don't bluff often enough. When
they get reraised preflop, they go limp, meekly checking and folding
whenever they miss.
If your opponent isn't meek and will bluff at you liberally, isolating won't
work as well. So if someone seems to be isolating you, your first
defense should be to break out the check-raise bluff on the flop. Do that
once or twice and you'll usually find your overeager opponent backing
off.
You don't have to be the one getting isolated to take advantage of the
situation. In my $2-$5 with a mandatory $10 straddle game, anyone with
a $500 stack and some nerve could have won a tidy profit from the
frequent preflop raising and reraising. Let's say the bad player opens for
$45 and the pro isolates to $100. Everyone folds to you in the big blind.
With a hand like 7-7, A-5, or 10-8 suited, an all-in shove for $500 is
almost sure to show a profit until the isolating pro adjusts. You'll usually
take the $162 pot down without a fight. And even when you do get

called, you'll have, on average, a 30 percent to 35 percent chance to

win. The money that you win immediately plus your equity in the pot
when called will almost surely make the shove profitable.
There's a saying that whenever two or more people are bluffing at each
other, whoever puts in the last bluff wins. When you're up against an
isolator, you'll often have the chance to slam the door on him by putting
in that last bluff.
Most of all, if you're playing and you see a wild player raising and
another wild player reraising, don't assume they're both nuts. The
reraiser could actually be a coldly calculating professional player who is
just trying to win the most from a really bad player.

Can a No-Limit Hold'em Game Be Too

Loose?
No!
by Ed Miller | Published: Sep 18, 2008

That is the mother of all poker questions. I've probably seen a variant
of this question asked almost a thousand times. Can a game be too
good, or too loose, or too soft? Do you actually want some good
players in your game? Can a bunch of schooling fish turn even the best
player into a sucker?
Before I go any further, I want to give the short answer: No. Basically,
there's no such thing as a game that's too loose. I say basically
because one could construct a game with enormous antes and tiny
stacks and high rakes, in which your only hope of winning would be
opponents who play ridiculously tight. But in any normal, typical poker
game, no, the game can't be too loose.
Recently, a reader of my website, John, asked about the $1-$2 blinds
game at his local cardroom. Here's what he had to say about his game:
The players there are very loose and pretty terrible, and they call
everything preflop.
For example, I'll be under the gun with A-K, raise to $20 preflop, and
consistently get four callers!
That means the pot is already at $100 when the flop comes, and I
usually start the hand with only $300.
A-K is a good hand and is meant to flop top pair, top kicker (one out of
three times), but as we all know, flopping one pair is only a "good"
hand and not a "great" hand. So, when I do flop top pair, it puts me in a
sticky situation. The pot is already too big!
I have gotten to the point where I think I may do one of the following
two things:

1. Don't play as deep, so when I do hit my flop, I don't have to worry

about reverse implied odds. (Loose-play collusion is a killer there, with
people hitting two pair with junk.)
2. Simply limp in with hands like A-K, K-Q, A-Q, and so forth, in an
effort to keep the pot small if I do hit it.
While John has identified an interesting issue, I think he's
overestimating the frequency of bad outcomes and underestimating the
frequency of good ones.
First off, if you raise to $20 with A-K and a $300 stack and four people
call (and it isn't a fluke), you're in a fantastic situation. It's such a good
situation that you probably could push all in every time it's checked to
you on the flop and still turn a profit. If you do something smarter than
that (and it's not hard to get smarter than that), you'll be solidly in the
black.
Before I continue, I want to disagree with something John said: "Looseplay collusion is a killer there, with people hitting two pair with junk."
That's an example of overestimating the frequency of bad outcomes.
It's not the mathematical reality. Even four opponents are a significant
underdog to flop two pair among them. For instance, an unsuited
connector such as 8-7 has a 4.8 percent chance to flop two pair or
better. A pocket pair obviously has a better chance to flop a set, but on
average, I'd guess one of your four opponents will flop two pair or
better no more than 25 percent of the time.
Furthermore, you can look at the flop and gauge the danger factor. If
the flop is K 10 9 , then sure, worry about your top pair. But if it's
K 8 5 , you are a solid favorite to be ahead of four opponents
with junk hands.
So, what would a smarter (than pushing every time) strategy look like?
Well, I'd tend to bet $30 to $100 on the flop, depending on the flop
texture and any tells or reads I'd picked up. I might check some of the
bad flops with which I thought I was a significant favorite to get action.
Once the betting gets that big, live opponents tend to play fairly true to
their hand strength. They'll fold most of their marginal hands. They'll
call with good draws and top pair, they'll call or raise with two pair or
better, and they'll maybe throw in a semibluff raise with a strong draw.
They also might raise with top pair and a good kicker.

