A Review

A friend of mine returned a book I had loaned her, titled “Small Stakes Hold’em:  Winning big with expert play” by Ed Miller, David Sklansky, and Mason Malmuth.  It’s my favorite small stakes Hold’em book; I had actually purchased two copies because one is usually on loan to a friend.  My original copy is well worn; it’s like an old friend.  I read and re-read chapters often, as I encounter different situations, and I feel I need a refresher.

This book defines a pretty straight forward strategy for small stakes Texas Hold’em.  The fact is, in small stakes Hold’em, you don’t have to get too fancy.  Most players don’t even try to think about whether you tend to raise preflop in early position with Ace King, so you don’t have to find creative ways to mix up your play for deception.  Most players only have a vague understanding of pot odds, so if you know the math you can both call when it’s appropriate to do so, and force your opponents into situations where they make seemingly innocent but costly mistakes.

So I’ve decided that this weekend, I’m going to write a couple of strategy articles based on what I’ve learned from the books I’ve read, and my experiences.  I want to do this in order to remind myself what I know, and hopefully uncover and fix some flaws in my basic strategy.  This is my only source of income right now; I can’t afford to make too many mistakes.

Preflop Strategy

The first topic I tend to think about, concerning Texas Hold’em is preflop strategy.  It might well be the most important strategy concept that a beginning player should consider because it represents an opportunity for a huge number of mistakes.  Preflop strategy begins with knowing “when to hold ‘em” and “when to fold ‘em.”  The fact is, you make a crucial decision each time you are dealt your hole cards – should I play them, or dump them?  If you consistently make mistakes here it can be very costly over the long term.

There are a few factors I consider when deciding whether to play or dump my hole cards in Texas Hold’em:  showdown value, suitedness, and connectedness.

Showdown value is basically high card value.  So for instance, everything else being equal, a hand like Ace of Hearts, King of Spades tends to be better than a hand like Jack of Clubs, 9 of Hearts.  You have to ask yourself questions like “If I spike a pair with either of my cards, how likely is it that my pair will win unimproved?”  If you are holding Ace-King, and the flop brings either an Ace or a King, you’re now holding top pair with the best possible kicker – anybody else who spikes a pair is way behind, so your hand stands to win often.  You tend to want to have big cards like Ace-King, King-Queen, Ace-Queen, and so on.

Suitedness is basically just whether your hole cards are of the same suit.  Everything else being equal, two cards of the same suit will win more often than the same cards that are offsuit because they stand to make a flush possible.

Connectedness is the ability for your hole cards to make a straight.  A hand like Jack-10 has suitedness because it can make a straight possible under the right conditions.

As I mentioned, you are looking for hands that have 2 of the 3 mentioned criteria.  A hand like Ace of Spades, King of Spades is a very strong hand in Texas Hold’em because it really has all 3 of the criteria.  It has high card showdown value, it has suitedness, and to a lesser extent it has connectedness because it can make broadway – or, an Ace high straight.

A hand like 7 of Hearts, 2 of Clubs has very little value (this is widely considered to be the worst possible starting hand in Texas Hold’em).  It has almost no high card strength with 7 high, and no connectedness – there is no way to make a 5 card straight with 2 – 7.  Even if the cards were of the same suit, this holding just isn’t strong enough to consider playing in any position.

So that being said, there are a few classifications of starting hands, and some recommendations about when and how to play them.

• Pocket Pairs
• Suited Aces
• Suited Kings
• Suited Connectors
• Offsuit Cards

I’d like to provide some review of the material I’ve read and learned from, as well as some of my own learning experiences.  Hopefully like I mentioned, this will help me to hone my skills, and find problem areas I need to address.  I’ll try to dig up some statistics using Poker Stove, and provide some real-life examples from hands I’ve played.