Betting out of Position

Playing Poker
Traditionally A Man's Game

Author: Mar

Part 2

In my last segment I talked about respect, and how we as women poker players have to play a better game to gain respect of men in this game. So just how do we do this? it's an easy statement to make, but one that is harder to back up, especially if you happen to be sitting at a table where it is predominately male, and you pick up that sense of disdain for you being there, from even just one of them.

As I can only speak for myself, I can tell you that I play a much more technical game. I may not know all the terminology, or the correct positions to make card specific calls from, but I definitely watch my opening range of cards more carefully, I make appropriate bets, I pay very close attention to all of my opponents moves and very diligently observe all show downs and what lead to those show downs, because each show down is a tell about the person you're playing against.

When I am in a hand, I use all the knowledge I've gained from

Keep reading...

TOURNEY RECAPS   February 19 recap Don't Chase! made his appearance on the club tournament scene by starting off his debut with a strong showing in 1st place.  He was followed, in 2nd place, by another new member, Nexus8.  Samfarha1984 (a/k/a: Johnny Turbo) enters his name in the club annals in 3rd place in his second tournament entry.  This was our largest tournament field to date with 48 competitors and also the first time all final table players cashed.  Watch Video....      March 11 tournament report The competition was excellent with 55 entrants joining us at Pokerstars.  When you come to play in our RFC $5 NLHE, you better bring your A-Game. Everyone who made the final table got paid tonight. We saw some exceptional poker being played. In the end tijgerman took down first place. Mrmustangfan brought home second. Rick, PokerProf007, fought hard to win tonight's event and eventually finished third.  The remaining finishes were as follows... Keep Reading.... Watch Video....                 April 5 tournament report   April 5th starts off with a barn burner of a final table. It took over an hour and half to play the final table. , FullTiltMat made it to 6th place after being down to 811 in chips. After we were five handed, all the players held the chip lead. When we were heads up the chip lead switched up a few times, but ludicrous40 out flopped biggbo's pocket 4's to make A's full and win the tournament.  The order of finish is as follows: Keep Reading.... Watch video...

PUTTING YOUR OPPONENT ON A HAND

By Amy

    Ok, so first the disclaimers.  I am not a math whiz.  In fact, I don't like math very much.  But, the more I study this game and the more articles I read, it has become painfully obvious that I must brush up on my math skills.  Many of the forum posts and questions during our clinics have been centered around, "How do I put my opponent on a hand range."  To do this, we must start at the beginning.  There are 1326 possible two hand combinations that a Hold'em player can be dealt.  There are 6 combinations for each pocket pair. [For example, there are 6 ways AA can be dealt. AcAd, AcAs, AdAh, AdAs, AhAs].  So, if we wanted to know the probability of being dealt a pocket pair the calculation is 6/1326 or 1/221. In total, there are 169 possible starting hands that a player can be dealt in Hold'Em. [13 pocket pairs, 78 suited hands and 78 unsuited hands. [Because the suit of a card holds no significance in the game we have reduced the total combinations to just suited versus unsuited hands.  The total calculation is 78 combinations of pocket pairs, 312 combinations of suited hands, and 936 combinations of unsuited hands.]  There are also 16 combinations for each unpaired set of hole cards.

    STOP THE PRESSES!  One paragraph into this article and there are already way too many numbers you say.  Why do I need to know this? What difference does it make if I have a read on an opponent?  The answer is that you need to have a handle on both to make the proper play.  If you use one of the tools available for free on the internet, such as Poker Stove, you can determine hand ranges for your opponents based on the style of player.

    However, because we don't play against the same opponents often we don't have a lot of evidence concerning the hands he played (very few hands get to show down), our opponent may play a hand differently if he is the preflop raiser versus just calling, the number of players in the hand may dictate how our opponent plays a particular hand, the position he plays the hand from may also cause deviations in his actions and the flop texture may effect what he does as well. 

    Let's suppose that you raise pre-flop with KK and get called by one player.  The flop comes A98.  Can your opponent have AK? If you understand combinations you will see that there are 6 ways that your opponent can have AK - 3 remaining Aces multiplied by 2 remaining Ks.  There are also 48 ways he could have AT+.  But what about the straight draws?  There are 48 ways that your opponent could have an OESD (16 combos of 67, 16 combos of JT, and 16 combos of T7).  How about a gutshot straight draw? There are 16 combos of 56, 16 combos of T6, 16 combos of JQ, and 16 combos of J7.  Forgetting about the Ace, which has you beat if held by your opponent, you can probably remove some of the above combinations from your opponents likely holdings if he is a solid player, as hopefully, he is not calling a raise with T7, T6 or J7. 

    So, now let's combine the two ways of putting your opponent on a hand - combinations plus a range of hands based upon style of play.  For these purposes let's say that a tight player is playing the top 15% of hands plus small pocket pairs and a loose player is playing a wider range of hands down to 30%.

    Again you have KK and raise pre-flop and get called by one player.  The flop comes QJJ. You bet and your opponent just flat calls.  Are you ahead? Let's say we consider your opponent to be a tight solid player playing the top 15% of hands. (See chart above)  There are 30 ways he can have top pair.  12 ways he can have AQ - 4 Aces x 3 remaining Qs, 6 ways he can have KQ - 2 remaining Ks x 3 remaining Qs, and 12 ways he could have QT - 3 remaining Qs x 4 Ts.  What about the possibility that your opponent has trips or better? There are 8 ways he could have AJ, 4 ways he could have KJ, 3 ways he could have QQ, 6 ways he could have QJ, 1 way he could have JJ and 8 ways he could have JT. There are 40 combinations in his range that could give him an OESD and 18 combinations for pairs of AA, TT and 99.  So you are ahead of 92 combinations and behind 30 combinations. 

    Now that all our collective heads are pounding, this is just something to keep in mind.  Remember it's all about taking our games to the next level. 

See you on the felt,

Amy