Poker Strategy
"How could you call that?!"
I'm going to get a bit mathematical here but don't switch off just yet because
if the mere mention of maths gets you running for cover, you are going to have a
hard time being a poker player online!
Let's look at a hypothetical scenario: You are on the button, you have 89 of
hearts and you raise it from $10 (the big blind) to $30 on a semi-steal. The big
blind thinks for a good while and then pushes his short stack in for $60 in
total. You have a strong feeling he's on A-high or a small pair, either of which
you are behind. Now what do you do?
Well, I'll call every time, I won't be terrifically happy about it but
mathematically its the right play.
Now, before I get mail from everyone saying "how can you put more money in the pot when you KNOW you are behind" consider this:
AK o/s v 89 hearts is about 60:40. That is, AK will win 60% of the time and 89h
will win 40% of the time. Well Hurrah for 89h but what does that mean for our
hand above?
To answer that we have to pretend to play the hand 200 times. 100 times we'll
call the extra $30 and 100 times we'll pretend we didn't. Then we see which
approach is best over time.
The 100 times we don't call is easy to work out. 100 times we lose $30 and lick our wounds. Net Loss: $3000, ouch!
The 100 times we call we will lose 60 times and win 40 times. The 60 times we lose, we lose 60 x $60 = $3,600 loss. But the 40 times we win, we win 40 x $125 ($125 is the pot: both players have paid $60 and the small blind of $5). That's $5000.
So hang on a second, by calling 100 times we win $5000 and lose $3,600.... that's a net PROFIT of $1,400 when we call the reraise!
So, if we fold all the time we lose $3,000 and if we call all the time we *make* $1,400. That's a swing of $4,400!!
If he turns over a small pair, we are in even better shape with odds of roughly 50:50 (in fact, 89h is slightly ahead of 22!). The only bogey hands we might see are 10,10 or better, or something like A9 (which is still just about break-even when you call).
That's how you can call with cards you know are behind, but you need to know your odds and probabilities to do it and you need a strong read on your opponent too so that you aren't walking into the pocket rockets!!
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