In a recent Hand Advice forum thread, a question was asked on a pre-flop caller’s range on the button, early in a mid-stakes tournament. Several PocketFivers said, “I would always re-raise with A-Q or A-K in that spot, so I don’t think he has those”…which got me thinking about the idea of mixing up your play. What should you “always” do?As poker tournament theory advanced over the last few years, methods of determining optimal play have been determined. As an example, most of us know to either shove or fold when you have less than 10 big blinds. Anything else is a leak. You don’t have the implied pot odds to limp and hope to see a good flop. If you raise you’re committed to calling anyone’s re-raise, so you should be using as much fold equity as possible if you’re bluffing to steal the blinds & antes. And if you’re shoving as a bluff, you have to also shove with your good hands to hide the fact you’re bluffing.
So, you shove, or you fold. That’s it.
The same concept goes for calling ranges when an opponent has gone all-in. You look at the pot odds offered to you, and make some sort of determination as to how much of a favorite or underdog you are against their possible range of hands. If you’re getting a good price, you call. If not, you fold. Calling some times and folding others doesn’t make sense.
Most other decision points, however, are fair game, especially when stacks are 50+ big blinds. So if there’s a raise in front of me early in a tournament, and the structure affords me any sort of luxury to mix up my play, I’m going to. I will re-raise my A-Q or A-K from the button some of the time, and just call other times.
Yes, even in low buy-in online donkaments, I’m going to do this. The percentages I’m going to do one or the other are based primarily on the skill of my opponent – I can play more straightforward, re-raising to build a big pot with a strong hand, against people who aren’t paying attention or incapable of folding. But I’ll consistently mix up my play in a situation like this, for several reasons.
First and foremost, I don’t always want to chase hands away that will pay me off post-flop. If the cutoff makes a raise with K-10 or A-9 and will fold to my A-K re-raise…why on earth would I want them out of the pot? If he doesn’t think I’d smooth call with A-K, he will pay me off all day when we both flop top pair.
Playing against your opponent’s expectation is the single best way to disguise your hand. If I’m never calling, and always raising, with strong hands like A-Q+, it’s far easier for my opponent to put me on a hand. The average schmuck in a $10+1 MTT may not be smart enough to accurately define my range. A better player certainly will, and if I don’t show A-K or A-Q is in my calling (not re-raising) range, he’s going to have a much easier time knowing what to do as the hand progresses.
If I 3-bet and get my opponent to fold, I’m also sacrificing the strength of my position. There are plenty of floats, raise-bluffs and other moves available to me if I have position in the hand. I want to play flops when I’m in position. Playing A-K from the blinds, I’ll re-raise more often…it’s better for me to just get the hand over with. From the button, making sure we play multiple streets in the hand is far more attractive.
Most important to me, as a player and a person, is to always look for situations to improve and challenge myself. If I’m not going to do it by buying into games above my bankroll and taking on tougher competition, I’m going to do it by trying out new things in my normal game. If I develop a habit of always re-raising with A-K on the button (or making ANY given play ALL the time), I’m not growing as a player. I’m not challenging myself to play situations out of my general comfort range.
One of my favorite poker stories involves Ted Forrest (actually, many of my favorite stories are about Forrest). This story says Forrest played limit Omaha 8/b every day for an extended period of time – stories range from one month to one year – and saw every flop. He never folded. He called whatever action there was pre-flop, regardless of how many bets, what position he was in, or what four cards were in front of him.
Forrest knew this was a money-losing proposition, but he did it to practice reading board textures and challenge himself to play bad situations optimally. If he couldn’t win the most, he would try to lose the least. His theory was that by the end of his experiment, there would be no set of unfamiliar or intimidating circumstances.
Should a normal person follow his lead? Hell, no. There’s a reason his peers gave him the nickname “Professor Backwards.”
But you can push yourself away from habit, out of comfort zones, in ways with greater profit possibilities. If you can accomplish goals we all should share as poker players:
- Keep opponents with worse hands in the pot
- Make yourself harder to read
- Take advantage of playing in position
…AND challenge yourself to grow and learn…why wouldn’t you?
Identifying spots where you can play hands in multiple ways can be tricky. One of the most common leaks is not adjusting quickly enough to dwindling stacks and escalating blinds, players thinking they’re deeper than they are. Later in tournaments, there is usually a mathematically correct way to play a hand. Making the incorrect play, under the guise of “mixing up your play,” is a mistake.
But when specific hard-and-fast rules don’t have to be applied…the word “always” shouldn’t be part of your vocabulary.
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