Specifically, they aren't likely to call with a marginal hand to "play

position" on you. And they aren't likely to raise you on a stone-cold
bluff, either.
So, I don't think commitment decisions should be that difficult. Against
some tight players, you'll have an easy fold if they play back at you
after the big flop bet. And against others, you'll have an easy call or
push with top pair. Only a few tricky players in the middle should give
you trouble, and even when you do run into a sticky situation, you
should be more than compensated by all of the $100 pots you pick up
with a flop continuation-bet. You have a big equity edge on that preflop
bet, and that will go a long way to cushioning you in uncertain post-flop
times.
I've played in a lot of games recently like the one John describes, in
which four people will call a preflop raise of 10 times the big blind.
Generally, I find that I win in not one, but two major ways:
1. I win big pots with my big hands - flopped sets, and also overpairs
and big top pairs made with hands like A-K.
2. I win oversized pots with flop bluffs and semibluffs. Many times,
people will be loose for that $20 preflop, but then tighten up
post-flop once the betting gets even bigger. That tendency offers some
really juicy bluffing opportunities in which your opponents will build a
big pot and then abandon it. (If your opponents are loose all the way
through the hand, you'll miss out on these bluffs, but you'll get even
more opportunities to win big pots, and with some weaker hands like KQ top pairs.)
Extremely loose games are very profitable - but they also can be rollercoaster rides. When I play in these games and the cards aren't running
my way, I can lose three or four full buy-ins in an hour. You have to be
psychologically prepared to get stacked, rebuy, and get stacked again
on the next hand. It happens, and when the preflop pot is routinely half
of your stack, it happens a lot.
If the swings make you uncomfortable, there's no shame in buying in
shorter. You're guaranteed to be better off playing a shorter stack with
confidence than playing a deeper stack in fear. But whatever stack size
you play, rest assured that your no-limit game is definitely not too
loose.

Value-Betting the River

You have to keep punching on the river
by Ed

Miller |

Published: Oct 03, 2008

The river really separates the pros from the amateurs. I don't mean that
pros tremble in fear of the river card while amateurs gleefully plan their
latest bad beat. Quite the opposite, as the river is probably the betting
round where pro players generate the greatest edge over their amateur
adversaries.
Amateur players tend not to bet enough hands for value on the river,
and that error cripples them in two ways. First, they don't win big
enough pots with their good hands. The river bet is often the biggest
bet of the hand, and when amateur players check down hands they
should be betting, they win medium pots when they should be winning
huge pots.
Second, amateurs can't bluff as effectively when they don't value-bet to
balance their strategy. If I know a player likes to check down good
hands like top pair or a medium-sized two pair, I use that knowledge
against him when he does bet. I know that his range is very polarized
either he has a real monster or he's bluffing. He doesn't have anything
in the middle because he checks those hands down. This knowledge

presents me with some slam-dunk opportunities to snap off bluffs. If I

know that in a certain situation, someone would bet only a full house or
nothing, when he bets, he'll usually be bluffing. After all, it's a lot easier
to have nothing than it is to have a boat.
Betting From Out of Position
Many players get very timid on the river. If they have a hand like a
decent pair, they'll check and just hope the hand gets checked down.
Imagine if you were a boxer and your strategy for the last few rounds
was just to cower in the corner and hope you didn't get punched. You'd
get picked apart. You might make it through some fights, but in others,
your opponent would seize the opportunity, find the right punch, and
knock you out.
Checking the river too often also will get you picked apart. Sometimes
your opponent will check and you'll get to see a showdown. You might
even win some pots. But other times, your opponent will bet, and the
bet will be on his terms, to his advantage. You'll get bluffed off the best
hand. Or, you'll pay off better hands. Over time, this passive strategy
gives your opponents too much leeway, and you'll pay for it.
You have to keep punching on the river. Sometimes you'll get knocked
out anyway, but sometimes you'll land a good punch yourself. An active
strategy makes you a much tougher target.
Making Blocking Bets
Making blocking bets is one way that you can stay more active when
out of position. Blocking bets are small bets, usually around a quarter
to half the size of the pot. If the pot on the river is $100, for instance,
you might bet out for $30 or $35. Blocking bets do two things for you:
They help you get paid by worse hands, and they set the price of a
showdown.
Let's say you have A-9 on a J-9-5-4-8 board and check the river. Your
opponent might check behind with hands weaker than yours and bet
$70 with better hands and some bluffs, so you feel compelled to call.
This strategy wins you nothing when you're ahead and loses you a
good bit when you're behind.
Now let's say you bet out for $35. Your opponent calls with both weaker

and stronger hands. You're winning something from worse hands and
not losing as much to the better hands. By "setting the price" of a
showdown at $35, you take away much of your opponent's positional
advantage.
Blocking bets are an effective tool, but they do have some downsides.
If you make blocking bets only when you want to see a cheap
showdown, you give good players too much information about your
hand, and they can use it against you. Also, if your hand is really fairly
hopeless, sometimes just checking and folding is better than trying a
blocking bet.
Betting Scare Cards
Adding blocking bets to your strategy isn't the only way you can be
more active when out of position. You also should bet some scare
cards.
Let's say you flop a set and bet the flop and turn. Your opponent calls
both streets. The pot is $400, and you and your opponent both have
$200 left in your stacks. The river brings the third heart. You know that
your opponent easily could have been drawing to the flush. Shove all in
anyway.
The short explanation is that if you check, you let your opponent off the
hook with top pair or two pair, but you usually end up paying off the
flush anyway. Whereas, if you shove all in yourself, you pay off the
flush, but get paid off by the weaker hands. Checking has you winning
a little or losing a lot. Shoving has you winning a lot or losing a lot.
You're better off playing the latter strategy.
The stack sizes were key in this example. The pot was $400 and there
was only $200 left in your stack, so you'd likely be committed with a set
no matter what. If you had $1,000 left, the situation would be
considerably trickier, and the best play might depend on your history
with your opponent.
Recently, I played a hand in which I shoved all in on a scary river card.
I had opened for $10 in an online $1-$2 game with A-Q from three off
the button. A new player who had posted in the cutoff called, as did the
big blind. The flop came A-9-3 with two diamonds. I bet $25, and the
player in the cutoff called.

