Poker Strategy
The Stop-and-Go technique
Nope, thats not a typo. Nor is it some arcane sexual manoeuvre. It is rather, a
very handy trick that can be used in poker.
Consider first of all that for a long time the first to act (often referred to
as Early Postion or Under The Gun) was considered the worst position to be in
around the table. You have to act initially without hearing anything from your
opponents and you will be early in the betting round on each subsequent round
after the first. This was deemed to be a handicap until historically Irish
players realised you could steal a lot of pots by being overly aggressive when
in this position. In fact, long before Gus Hansen could say the word raise,
players like Noel Furlong and Padraig Parkinson were raising from first position
and taking down pots.
How were they doing that? Well, if you've played poker for a while you will
realise that there are often hands where the first person to bet it, wins it.
These are hands where the flop really hasn't helped anyone and no-one feels
confident enough in their hand to call a decent bet. The first person to get a
bet in is likely to take the pot!
But whats this got to do with the Stop and Go technique? Well, Stop-n-Go is an
extension of this idea in order to defeat a bigger hand from the blinds. Suppose
you have TT in the big blind and your opponent has AK. If you reraise him he's
likely to call you or rereraise you himself. Inevitably all the money will end
up in the middle and you will find yourself in the classic coinflip "race". Can you do anything to improve your odds beyond 50-50? Here's a different approach...
Since AK is a very strong hand preflop (fearing only KK or AA) if you reraise preflop he's very likely to call. In fact, psychologically it is very hard to take a player off a hand if they have raised it preflop with a reraise unless that reraise is a large all-in. Not something you typically want to do with TT, as in our example. This is where you use the rules of Hold'em to gain an advantage. Stop and Go only works if you are acting before your opponent in the round.
In our example, you simply flat call the AK's raise. The flop is more likely to come without a card over T then it is to have an over card. When the flop hits, you will be *first* to act this time and you confidently bet your over pair and most likely take the pot. AK will find it very hard to call your bet here with only 2 cards to come. So, for the same amount of chips that you were going to reraise him (and find yourself in a coin flip), you've successfully bought yourself a nice pot.
But what if the board comes AKQ? Now you either bet to represent a solid hit of say, two pair and hope your opponent was also holding a medium pair (not my preferred play!). Or you check/fold and congratulate yourself that you didn't end up in a race and out of the game!
Danger Danger Will Robinson! This approach is not without its dangers. If you find yourself walking into Aces, there is little you're opponent will find to fear in your bet. It's possible he will consider that you might have trips but there are few players out there who will put down Aces for that reason. Additionally you may well be WALKING into trips yourself. These are the dangers of playing poker, nothing is certain. However, consider that you *were* about to reraise all in. You were willing to commit all your chips to this hand against your opponent so the outcome is likely to have been the same. You've simply bought yourself a second chance to bet at your opponent and win by making him fold.
So try this technique next time instead of rereraising but be sure you have early position to get the rest of your bet in first!
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