I just had a discussion with a friend yesterday on the subject of playing to make hands in poker. This friend plays a lot of online poker, and is a profitable player. There are a lot of poker players who just sit and wait around for hands like AJ or KQ, and then raise or call, see the flop and then depending on how well their hand hits, make further decisions from there. These players might turn out to be profitable, depending on how successful they are in getting their opponents to pay them off on their made hands. The problem with this strategy is that making hands is not a common occurrence, and these players lose money on hands that they miss and subsequently fold.
There aren’t many loose passive players online, and these are the type of players that you can expect to pay you off if you play to make hands. This generally results in a break-even or even a losing record for players who play to make hands (Fit or Fold players) online, simply because they aren’t getting paid off on their hands, while losing money consistently to hands that they don’t hit and the rake. Sites like Poker Stars give significant rake-back to players who play a lot of hands at higher stakes (ranked supernova or supernova elite), but how many players get to those ranks?
Fact is, in the game of poker, your two pocket/hole cards don’t matter until you finally showdown on the river. What matters before the showdown is what your opponent might be holding, your table image, your opponent’s table image, you and your opponent stack sizes, the money in the pot, and finally, your position relative to your opponent. Players who play to make hands simply ignore these important factors in the game, at least until they make a hand, which actually mean that they rely more on luck, i.e. they are gambling. Of course, there are times when playing to make hands is necessary. E.g. when you’re up against a loose passive player, and, that’s it I think. If any of you readers can think of more situations where playing to make hands is necessary, please comment.
How does one not play to make hands? Here’s an example in a recent online game I played. I was holding AcTc on a NL100 6-max table, sitting on the cutoff. The player to my right had stats of 38/25 which meant that he’s a loose aggressive player. My own stats were 15/12. My stack size was about $130, and he had $150 or thereabouts, so we were pretty even. Action was checked to him pre-flop, and he raised 3xBB. I decided to re-raise him and made it $9. Action folded over to him who flat called. The flop comes Kd9d8h, with suits different to the one I was holding, so I completely missed the flop, and had no draw. He checks, and I made a c-bet of $12 into a $19.50 pot. He makes a min-raise, which made the existing pot $55.50, a very nice pot. I had slightly more than $90 left in my stack, about the same as what he had since he put in $12 more than me. I decided to go for it, and raised to $40. He folded and I took down the pot.
A player who plays to make hands would do things very differently if they were in my situation. They would have called pre-flop, whiffed, and folded to any decently sized bet on the flop. Of course, they would only have risked $3, instead of $61 (half my stack), but think of it in a different context. Passive calling gives you no information on what your opponent might have. Say the flop comes AdKd7h, and your opponent makes a pot sized c-bet. Since you already made your hand, you would probably re-raise, and say the opponent 3-bets you. What do you do then? AT here is crushed by AJ, AQ, AK and A7, AA, KK and 77. It’s also only about even money against a pair plus flush draw, and only really beats a smaller Ace or flush draw. Most Fit or Fold players would not be able to fold here. They finally make a hand, but face a 3-bet. They would then call the 3-bet, and face enormous pressure to call all subsequent bets, possibly putting your whole stack on the line instead of only half your stack.
Note that this situation is not fictional, and occurs very often in a game of poker. A lot of experienced regulars online would make that 3-bet on the flop simply because its profitable to do so against a player who only plays to make hands. Every time that player folds, its instant profit. If that player goes over the top, it’s very easy to for them to fold since they can recover that loss in subsequent hands using the same line of play.
Hopefully this gives you an idea of how to play a more imaginative game. As always, comments and feedback are appreciated. Till next time, may you not play to make hands, but make your hand just the same!
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