The turn was an offsuit ace. I bet $70, and the cutoff called. The pot
was $221 going to the river, and we each had $95 left.
The river was the 2 , completing the possible flush. I shoved for $95
and got called. My opponent had 9-5, and I won a big pot from my
opponent who had flopped middle pair and went with it.
Obviously, some percentage of the time I could expect my opponent to
have the flush. But if I had checked the river, I would have paid off an
all in bet. So, I was likely going to lose the maximum to a flush no
matter what I did. By shoving all in, I won an extra $95 from a hand that
almost certainly would have taken a free showdown if I had offered it.
That's the benefit of betting aggressively for value.

Value-Betting the River

You have to keep punching on the river
by Ed Miller | Published: Oct 03, 2008

The river really separates the pros from the amateurs. I don't mean that
pros tremble in fear of the river card while amateurs gleefully plan their
latest bad beat. Quite the opposite, as the river is probably the betting
round where pro players generate the greatest edge over their amateur
adversaries.
Amateur players tend not to bet enough hands for value on the river,
and that error cripples them in two ways. First, they don't win big
enough pots with their good hands. The river bet is often the biggest bet
of the hand, and when amateur players check down hands they should
be betting, they win medium pots when they should be winning huge
pots.
Second, amateurs can't bluff as effectively when they don't value-bet to
balance their strategy. If I know a player likes to check down good
hands like top pair or a medium-sized two pair, I use that knowledge
against him when he does bet. I know that his range is very polarized
either he has a real monster or he's bluffing. He doesn't have anything
in the middle because he checks those hands down. This knowledge
presents me with some slam-dunk opportunities to snap off bluffs. If I

know that in a certain situation, someone would bet only a full house or
nothing, when he bets, he'll usually be bluffing. After all, it's a lot easier
to have nothing than it is to have a boat.
Betting From Out of Position
Many players get very timid on the river. If they have a hand like a
decent pair, they'll check and just hope the hand gets checked down.
Imagine if you were a boxer and your strategy for the last few rounds
was just to cower in the corner and hope you didn't get punched. You'd
get picked apart. You might make it through some fights, but in others,
your opponent would seize the opportunity, find the right punch, and
knock you out.
Checking the river too often also will get you picked apart. Sometimes
your opponent will check and you'll get to see a showdown. You might
even win some pots. But other times, your opponent will bet, and the bet
will be on his terms, to his advantage. You'll get bluffed off the best
hand. Or, you'll pay off better hands. Over time, this passive strategy
gives your opponents too much leeway, and you'll pay for it.
You have to keep punching on the river. Sometimes you'll get knocked
out anyway, but sometimes you'll land a good punch yourself. An active
strategy makes you a much tougher target.
Making Blocking Bets
Making blocking bets is one way that you can stay more active when out

of position. Blocking bets are small bets, usually around a quarter to half
the size of the pot. If the pot on the river is $100, for instance, you might
bet out for $30 or $35. Blocking bets do two things for you: They help
you get paid by worse hands, and they set the price of a showdown.
Let's say you have A-9 on a J-9-5-4-8 board and check the river. Your
opponent might check behind with hands weaker than yours and bet
$70 with better hands and some bluffs, so you feel compelled to call.
This strategy wins you nothing when you're ahead and loses you a good
bit when you're behind.
Now let's say you bet out for $35. Your opponent calls with both weaker
and stronger hands. You're winning something from worse hands and
not losing as much to the better hands. By "setting the price" of a
showdown at $35, you take away much of your opponent's positional
advantage.
Blocking bets are an effective tool, but they do have some downsides. If
you make blocking bets only when you want to see a cheap showdown,
you give good players too much information about your hand, and they
can use it against you. Also, if your hand is really fairly hopeless,
sometimes just checking and folding is better than trying a blocking bet.
Betting Scare Cards
Adding blocking bets to your strategy isn't the only way you can be more
active when out of position. You also should bet some scare cards.

Let's say you flop a set and bet the flop and turn. Your opponent calls
both streets. The pot is $400, and you and your opponent both have
$200 left in your stacks. The river brings the third heart. You know that
your opponent easily could have been drawing to the flush. Shove all in
anyway.
The short explanation is that if you check, you let your opponent off the
hook with top pair or two pair, but you usually end up paying off the flush
anyway. Whereas, if you shove all in yourself, you pay off the flush, but
get paid off by the weaker hands. Checking has you winning a little or
losing a lot. Shoving has you winning a lot or losing a lot. You're better
off playing the latter strategy.
The stack sizes were key in this example. The pot was $400 and there
was only $200 left in your stack, so you'd likely be committed with a set
no matter what. If you had $1,000 left, the situation would be
considerably trickier, and the best play might depend on your history
with your opponent.
Recently, I played a hand in which I shoved all in on a scary river card. I
had opened for $10 in an online $1-$2 game with A-Q from three off the
button. A new player who had posted in the cutoff called, as did the big
blind. The flop came A-9-3 with two diamonds. I bet $25, and the player
in the cutoff called.
The turn was an offsuit ace. I bet $70, and the cutoff called. The pot was
$221 going to the river, and we each had $95 left.

