Copyright 2007 Full
Tilt Poker
November 23rd 2007
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Poker Lessons)
Poker Lesson: Taking Your Hands
Off the Wheel
Author: Barny Boatman
There's no question that poker includes an element
of gamble. Any time you risk something of value on an event with
an uncertain outcome, you're gambling. But there is a way in which
poker is the exact
opposite of gambling, because poker
is all about making intelligent decisions. It's all about control.
Gambling, in its purest form - buying a lottery ticket or backing
a number on roulette - is to deliberately relinquish control of
your money and leave the outcome to fate. If it's your day, if
the Gods so wish it, you will get lucky. In poker,
on the other hand, you're always striving to leave as little to
chance as possible.
So how do you achieve control in tournament poker? Is it by avoiding
gambles? By only playing strong starting cards? Only betting made
hands and never bluffing or drawing? Of course not.
If you sit and wait for good hands all the way through a tournament
then, like the roulette player keeping faith with their favorite
number, you're leaving the outcome to chance. The great paradox
of tournament poker is that in order to stay in control you have,
amongst other things, to choose the right moments to gamble.
If you're doing 75 on the freeway and are just a few feet from
the car in front of you, then even if you're the world's best
driver, you're out of control because if the car ahead suddenly
brakes, you can't avoid a crash. So it is with a stack which is
too short to make opponents pass for a re-raise. Any time an opponent
applies the brakes, your stacks will collide - at a time of their
choosing â?? and you will need luck to survive.
In order to stay in control, you must strive to maintain a playable
stack, which can mean pushing over the top of a late raise with
the worst hand when you have a good chance of making your opponent
fold. You don't want to have to make this play, but you have to
recognize when it's the right time to put your chips in the pot.
Too soon and it's a reckless unnecessary risk. Too late, and it's
transparent and unlikely to work. Too often and you develop a
credibility problem.
Sometimes your stack has gotten so low that you know you'll be
in a showdown the next time you enter a pot. The only control
you have left is the choice of when to push, and even there you
are running out of room to manuever. Don't just wait until you're
all-in on the big blind. Instead, look for situations where you'll
be in a showdown with the best possible ratio of chips to opponents,
and where your cards are liable to be live. A well-timed gamble
will give you a shot at regaining a playable stack.
Some very good tournament players deliberately seek early gambles
in big pots; happy to get all their chips in at the first level
with a flush draw against two pair, because they feel the edge
and extra control a big stack would give them is worth that early
risk. That wouldn't be my approach in a deep stack event, but
I understand the reasoning behind that style of play.
In tournament poker the balance between gamble and control is
constantly changing. Recognizing where you and your opponents
are in this shifting landscape will help you make good decisions
and give you a vital edge.
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