Protect Your Hand or Muck It

It's Friday and as I plan to continue doing for a while, I went down to Jasper to play some 1-2 Limit. I think I played "ok" tonight but nothing great. I had a few new "tricks" to add to the bag and I wanted to get some field time with them. That's almost always a little bumpy until I get it down.

When I say "tricks," what I really mean is a correct play that is not always intuitive and it helps maximize your profit of the long run. I want to discuss a couple interesting hands that I played tonight; one that I misplayed and one that I think I played correctly.

It was the end of the night and I had just sat down at a new table filling it up. I recognized a couple of people there, but most of the table was new to me. I was sitting to the left of a loose, aggressive player and in low limit 9 handed game, that's usually the best seat in the house.

I have to take an aside here because it will help to explain why I misplayed the first hand and played the second very well. In a low limit game where 6-8 people are regularly seeing the flop, it's very hard to protect your hand profitably. This is because the pot is so large on the flop and later betting rounds that many people are getting very good odds to draw out on you if you're holding the best hand. Most of the time, people are extremely loose and calling just to see another card, but they are often unknowingly making the correct play. I'm not even talking about open straight draws and flush draws that only require about 5-1 and 4-1, but even draws to two pair or trips when they currently only hold middle or bottom pair. Gutshots are also possible since they only need about 10.5-1 and the pot is often that big. When a player flops top pair, they will usually bet out. That's the intuitive move and they are betting for value. However, they are not protecting their hand which is extremely vulnerable. Their bet will just be called as it should by many players with even small draws. You don't profit when that happens. Then on the turn, the flop raiser could raise again, but because of his bet on the flop and the number of callers, the pot is even bigger and many will even have the odds to draw to the river. Again, they don't know that most of the time, but their call is still correct. You see a lot of people play like this and then someone catchs a 2nd pair on the river or some other hand to win. Then the losing player tries to ridicule the player: "How could you call that raise with bottom pair on the flop??? With no pair??? With just overcards??? With a gutshot???" It wasn't the player that called with a pair of 3's on the flop that made the mistake, but the other player who failed to effectively protect his vulnerable hand.

The way you have to try to protect a vulnerable hand in a low limit game is to pay close attention to the pot odds. There is often no way to protect the top pair on the flop in a big multiway pot and raising only makes it much harder to protect on the turn. The player should either hope a raise comes from his/her right in order to re-raise and cut the pot odds in half. Then the player with the 4 or 5 outer cannot call profitably, and if they do call without odds, they are contributing dead money. You profit in limit this way. If there is no raise to then re-raise, then a raise on the turn will at least be more effective since the pot is much smaller than it would have been had the top pair player just led out. That's not even mentioning if you can get in a re-raise on the turn forcing players to cold call 2 raises. That just shatters their odds.

Many times it's just impossible to protect a top pair hand and that's why they are so vulnerable and should be played very carefully. It's also why pocket pairs and suited connectors play so well in these big muliway pots. If they make their hand, a set/straight/flush, the hand is not nearly as vulnerable and doesn't require the protection that weaker hands need. Protecting a weak hand in a game like this is difficult, but extremely important in maximizing your hourly rate.

So I sat down with some new faces and folded a few hands until I was dealt AQ offsuit from late position. There hadn't been a raise when the action got to me so I raised it. It was called all the way around. The flop comes Q104 with 2 clubs. It was checked around and I raised with my top pair. The pot was re-raised ahead of me and most of the table called. I wasn't sure about how the player who re-raised played and didn't give him much respect. The pot was quite large at this point. I considered re-raising, but decided against it since it wouldn't really accomplish anything (Another mistake. In situations like this, raising or folding is usually right and calling is the worst play you can make. This is like mistaked 3 of 5 this hand. Ow!). The turn brings a club, the flop raiser raises again, it's called around, I call the 2, and it's re-raised again. Several people leave at this point, and I realize I'm probably behind, but I'm getting something like 20-1 (the pot was massive). There are 3 of us left on the river when the board pairs. It's raised, I call hoping to showdown. Well, there's a betting and raising war at this point, where I get in 1 call before making the definite laydown giving away my chance to win a $50 pot. They both cap it and one flips over the flush and the other flips the full house. He caught a set on the flop and the board paired on the river. He raked in the biggest pot I've seen in 1-2 limit (25-30 BB's in 1/2 Limit is just unreal) It was nearly a $60 pot in the end.