The river was the 2

, completing the possible flush. I shoved for $95

and got called. My opponent had 9-5, and I won a big pot from my
opponent who had flopped middle pair and went with it.
Obviously, some percentage of the time I could expect my opponent to
have the flush. But if I had checked the river, I would have paid off an all
in bet. So, I was likely going to lose the maximum to a flush no matter
what I did. By shoving all in, I won an extra $95 from a hand that almost
certainly would have taken a free showdown if I had offered it. That's the
benefit of betting aggressively for value.

Suited Connectors in No-Limit Hold'em

Revisited
Analysis of a posted forum hand
by Ed Miller | Published: Oct 17, 2008

A few months back, I wrote a column about playing suited connectors

titled "How Suited Connectors Cost You Money." The basic premise of
the column was that a lot of people play suited connectors in the wrong
situations and with the wrong expectations. If you're limping in and
calling raises preflop, you're picking the wrong situations. You should be
opening the pot and playing in position. And if you're playing suited
connectors with the sole goal of making a hand and winning a big pot,
you have the wrong expectations. For suited connectors to show a
profit, you can't just lie back and wait for a hand. You have to attack and
steal pots with them. If you play suited connectors in the wrong
situations and with the wrong expectations, you're costing yourself
money.
But suited connectors aren't all bad. Indeed, they can be quite nice nolimit hold'em hands if you play them well. Shortly after that original
column was published, one of my readers alerted me to the discussion
of a hand posted on a forum and asked me for my thoughts.
Here's the player's summary of the hand in question:
It's a full-ring online 50-$1 game played with $100 effective stacks. A
player opens from three off the button for $3.50. The next player calls.
The cutoff folds, and the action is to me on the button with the 8

I've played with the open-raiser before, so I know that his range to open
from this position is approximately any pair fives or better, A-10 or
better, A-8 suited or better, K-J or better, or Q-J.
I call the $3.50, and the blinds fold. So, the pot is $12 on the flop,
there's $96.50 behind, and the flop comes A

Everyone checks to me on the button, and I bet $8 into the $12 pot. The
preflop raiser check-raises to $25, and the other player folds. What
now?
Here are my thoughts about the hand:
Preflop, I frequently would reraise (rather than call) in this situation. The
opener's range is wide, and the pot is sweetened with a call from a likely
weak hand. I would expect to pick up the pot immediately often enough
that the reraise will likely come close to paying for itself.
When you get called, you have a hand that is disguised and tends to
flop a lot of draws. Flopping a draw will give you the maximum ability to
put the final screws of pressure on post-flop. This is what I mean when I
recommend playing suited connectors with position and looking for
chances to steal the pot. You don't want to sit around and wait for your
hand to connect with a flop. It won't happen often enough, and you
won't get paid off frequently enough to compensate you for all of your
misses. Instead, you want to seize the initiative and force your
opponents to hit the flop or fold.

Furthermore, reraising with 8-6 suited in this situation balances your

reraises with big hands. If you reraise small-card hands with some
regularity, you'll find that otherwise-sane players will start to call your
reraises with hands like A-10 when they're out of position. As a result,
you'll tend to make a lot more profit on average with your big pocket
pairs.
As long as you don't go crazy with these in-position suited-connector
reraises, they can be very difficult for an open-raiser to counter.
Calling is also a reasonable option, but again, you can't rely on implied
odds alone to make the hand profitable. You must plan to steal quite a
bit. For instance, you might bet nearly any flop that gets checked to you.
And if the preflop raiser is the type who will fire a continuation-bet nearly
100 percent of the time, even when out of position into two players, you
can't just give up whenever you miss the flop. Sometimes you have to
call or raise that flop bet with air, trying to take the pot away. Again, if
you fold every time you miss, you'll be folding on the majority of flops,
and you won't win enough on the remainder of the flops to make up for
it.
When you flop a monster draw, as in the example hand, you want to get
the money in. I think the opener's check-raising line is suspicious. It's a
very strange flop to try to check-raise, but perhaps this player is a little
loopy. Or, maybe he thinks that someone behind him is very aggressive
and is almost certain to bet.

In general, in no-limit hold'em, when there's a confrontation between a

made hand and a big draw in which both have roughly 50 percent equity
on the flop, the big draws like to get all the money in on the flop, and the
made hands like to get it in with installments over a few streets.
Because your equity is so strong against most made hands, I would
argue for simply shoving all in over the top of the flop check-raise.
The only possible exception to that conclusion would be if, for some
reason, you think this peculiar check-raise line heavily weights your
opponent's range toward big flush draws. If you shove immediately, a
hand like the K

will call you, and you'll be a solid underdog. If

you flat-call the check-raise and shove on the turn if a flush card doesn't
come, however, you may get folds that you wouldn't have gotten on the
flop.
But big flush draws are quite a small part of his overall range on the flop
(before he takes any action), so your read on the check-raise would
have to be very precise to even consider any line other than shoving on
the flop.
Overall, I think the preflop call can be justified, but if I called, I'd do so
while thinking about how I could steal the pot post-flop. A preflop reraise
would have been a strong option well worth considering. And once you
call preflop and flop a monster draw, I think the best play in the vast
majority of cases is to shove all in on the flop and hope to win the hand.

