You have probably heard of Occam's Razor, which is a scientific principle usually paraphrased something like:

"All other things being equal, the simplest solution tends to be the best one."

The Razor has major applcations for poker (and ties into the whole "Blink" theory I tried to explore in an earlier piece I wrote). The poker books talk about "Fancy Play Syndrome," which is related. But I want to focus on how I have gone astray by overthinking and getting too "cute" at times instead of sticking with the more straightforward, tried and true play. <READMORE> I am going to call my theory "Rizen's Razor" because I can't tell you how many times I have asked Eric (Rizen) about a hand, explained my reasoning, and had him say "you over-thought it." And then I overthink another one. I'm hoping this article will purge me of this illness.

Not Shoving "Looks Scarier"

It's tricky, at least for me, to write poker articles because poker does not lend itself to easy generalizations. So here's my disclaimer: there are definitely times to deviate from the Razor, times where a "cute" play might work better, etc. But one thing I have noticed consistently is that it's a mistake to worry that a big reraise or a reraise-shove conveys weakness. More often than not, re-raising instead of shoving does not necessarily convey massive strength, even to thinking opponents. The calling reflex is strong amongst weak players. Also, aggressive players will find imaginary fold equity if you leave them room for it. So when you don't necessarily want a call, don't try the "I am reraising instead of shoving because I am THAT strong" play.

Obviously, you would usually not even consider a reraise over pushing against a bad player (if you don't really want action). Below, we are assuming your opponent is skilled and will try to understand why you did not push. But here are two examples from recent tournaments where I deeply regretted not pushing or reraising big.

Hand #1: I have about 40k after I post a 1200 chip big blind. We are down to about 16 players, so we are 8-handed. There are antes of 200, so there is 3400 in the pot. Player A in middle position raises to 5k. Player A is an unknown and cautious player. Player B, a ranked player who often posts on P5s, cold calls the raise. Both A and B have stacks of 40-50k. It is folded to me in the big blind, and I have AK. I put Player B on a medium pocket pair or possibly AQ. I know him to be a thinking player and not afraid to take some risk, so I decide to play the hand as if I had aces or kings. My thinking was: if I shove, Player B may lock in on AK or a total move and decide to gamble with his 99. If I just reraise, this will terrify the intelligent opponent, and I will take down the pot. So I made it 20k.

Player A folded as I expected. Player B shoved. I called, he had 88, and he won the hand. I asked him about it later and he said he thought I was trying to "leave myself some cushion" and that he might have had fold equity. He said it "smelled like a move" -- a squeeze -- and he went with his read. I admire Player B's onions -- that was a bold push by him -- even though I disagree with his reasoning. But it's entirely my fault for creating the illusion of "two ways to win" for Player B. If I push, I put all the pressure on him. That's a very simple and well known concept, but by overthinking the hand, I violated that concept and, in turn, cut myself on the Razor. To put it a different way, any confusion or fear I create by reraising for half my chips is easily trumped by the massive, digital (all or none) pressure I create if I jam it in.

Hand #2: I am in the 11pm (6-handed) on FTP and have worked my way up to about 30k with blinds at 400-800-50a. There are about 20 left in the tournament and my stack is slightly above average. The button, who has over 40k, min raises. I have JJ. There is 1600+800+400+300 in the pot, or 3100. I take a while to decide on my raise and settle on 5600 total. In retrospect, I think this is a terrible play. His min raise sure looks weak, but he is getting 2.2 to 1 on his call, and it costs him just 10% of his stack.

A couple of things to factor in: min-raising was not unusual for this guy, so I had no reason to find this raise either unusually weak or scary. Shoving would certainly seem excessive there, but it's better than pricing in a call. I would rather take this pot down or min-reraise (to isolate and manage the pot) than make this reraise. What happens, of course, is: he calls, the flop comes ace high, I continuation bet and have to fold to his min-raise (nice Ace-Ten, sir). By the way, if your opponent is capable of folding something like AJ here, check-raising is an option. It works quite well, especially on flops like AKx -- most players will insta-muck to a check raise, even if they hold a decent ace, in light of your preflop strength.

Going back to the hand in question, it's a tough one, but I think the best play is to make it something like 8600 and hope to end it preflop. Again, I fell into the trap (in part) of thinking that my raise would "look scarier" than a big reraise and ended up working a bad middle ground between taking down the pot preflop and limiting my loss on a bad flop. I actually like shoving better than a smallish reraise, as I said -- presuming you know the min-raise is not necessarily an indicator of strength.

OT OH....

All of this being said, if you have a legitimate reason to believe your opponent will read the big reraise/shove as weakish (or at least as contra-indicative of AA/KK/QQ), then by all means go the other way: shove AA and make the "scary" reraise with lesser reraising hands (and possibly with air). But in the majority of cases, it's a mistake to credit your opponents with too specific a thought process or too high of a level of thinking. In the first example, EVEN IF my opponent suspected I was jamming because I DIDN'T want a call, would he really call with 88 for his whole stack? He might, but I have taken away 50% of his reasons for calling (he can no longer talk himself into fold equity). That's a huge reason for making the more straightforward move of pushing in preflop.

The lesson here, to paraphrase the great horryclutch, is that "I am garbage." So don't do as I do. But listen to Rizen and follow the Razor -- don't overthink it.
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