Poker Strategy

Every good holdem player knows that hands rarely have "absolute value" for good or for bad. Unless you have the nuts or you have absolutely nothing and you know for sure that you cannot bluff your opponent out, then your hand falls under the "relative value" category and you must therefore assess the situation and determine whether your hand is now relatively bad, mediocre, strong or monstrous and you must then make a quick decision as to what is the best play.

I will give several examples here to illustrate what I mean:

example 1: A4 suited under the gun in a relatively tight game: This hand is bad, very bad. The flush will only get there 6.4% of the time (which is about 1 out of 15 times) and if anyone behind you has a good ace they will almost always play and they will have you dominated and trailing badly. If there is a raise behind you, then you really have nothing to hope for except to flop a flush (which will only occur .08% of the time) or aces and fours (2% of the time). If an ace flops, you will either play in fear of a better ace or you won't get any action. If you do get too much action, you're probably beat. This is why A4s is a horrible hand here and A4o is not even a candidate for discussion.

example 2: A4 suited under the gun in a loose, passive game: This kind of game is more common in lower limits but if you do stumble into such a game at a higher limit, then you now have a mediocre hand. Since you expect many players to limp behind you and you don't expect a raise, you are now getting good value for a small bet. If you hit the flush or the wheel you will have a monster and you expect lots of action. If you don't hit anything, you can get away from your hand cheaply on the flop. You don't give up much by mucking this hand in EP but playing it is not a mistake either.

example 3: A4 suited in LP in a tight game after there have been several limpers: This hand is now again mediocre. Since you don't expect a raise behind you, you are now getting good value for a small bet. Playing it here is optional. I think that this hand is less valuable here than in the previous example, and that is because it is more likely that somebody is in there with a bigger ace. Also, in a tight game you will often not get enough multiway action when you flop a flush draw to make the draw sufficiently profitable. I think that this hand should usually be mucked but I wouldn't consider it a "mistake" to play it.

example 4: A4 suited in LP, one loose, passive player has limped in front of you: This hand is now strong and is almost a must-play. The player who limped probably has nothing and will miss the flop two out of three times making you the winner. Other players (who already mucked) probably did not have an ace because they are likely to have played if they did, so this makes your hand more "live" and increases its value. The blinds have random hands and the odds are against any of them having a pocket pair or an ace. If you can get one or both of the blinds out then you will win the pot about 80% of time. It is now a mistake to muck this hand but it's not a must-raise either although I personally prefer to raise with it in this situation.

example 5: A4 suited under the gun in a tight, non-aggressive game: If you raise here, you don't figure to get reraised and you have a good chance of not getting called by anyone except for maybe the blind/s. Limping here is bad because you will be playing a weak hand out of position but a raise is an okay play as long as you don't get accustomed to make this play on a regular basis. Note that this raise is a steal-raise because players expect you to be holding a better hand when raising under the gun and good players will be laying down better aces for this raise. Therefore, you are really hoping not to get called behind you but you can tolerate a call from the blind/s since you probably have them beat anyway and you have position over them.

As you can see, these five examples call for five different courses of action and it is improtant to assess the situation quickly to determine under which category your A4s falls. Just like it's a mistake to play the A4s UTG ia tight, aggressive game, it is likewise a mistake to NOT play it in LP in the very same game when you are up against lightly-defended blinds.

A hand with very similar rules is KTo, QJo and T9s. These are all hands that you would normally throw away under the gun but you would play them and possibly even raise with them in LP under the right circumstances.