Playing No-Limit Hold'em With a Plan

Consider some likely scenarios
by Ed Miller | Published: Oct 31, 2008

"How should I play suited connectors preflop? Should I call raises with
them?" People ask me questions like these all the time. Unfortunately, I
can't answer them without context. To provide a good answer, I'd have
to ask a few questions of my own: How is the game playing? What are
the stack sizes? Have any significant and memorable hands occurred
recently? And so forth.
Then I'd have to ask the most important question: What are you trying to
accomplish?
Most players decide on their plays without ever really thinking about
what they're trying to accomplish with the hand. They call with this hand.
They raise with that one. Why? Because they think the hand is good
enough to see a flop. Or, because they want to thin the field. Or, just
because.
Those reasons aren't good enough if you want to win consistently. To
make money in no-limit hold'em, you have to play with a plan. You have
to anticipate the different ways that a hand could play out and
encourage the favorable outcomes while avoiding the unfavorable ones.
Obviously, poker is random, and a terrible card can ruin even the most
promising situation. You can't avoid the occasional tough spot or bad
beat. But many players willingly wade into bad situation after bad

situation because they don't plan.

Consider this scenario: It's a 10-handed $5-$10 game. You have $1,000
and everyone at the table has you covered. Three players limp, and
then the cutoff raises to $80. You're on the button with the 7

What should you do?

Many players would call automatically: They have a decent-looking
hand and the button. That reasoning, however, reflects no planning
whatsoever. You'll likely have to make several decisions after the flop.
Are those decisions likely to offer you favorable or unfavorable
outcomes?
Let's play through some potential scenarios:
Scenario No. 1: You call, the blinds fold, and the first limper reraises to
$380. Everyone folds to you. Your hand is likely too weak to compete
against your opponent's range of hands, and you have to fold. If this
scenario is reasonably likely, you should fold the first time around rather
than risk getting blown off your $80 investment.
Scenario No. 2: You call, the blinds fold, and all three limpers call. That
makes the preflop pot $415, and you have $920 left in your stack. So,
you have somewhat more than twice the size of the pot remaining. If
someone bets the pot (or close to it) on the flop, you have to make an
immediate decision for all of your chips. It would be very rare that you'd
want to call a $400 bet, only to fold to an all-in $520 bet on the next
round. Playing for the flop bet will effectively commit the rest of your

chips.
Your first flop decision will also likely be your last one. You'll either
commit everything, or you'll fold. Because of your weak relative position,
acting directly after the preflop raiser, that flop decision will be
excruciating.
For instance, let's say the flop comes Q

. It is checked to the

preflop raiser, who bets $300 into the $415 pot. You have to commit
now, and you have no good information. Furthermore, you have four
opponents, any of whom could have a hand. This scenario doesn't give
you an edge, and yet you'll stumble into a situation like this one over
and over again if you decide to see the flop. You can avoid it by folding
preflop.
Scenario No. 3: You call, and everyone else folds. The preflop pot is
$175 and you have $920 left. Your opponent is aggressive, and you
expect him to bet the pot or close to it almost no matter the flop.
Once again, you're in a tricky situation. You'll miss the flop frequently, so
if you plan to fold every time you miss, right off the bat you're giving your
opponent a large percentage of the pots. It's unlikely that you'll be able
to overcome that disadvantage to make the hand profitable overall.
To make the preflop call workable, you have to steal some of the pots. If
your opponent raises limpers with some weak hands and therefore
frequently flops nothing himself, you may be able to steal enough pots.
If your opponent usually has a strong hand when he raises several

limpers, trying to steal from him is not going to work out.

In this scenario, calling is a dicey proposition that requires several
things to go right for you: The limpers have to fold, your opponent has to
have weak hands in his range, and the flop has to cooperate with your
plan to steal by being sufficiently scary.
Scenario No. 4: Your entire table is very nitty, including the preflop
raiser. You think the preflop raiser is making such a large raise because
he's nervous about his hand and wants everyone to fold. The table is
tight enough that all of the limpers will indeed likely fold. In this scenario,
calling makes a lot of sense.
Your tight opponent will know that calling such a large raise suggests
some strength, and he will fear that your hand is better than the hand he
has (unless he happens to have pocket aces or kings). If you call, and
the limpers fold (as predicted), your opponent may tip his hand on the
flop. Namely, he may make a big bet with a big pair, and he may make a
small bet or check if he misses or otherwise doesn't like his hand (9-9
on a Q-J-4 board, for instance). In that case, you call preflop with the
intention of letting your opponent tip his hand on the flop, and reacting
to it with precision.
So, what are you trying to accomplish? Are you playing 7-6 suited
because you want to flop a draw and win a big pot off your solid
opponent? That's a bad plan, because the preflop raise is too large
compared to the stack sizes. You'll be all in (or at least pot-committed)
on the flop before you hit your draw.