To make a long story short, I made several mistakes and one was going too far with a hand I couldn't protect (not considering that the guy already had a set). The pot was so big that even if there was a raise to my right and I re-raised, everyone would still be getting enough pot odds to cold call two bets and draw to their 4 outer and up. The size of the pot definitely had a big impact on why I stayed so long, but with 9 people to the flop, my hand was far too vulnerable to hope to stand up without being able to protect it. I wasn't just up against a couple guys with better hands at the time, but the rest of the table and had no way of narrowing it down. I should have gotten out much sooner. I ended up losing about $10-15 on that pot alone with just top pair. Top pair is a good hand in a small pot since you can easily protect it by betting but you're at the mercy of the deck when you can't protect it in big pots like this. There were several huge mistakes and I hope to learn from them. I certainly paid for it.

The 2nd hand was one I was fairly proud of even though no one at the table understood what was going on. I had KQ offsuit on the button. It was checked around to me and I raised. 6 people called and the loose aggressive guy to my right raised (check-raised that is). I called as did everyone else correctly at that point. The flop had J94 all clubs. I had the King of clubs in my hand. This board gave me two overcards, a flush draw to the 2nd nuts, and a gutshot straight draw. Added together that's a great hand with a lot of outs and 13 of which are to the nuts. It's checked around on the flop. I thought about raising here since I certainly had pot equity to profit from a raise but I decided to try to keep the pot small since any raise would still have allowed any player to draw to any 4 outer and I planned to try to protect my hand on the turn. I didn't want the pot to be too large that a bet there had no effect. The turn brings a blank. It's checked around the table and the guy to my right (who check raised me preflop) raises. I'm definitely not folding here. It's either call or raise. The pot is about 7 big bets, give or take. Calling would give the next guy 8-1 (8 BB's with 1 to call) and so on. Everyone could draw with any low pair and try to two pair or trip up profitably. Part of the strength of my hand was having overcards to the board and winning with a pair of Kings or Queens if I missed the flush or gutshot. At that point, I just wanted to push people out of the pot to raise my chance of winning with just a pair even though I felt I was beat at that point. I re-raised making it 4 to go and cutting the pot odds down to about 4-1. The table folds around to the raiser to my right and he calls. A blank hits on the river and he checks. I check figuring him almost certainly for some pair. He flips up Q high and my K high takes down the pot to the gasp of the rest of the table. It even takes the dealer longer than normal to realize that just K high was taking down the pot. Turns out my bet was effective at protecting my hand as I hoped. A couple of people had folded low pairs because of the 2 big bets they would have had to call. Had I not raised, they would have stayed cheap for just a call (a correct call) and gotten a cheap showdown short of me deciding to bluff the river which almost always fails in this type of game (and I wouldn't have done it here). The re-raise effectively pushed people with better hands out of the pot increasing my chances of winning. Even if I picked up a few callers, the pot equity I had was very good for the strong draw I had as well. This is a good example of how you need to play some hands in order to max. your chances of winning. I could have played it differently in many ways, but most would have led to losing a pot that could have been won.

In limit, sometimes you have to check the best hand to protect it. Sometimes you have to raise even though you know you currently hold the worst hand. The only way to get an idea of what to do is to pay attention to the pot odds and equity and figure out what's going on with your odds and well as how a play you make will affect those left to act after you.

Anyways, that's all for now. There's so many things that go on in that card room that I could rant about, but I'll save that for another day. It's a great place to go to get free or cheap experience in low limit. I fully expect a bad day to come up where I leave the place a big loser, but hopefully it won't be anytime soon. Most of the time I'm not satisfied by the money I leave with, but rather how I played. I could leave way up and feeling terrible or down and feeling very good. Odd how that is.

Till next time,
Peace