Portal for winning

I would rather call against multiple limpers then re-raised my middle pair to isolate in the early going.Set mining can be a profitable play for you when you can keep your entry costs low. Most of these calls in early stages are correct for implied odds strategy. If you raise it that much, it’s still not a big hit to thier situation, and you will likely NOT get others to fold. You’re immediately faced with a more difficult decision regarding a continuation bet man you’ve got over cards on the board.  Why not open raise, but once there are limpers, avoid attacking them when its deep stacked and when the blinds are very small.

You also can’t forget about the 2:1 odds. If the pot is 1.5BBs pre flop, there is 1 limper, that makes it 2.5BBs. You now decide to raise to three big blinds, making the pot five.5BBs and the limper (assuming everyone else folds) has to call 2BBs to see a flop with 5.5BBs in it. As at result he is getting good odds to make a call here at nearly 3:1.

If you think about it, you’re probably never too far behind pre-flop if you decide to play. But there is a problem. Or rather a couple of problems.

Firstly your problem is bet-ability of a marginal hand. You could end up with three gapped connectors versus big slick. The flop comes down 5 J Q. You are in front by quite a long way, but can you put much money into this pot? will you even be able to call a continuation bet if it comes? But what if you just bet into the pot? What happens when he calls? Now do you bet once more here? It’s an expensive guessing game now with just bottom pair?

But what if you have something like pocket threes pre-flop? With a board full of over cards,it’s still tough to bet even though statistically your opponent will have missed as well?

So yes, you had correct odds pre flop, if you could get to showdown for something approximating that pre flop investment. But in deep stack situations you can’t. You are going to have to play 3 more streets of poker before you get to showdown.

However there is another problem as a result. You are out of position and that’s not good poker tournament strategy. What this also means is that when you do actually hit the flop, the pots will be smaller. It also means when you don’t make a big hand, you will lose more than your fair share because the player in position will bet you off marginal hands with a worse hand himself.

So really, for these deep stack situations, pot odds are completely irrelevant IMHO. I am only ever looking at implied odds.. i.e. what is the size of my chip stack and my opponents chip stack. My calling range is rather wide if this bet represents 5% of my stack or less. If they have a big pair and I have little connectors, I am okay with that. It’s actually a good thing for them to have pocket aces when I am playing connectors to a raise. But if the raise is getting up to around 10% of my stack, then I fold all the weired stuff, except PPs. But in all of that the only thing I am thinking about is the size of the bet I have to call compared to the effective stack.

I might have 56s and be up against AK. I have to be rather much httin a huge draw or two pair though, otherwise you will be faced with giving up the hand after the flop out of position. Occasionally I might check call on a low board with a low pair, but still there would have to be some read to make me do that.

In Gus Hansen’s poker tournament strategy book, he often sounds angry at himself for calling early position raises from his big blind blind. Partly because, such calls often become more difficult place post flop. Now he has physical tells to work with, and, as mentioned, he is Gus Hansen. There are no person to person tells and we can’t play like Gus. Importantly also, our opponents are not Gus’ opponents. It’s also important to know if your opponent can get away from a top pair, or are more willing to let it ride.

To sum it up, pre-flop pot odds are less important than post flop implied odds. You might choose to play a given hand anyway, but do it for the reason of implied odds and not pot odds, if that makes sense. You have to know how to calculate poker odds when getting into hands like this becuase it may very well determine your long term success in tournaments. Just knowing Poker rules are not enough to win, you need strategy too.

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