Small Ball Poker Vs Home Run Poker, Expert Vs Beginner
In the last post I talked about pot odds and betting. Today’s topic has a direct correlation with that. As you start to play a little more, you may have heard the term small ball poker and wondered what it is. Basically it means winning a lot of smaller pots with smaller bets. Home run poker, on the other hand, is winning pots with bigger stakes. The most skilled players tend to play small ball, while it is a good idea for beginners to go for the home run. The reasoning is very simple and has a lot to do with the pot odds. As I said in the previous post, poker is a very mathematical game and when used correctly it can make or save a lot of money. If you listen to Mike Caro (and you should), retiring when you are supposed to will also make you money. Below are the reasons for playing each one:
Small Ball Poker: As I said earlier, the most skilled players tend to play this way. I know he is heavily endorsed by Daniel Negreanu and he has some videos on YouTube that talk about it as well. They tend to keep the pots a little smaller, but then win more pots with the bets. Preflop, raises tend to be at 2.5-3x the big blind (BB) with an extra BB unit per person who may have already limped in front of you. For example, you are playing $ 1/2 and you know you are going to raise. Your raise will generally be $ 5-6 in total. If a limper is in front of you, you will win $ 7-8, two limpers, $ 9-10, etc. Now a flop appears that you don’t think helped your opponent and you want to bet (as most players do after raising before the flop, triggering the continuation bet). How much do you bet? In the last post on pot odds I talked about how half or two thirds is enough to make it the wrong decision to chase most draws. Hands like the open straight and flush draws are one of the exceptions, as those draws are mathematically favored against most hands. So let’s say you bet $ 6, one person calls, and both blinds fold. That’s $ 15 in the pot (your bet + opponent’s call + $ 1SB + $ 2BB = $ 15). A correct bet would be between $ 8-10. You will get a surprising number of callers most of the time and it is because many players are ignorant of the pot odds. Don’t be that person! I mean, sometimes if you’re the one drawing, you’re going to call because not everyone has the hand they represent. Everyone and their dog make a C bet on the flop now and sometimes you will have the best hand even with your draw. If you have KQ of spades, the flop is J 10 2 with two spades and your opponent has 7 in hand, guess what? You are the favorite to win on the river because if you hit a 9 spade, 3 aces, 3 nines, 3 kings and 3 queens, you will take the lead. So, you can’t just leave it all the time. You don’t want to look like you can be run over. You could call once, and if they didn’t hit their hand, they could check the turn with you. You can semi-bluff (a bluff that could turn into a great hand and another posting topic for another time) and win the pot either if he folds, or if he calls and you get your draw.
Well, I have strayed a bit there. Where was it? Oh yeah. He has bet $ 10 in a $ 15 pot, which makes the pot $ 25. $ 10 for him to call in a $ 25 pot is 2.5-1. If you’re aiming for a double-bellied or open straight, you have 8 outs and are just over 3.2-1 to hit your hand. You don’t have the right odds to call. If you are raised and you think you were raised somehow, you can fold your hand and lose your $ 10. What happens when you don’t play a small ball, bet the pot, raise and fold? You’ve lost another $ 5 on top of that that you really didn’t need to lose. Betting at half to two-thirds of the pot will generally yield the same information as a pot size bet. Now because I recommend being the aggressive / tight small ball player, you will win a lot of small pots with your image and as you build your stack you can open up your range a little further and really confuse the table with your position. And that’s exactly what you want. A table of confused players who don’t know how to play with you. So remember, keep the bets smaller and don’t worry if they call you. Like I said, many don’t take pot odds into account. All they see is your hand and what they think they can win if they hit your hand. What they don’t realize is two things:
1) They are going to lose with that long-term chase. Ah yes, in the long run. Remember, the numbers are taken over a period of time, but the more you play, the more you will see that you win in these cases.
2) Even if they shake your hand, they are not necessarily going to make more money from you. What if they’re chasing a flush, they just checked / called the flop and turned to hit the river, and now they come out with a bet? It is very likely that they will not get money from you because you can put them in that hand and fold. But most of the time their card does not arrive and they have lost all this money in a drawing that should have been withdrawn two streets ago. They will cry about how unlucky they are and you will only smile to yourself as you earn some tokens.
Home Run Poker: Definitely the style to use when facing someone you know is a very good player or if you are just starting out yourself. I also recommend playing only a select few hands and playing them fast when you get them. In Phil Hellmuth’s book “Play Poker Like the Pros,” he recommends beginners to play their “Top Ten Hands.” They are: AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10’s, 9’s, 8’s, 7’s, AK and AQ. I like this idea. Yes, it is a very tight way to play, but until you get some experience, see what hands are good hands to play in certain situations, improve opponents reading and things of that nature, I would recommend this style as well. However, I don’t necessarily agree with playing 9, 8 and 7 too fast. If you have a raise and a reraise in front of you, it’s still a good idea to fold those hands and the same with AQ. As you may have read in my Top Overrated Hands post, AQ is a dangerous hand to get too involved with and while you can raise and reraise with position, watch out for the flop if someone attacks you hard. Also, what are you going to do when the AQ 10 flop comes and you have two 7s? Probably toss them in the trash at any sign that an opponent wants to play the pot. Or if you have KK, have you raised before the flop, two people call, and an ace hits the flop? You can bet, but proceed with caution if they raise or simply call. You probably have an ace and should be ready to fold.
So how should I raise before the flop? In small ball I suggested 2.5-3x the BB. Now, I would suggest 5-7x the BB. Looks a lot like? Well, it is. You are going to go after the ones holding hands like QJ os, maybe KJos and maybe even some medium or smaller pairs. Your tight image plus bigger bets will help you win a few more pots before the flop. It is a fact that the most skilled players do not want to play large amounts of poker, especially before the flop. They want to see the flops in position and try to beat you later. They like to be the ones to make a decision for you, not to take away their own decisions. If you bet $ 10 before the flop and get a call, how much do you bet on the flop? Right now you have $ 23 in the pot (your bet + his call + the two blinds = $ 23), so I would bet $ 20-23 right here. If you didn’t have a pair before the flop, remember that the chances of landing a pair on the flop are about 33%. In other words, they are likely to be lost. If they had a lower pair than yours, they will hit their set 1 out of 8 times, or 11%. If they do, you will probably lose some money. That happens, and unless you get a good read on the person when they go up, you probably end up paying for it. But for the most part they will fold when they fail and you get a decent pot. (Warning: when you enter a traditional casino to play the $ 1/2 games, you will notice that there are a lot of preflop raises to $ 10, $ 15 and even more than $ 20. I don’t understand and when I have asked people in the table is because they say they want action. Now, to me that seems almost an oxymoron because if you want action, you bet less. Or they say they want to bet. It is not gambling, they are dumb bets and if they really wanted to get into action or bet with those bets silly, they would go up to $ 2/5, where the bets make sense. And a lot of people call those silly bets with marginal hands. I don’t get it. I’m not throwing $ 20 with KJos when my hand could be very well dominated, but that’s me. , I suppose)
Well, there you have it. Home Run, or bigger bets for the less experienced player until they get that feel for the game, their opponents, and especially their own game. As you start to learn and gain that experience, you can start to see a few more flops with a few more hands (playing suited connectors, suited Ax, etc.) while betting a little less. Remember, you are still getting the same information with those smaller bets and you keep causing your opponent to call incorrectly. As I have pointed out before, your main objective in poker is to make correct decisions, but also to capitulate to the mistakes of your opponents. Getting them to do something wrong is making money for you