Are you playing 7-6 suited because it "plays well multiway," and this will
be a multiway pot? Again, it's no good here, because you'll be forced to
commit too early in the hand.
Are you playing 7-6 suited because your opponents are nitty and you
plan to call preflop and take the pot on the flop? If so, you might be on
to something.
Plan your hands. Consider some likely scenarios, and decide if you like
them. How will your hand play if the obvious happens? What are your
"home run" scenarios, and how likely are they? If you do this, you'll
avoid playing on autopilot and will make better and more profitable
decisions.

Firing the Second Barrel

An important skill to master
by Ed Miller | Published: Nov 14, 2008

Firing the second barrel means bluffing again on the turn after your
opponent called your flop bluff. It's probably one of the most important
skills to master if you want to crush no-limit hold'em games.
Second-Barrel Basics
Many flop calls are made for speculative reasons. Players have a draw
that they hope to improve on the turn. Or, they have a weak pair, and
they aren't sure whether you have a bigger pair or just two unpaired
cards. Or, they don't have much of a hand, but they're sticking around
hoping that you will give up. Firing the second barrel is designed to
attack these speculative calls.
In these cases, the flop callers are not committed to their hands. They
just plan to stick around for one more round, and only if they catch a
break do they plan to proceed beyond that.
When your opponents are calling with a draw, more often than not they
won't catch their card, and you can bet them off the pot. When your
opponents are calling to see if you'll give up on the pot, you can
disappoint them by firing on the turn.
Overall, when your opponents call the flop for speculative reasons, you
are in a position of great strength no matter what cards you hold. Simply
betting the turn is a winning strategy.

Identifying Speculative Calls

Not every flop call will be speculative. Sometimes your opponent will be
trapping with a huge hand. Or, more often, your opponent will have a
fairly good hand that he just doesn't plan to fold. He may not like that
you keep showing strength, but he isn't giving up, either.
To fire second barrels effectively, you need to separate the likely
speculative calls from the stronger calls. Two keys to doing that are
identifying your opponent's hand range and examining the board
texture.
Let's say you raise from a relatively early position with K-Q, and a tight
player immediately to your left calls. Everyone else folds. The flop
comes 8-4-2 rainbow. How should you proceed?
When tight players call preflop from an early position, they tend to have
fairly strong hands, and their ranges are weighted toward pocket pairs.
For instance, they might make the call with any pocket pair, A-K, or A-Q.
Look at the board texture - three rag cards. How would your opponent
proceed with each hand in his range on this board texture? Pocket aces
through nines are overpairs. Pocket eights, fours, and deuces have
flopped a set. Even pocket sevens, sixes, and fives look like they might
have dodged a bullet by catching this raggedy flop. The same logic
applies to A-K and A-Q, which could be ahead. Your opponent's
possible hands look mostly fairly strong.

I would tend to check and fold the flop. Don't bluff into strength. But let's
say I decided to try a continuation-bet and my opponent (predictably)
called. How about firing a turn barrel?
If the turn is a 3, firing a turn barrel is terrible. The pocket pairs look just
as strong as they did on the flop, and the weaker hands like pocket
sixes, pocket fives, A-K, and A-Q have just picked up a straight draw.
You're likely to get called or raised.
If the turn is a jack, firing a turn barrel isn't so bad. Pocket tens and
nines are no longer overpairs. Pocket sevens, sixes, and fives each
have to worry about two overcards on board. A-K and A-Q have missed
completely. It's not a great second-barreling opportunity, but 8-4-2-J is a
much better board texture in this situation than is 8-4-2-3.
A Better Opportunity
Now that you understand the basics of how your opponent's hand range
and the board texture interact to determine whether or not you have a
smart second-barrel opportunity, I'll show you a more lucrative example.
It's a $2-$5 game, and you and all of your opponents have about $500
stacks. A player limps in from four off the button. Everyone folds to you
on the button, and you make it $25 to go with the 7

. If this play

appears loose to you, I assure you that it's perfectly sound - provided
you can smartly fire the second barrel if the opportunity arises.
The big blind calls, as does the limper. The pot is $77, and you have
$475 remaining. The flop comes J

. Everyone checks to you.

This is a somewhat coordinated flop, so if you bet, you can expect to be

called with reasonable frequency.
However, a large proportion of these flop calls will be speculative. Your
opponents will often be drawing to the spade flush or to a straight with a
hand like Q-10, Q-9, 10-9, 10-7, or 9-7. Or, they'll have middle or bottom
pair with a hand like 8-6 or A-3. You can expect to push your opponents
off many of these hands if the turn card comes good for you and you
bet.
You bet $55 into the $77 flop pot. The big blind folds, and the limper
calls. The turn is the K

. Your opponent checks.

This card is great to fire a second barrel on. It completes none of the
speculative hands I listed above. It has the additional benefit that it
should scare your opponent if he flopped top pair with a hand like J-10.
The pot at this point is $187. I would bet around $120 or so. This bet
size should be enough to convince most opponents to give up on
speculative hands. It might even get someone off a jack.
The K

is a nearly perfect turn card for firing a second barrel because

it completes no draws and also scares flopped top pairs.

Let's say you caught the 10

instead. The situation is now much

different. All of the speculative straight-draw hands that I listed above

have now improved. Q-9 and 9-7 have made a straight. Q-10, 10-9, and
10-7 have made a pair. You can expect at least a call on the turn from
each of these hands.

