With small holdings. I was tilting again 3 days ago (and I thought I’d kicked the habit) and this friend told me, “stop building big pots with your small hands”, or something to that effect, and that phrase registered with me like it hadn’t before.
We need to first define what is meant by a small hand/holding. Based on personal experience, this would mean a pair or smaller. This includes over-pairs, though they are obviously stronger. When a pot gets to a certain size in relation to the effective size of the stacks in play, the hands you showdown with should improve relatively. Effective stack is a term usually used to refer to the smallest, most relevant, stack of a player remaining in the hand. For example, if UTG raises with a stack of 2k behind, and action folds to button with a 1k stack, who calls and everyone else folds, the effective stack involved would be 1k.
This was a hand I played a week ago in a live cash game. The game has been going on for about 2 hours and I have been raising aggressively on the button, showing down some mediocre hands. The button came around to me again, and I got AsKs, with a live straddle in effect. There were a couple of limpers before action was on me, and I made a raise to 6xBB. The blinds folded, UTG (straddle) calls, and the first limper folds while the second limper calls. UTG is a hyper-maniac who plays and raises any two cards from any position, second limper is a solid TAG who generally plays online more than live games (coincidentally the same friend who told me told me to avoid building big pots with small hands).
My stack size was roughly 200BB, while UTG had 250BB and TAG had 170BB. The flop comes Ad9d7c, and action was checked to me. I made my standard continuation bet of 3/4ths the pot, and UTG folds while TAG calls. An 8s comes on the turn, and TAG bets 1/2 the pot, about 30BB. At this point, the remaining effective stacks were about 110BB, should I choose to call that 30BB bet. With his general style of play, he would not have bet into me with a mere pair, but would probably have check-called. Thus the only likely hands he would have been holding considering the flop call would be A8, 98 or JT. All three hands have me beat badly; my AK hand would technically only be able to beat a bluff. I shoved all-in and he calls. He shows 98 to take down the pot.
While my hand had decent showdown equity, I believe calling the turn bet would be a bad play. With a hyper-aggressive player like UTG, AK would generally have been good enough to play for a large pot, but when you’re up against a solid TAG, and he’s betting into you after your initial aggression, chances are good that you’re behind. While raising all-in maximizes fold equity there, the effective stacks weren’t deep enough to force a fold from a hand as strong as two pair. In fact, considering my aggressive image on the button, effective stacks would have to be massive to force a fold from two pair. Thus, raising all-in was also a bad play. The only available move should be to fold.
With this in mind, folding over pairs like Aces or Kings becomes easier (but not by much, at least for me!). I used to like to think that when I get Aces or Kings, I just want to get all my money in regardless of the flop turn or river, because I should statistically win 70-80% of the time. These hands are only superior preflop, and if all the money goes in preflop, you should win or lose with no regrets. After the flop however, the hands have to be re-evaluated for equity, taking into consideration your position, your opponent’s position, effective stacks, pot size etc.
Till next time, may you always showdown in big pots with massive made hands!
