Holdem Poker Practice Hands

Continued from: Learning Hands for Holdem In this next Holdem poker practice hand, you are on the dealer button. Rex is first to act and folds; Jake also folds; action is to you. You look down at a mediocre KTo (King Ten offsuit). What do you do? a) Call b) Fold c) Raise

Well, you have Dutty and the Uni-Mamma in the blinds - both of them are action players that like to see flops. That means you will not be able to steal a lot of blinds by raising with junk hands from the dealer button. You still have to take advantage of your position when you have the button, and you need to take advantage of "first in vig" when you have a chance.

"First in vig" is a term used to describe a player's natural edge from being the first player to enter a pot. You take the lead in the pot and force opponents to react to you. First in vig is the reason we raise pots more than we call; often times the first player to bet picks up the pot. So, you will want to loosen up your raising requirements a lot when you are on the button, especially when it folds around to you. Because you have action players in your blinds, you will still need to have a hand with some potential in case you do get called. I think KT qualifies. It is likely to be the best hand with only two other players. I would raise here with any pair, QTs or better, QJo or better, and suited connectors 65s and better. I'd also raise on the button with any Ace high hand, any suited King, or K6o or better. Your KT qualifies, so you bring it in for 200 (your standard raise).

Dutty calls the extra 175 from the small blind, and the Mamma folds her hand. You're going to have to take a flop. Stop here for a second and consider what sort of hands Dutty would have called you with. He would have re-raised with any premium hand with few exceptions (he knows he'd rather not play a hand out of position, and re-raising pre-flop could stop that from happening). He also probably would have re-raised with an ace in his hand, for the same reasons. He could have called with a monster like AA or KK, setting a trap. He most likely is holding something mediocre that has potential after the flop; he's gonna try to out-play you. I'd suspect suited connectors or a small pocket pair. You don't have enough information to draw a conclusion yet, but you should get in the habit of thinking this way. You hold the King of hearts and the Ten of spades.

Dealing the flop: Kd Qh 8h. Now you have hit top pair with a ten kicker. You also have the advantage of acting last on all betting rounds. Dutty has to make all the tough decisions this time because he has to act first. The pot contains 450, each of you have around 2000 in chips, and it's still early in the game. Dutty leads out and bets 200 at that flop. I'd be a little suspicious of that bet size - it's not enough to price out the flush and straight draws, and he knows it. My guess is that he's either on a draw himself, he's taking a small stab at a pot that he feels you won't call if you didn't hit (my best guess), or he has flopped a monster (maybe a set) and he's trying to get some action. With 650 now in the pot it will only cost you 200 to call (that's better than 3 to 1), and you have top pair. There's no way you're folding here; the only question is do you...

• a) Raise
• b) Call

The sneaky, trappy, advanced way to play this hand might be to smooth call the bet and try to get more of his chips in the pot on fourth street. If you play it off right you can almost be sure he'll bet again on the turn, and you have a pretty strong hand, so that's the argument for calling. The problem is that there are too many cards that can come out on fourth street that would make things difficult for you. What if the next card to come off is the Jh and Dutty makes a large bet? Well, I don't know what we would do then, so let's just avoid that situation if we can. The texture of the flop makes slow playing your hand very dangerous, and frankly, you're hand isn't really powerful enough to slow play anyway.

I think you need to re-raise here. After you call the 200 there will be 850 in the pot. You'd only have about 1600 left, so a pot sized bet would put more than half your chips in the pot, and in that case you might as well go all-in now. That's going to make it very difficult for him to call on a draw, and it will eliminate Dutty's opportunity for crafty "fancy plays" on fourth and fifth street. When playing against savvy players you can nullify a lot of their moves by playing "big bet" poker. Make big raises before and after the flop, cutting down on the number of decisions you have to make and putting maximum pressure on your opponents. Let them make all the tough decisions.

You move all-in, Dutty folds his hand, showing a pocket pair of nines. I'm surprised he didn't raise you before the flop with that hand. He got greedy and wanted to try to hit a set and break you, though his plays after the flop all seem very logical now. If you'd known that he had nines you would have certainly slow played your kings and trapped him for some more chips, but then, how could you know? You did the right thing. Poker is a game of incomplete information, and you have to make decisions based on what evidence you have to go on. Be happy that you picked up that pot and move on.

♣ Continued at: Intermediate Poker Hand Example

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