In addition, possible hands like J-10 and 10-8 that possibly could have
been cajoled to fold either on the turn or on a scary river card (you can
fire a third barrel, too) have now made two pair and are going all the
way.
I would just check back the 10 and resign myself to losing the pot,
since this card hits the speculative hand range fairly well.
The same logic goes for a turn 9, and also a queen or a 7. These are
bad cards because they hit your opponent's range.
Good barreling cards in addition to the king include small bricks like
offsuit deuces, fours, fives, and sixes.
Some turn cards make for great bluffing opportunities, and some are too
likely to help your opponent to allow you to keep bluffing. If you compare
your opponent's likely hand range to the board texture, you can
determine whether your opponent is probably in a calling mood or a
folding mood. If you learn to fire second barrels when your opponents
are likely weak, you will terrorize the tables.

Exploiting Limiting Turn Calls

A critical hand-reading concept
by Ed Miller | Published: Nov 25, 2008

The idea of a player "limiting" his hand range is a critical hand-reading

concept. The basic idea is this: Anyone who has a very strong hand
wants to get money in the pot. He'll be looking for an opportunity to do
that. If your opponent bypasses one or more excellent opportunities to
go for value, particularly on the turn and river, he effectively has denied
having a very strong hand.
Put more simply, if your opponent keeps checking and calling,
eventually you can be fairly sure that he doesn't have the nuts. He has
"limited" the strength of his hand. You can use that knowledge against
him.
Here's a hand I played recently in which I used my opponent's limited
range to identify a profitable bluffing opportunity.
I was in a
live $2-$5
no-limit
hold'em
game. One
player
limped in
from under
the gun, and then a tight, but generally not too aggressive, player made

it $25 to go. (This raise size was typical for the game, and I thought my
opponent could have a range of hands that included big and medium
pocket pairs, big cards such as A-10 and K-Q, and possibly suited
connectors or suited aces.) Two loose players called, and I called from
the button with the 9

. The blinds and the limper folded. We were

four-handed to the flop in a $112 pot.

The flop came A

. The preflop raiser bet $45, the two loose

players folded, and the action was on me.

At this point, we each had about $700 remaining. I interpreted my
opponent's less than half-pot bet size to indicate possible (but not at all
certain) weakness. I decided to call, for a few reasons:
1. I thought my opponent could hold an unimproved pocket pair such as
tens or queens. With an ace on board, I thought it would be easy to
force him off such a hand.
2. With two hearts and two Broadway cards on the flop, the turn and
river were relatively likely to bring at least one scare card. So, if my
opponent flopped an ace, frequently I would get the opportunity to push
him off his hand. It's often not wise to try to push someone off top pair,
but in this case, the stacks were deep enough and my opponent tight
enough that I thought it would work fine.
3. While I would have only two outs if behind, there was still some
chance that I could catch a miracle set and win a big pot. Since I held
the 9

, either remaining 9 would give me a hand that I would be happy

to play hard for value.

4. It was possible that I held the best hand, and if so, my position would
give me the advantage and enable me to win the majority of those pots.
5. My opponent had bet less than half the pot, so it was fairly cheap for
me to see a turn card and re-evaluate the situation.
I called. The turn was the interesting J

, pairing the board and also

completing a possible flush. My opponent reacted poorly to the card and

checked. I bet $150 into the $202 pot. I chose this size for two main
reasons:
1. I wanted the bet to be big enough to get my opponent off any
marginal hands like a pair of kings.
2. I wanted to leave the correct amount in our stacks for an effective
river bluff. If my opponent were to call my $150, we'd each have roughly
$500 left on the river, and the pot also would be roughly $500. A potsized all-in bluff would likely be sufficient to get my opponent off all but
some very strong hands.
He hemmed and hawed for a bit and then called. His mannerisms
suggested true weakness, not faked weakness. The river was the 3

an innocuous card. My opponent checked. I moved all in. Why?

My opponent limited his hand range by calling the turn bet and checking
the river. With a flush or full house, I would have expected this player to

have bet the turn, to have check-raised the turn, or to have bet the river.
He caught a potentially scary turn card and passed on three
opportunities to get value for his hand. An exceptionally tricky player
might do that with a flush, but most players wouldn't. I played the odds
and assumed that this betting sequence was limiting.
In my opinion, my opponent was limited by his actions to a hand no
better than K-J. Because he called my turn bet, he likely held at least an
ace (though a drawing hand such as the K

was also possible). It

was significantly more likely that he held an ace than a jack, for a few
reasons:
1. Three aces remained in the deck, while only two jacks remained.
2. He raised preflop and bet the flop, and I would expect him to make
both actions more often when holding an ace than when holding a jack.
3. He chose a very passive betting line after the turn card came. He
might have been more aggressive if he held a jack.
I thought this opponent would lay an ace down in this situation to an allin bet nearly every time. He wasn't going to risk going broke to my
"obvious flush," even with A-K, on this scary board. In fact, I thought he
might even fold trips. I didn't expect him to fold trips, but on multiple
occasions in similar situations, I've had opponents fold trips faceup. So,
it was possible.
I thought he would fold the significant majority of the time, and therefore

my roughly even-money bluff would show a profit. Indeed, he did fold.

I was fairly certain that my opponent was limited in this hand both
because of his betting pattern and because of his mannerisms. If I had
to rely on the betting pattern alone, I wouldn't have been quite as
certain. Absent the tells, my opponent possibly could have bet the same
way while holding true monsters like quad jacks, aces full, or jacks full of
aces. Sometimes players make seemingly strange checks and play very
passively when they think they have the deck crushed.
But even if you're not 100 percent sure that your opponent's hand range
is limited, you can often still find good bluffs. After all, you're not looking
for a sure thing. It's OK if you get caught sometimes. You just need an
edge. When your opponent's hand range is limited mostly to hands you
think he'll fold, a well-executed bluff will usually have the dealer pushing
you the pot.

Don't Overdo Overlimping

Try raising instead
by Ed Miller | Published: Dec 12, 2008

Overlimping is limping in preflop behind one or more limpers. In my

opinion, most players overlimp more often than they should. If you love
to sneak into pots behind limping opponents, reading this column could
change your mind and improve your results.

You're sitting four off the button in a nine-handed live no-limit hold'em
game. The blinds are $2-$5, and the stacks range from $200 to more
than $1,000. Two players limp in front of you. Let's say you limp, also.
What's likely to happen?

In many cases, it will go something like this: Two players will limp in
behind you. The small blind will complete, and the big blind will check.
That makes you one out of seven players seeing a flop. You have
position on four of them, and two players are behind you. What's your
plan?

With so many players seeing a flop, stealing won't play a large role in
your strategy. You might steal some pots by flopping a big draw and
semibluffing. And every once in a while, you might steal a pot that no
one seems to want. But you aren't going to steal too many pots out from
under six other opponents.

So, your strategy must rely mostly on making a hand and getting value
for it. Unfortunately, that's the same strategy that your opponents will
have. And that's the fundamental problem with overlimping; it creates
situations in which you and your opponents are all playing roughly the
same way. When everyone is playing the same way, no one has an
edge.

Of course, I acknowledge that you can manufacture at least some edge

for yourself in limped pots. Here are the ways you can do it:

1. You can start with stronger hands preflop than your opponents do.

2. You can bet your hands better. Many players are too timid with their
good hands, and either miss bets with them or don't make their bets big
enough. You can extract more value for your hands than your
opponents can.

But, as edges in no-limit go, these are relatively small. Starting-hand

strength isn't very important in a limped pot because the pot starts very
small. That leaves plenty of time and money for a weaker hand to play
catch-up. And your "better-betting" edge comes into play only when you
make a good hand and someone else makes a second-best hand. That
doesn't happen very often, and nearly as frequently, you'll be the one
with the second-best hand.

The bottom line is that when you overlimp, you're mostly hoping to make

a hand and win a big pot, and yet it's hard to stack someone or
otherwise win a big pot when the hand starts out limped seven ways.
And to top it off, your opponents are also hoping to make a hand and
win a big pot, and they're almost as good at doing it as you are. So, you
just don't have a whole lot of edge.

Raising preflop creates imbalances that good players can exploit for a
larger edge. If you raise, typically one of three things will happen:

1. No one will call. This possibility obviously presents an edge for you.
You're now stealing pots that you couldn't steal by limping.

2. One or two players will call. This situation benefits you, particularly if
your opponents will cede you the post-flop initiative and play a fit-or-fold
strategy after the flop. In games where there is typically a lot of limping,
as I said before, most players' strategies revolve around trying to make
a hand. They aren't trying to steal many pots. They are deciding
whether to continue or not based on how strong their hands are. When
your opponents are playing that way, folding unless they "fit" well with
the boardcards, you can exploit them merely by playing aggressively.

When seven people see the flop in a limped pot, everyone is playing
"make-a-hand" poker, and you don't have it much better than anyone
else. But when you raise preflop and only one or two people call, often
your opponents will be playing make-a-hand poker while you will be
playing "I win if you don't make a hand." This scenario can offer you a
much more significant edge over your opponents.

3. Nearly everyone will call. This situation is somewhat similar to playing

the limped pot, except that the small edges you could exploit in a limped
pot become larger edges in this scenario. Since the preflop pot is
significantly larger, preflop hand strength takes on more importance.
And you now make much more money from betting better than your
opponents because the pot and bets will be much bigger. Whatever
your edge was worth in a $30 limped pot, it will be worth significantly
more in a $150 raised pot. The more money that's at risk, the more your
potential edges are worth.

Of course, you don't get all of these potential advantages for free.
Raising instead of overlimping exposes you to the risk of getting
reraised off your hand. Many live games are fairly passive preflop,
however, and you often won't have to worry much about getting reraised
unless someone happens to pick up a hand like pocket aces or kings.
These passive games are best for raising with hands you would
normally overlimp.

Overlimping is not at all universally bad. It keeps you in the hand and
gives you some chance to win a big pot. And in very aggressive games
where people are raising and reraising like crazy, overlimping can often
be your best play.

But when the game is passive and many pots are being played five-,
six-, or seven-handed for the price of the big blind, overlimping often
handicaps you. It forces you to play primarily make-a-hand poker, and

therefore it deprives you of many of your potential edges. Try raising

instead. Doing so can tilt many pots to your advantage and enable you
to exploit much larger edges. The bigger your edges, the more money
you'll make.