02-16-05, LearnTexasHoldem:
Courage In Marginal Situations
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example: I am big blind with A-5. No one raises and the flop comes 10-3-5. Now I have paired my fives. Someone comes out betting really heavy. I fold and it turns out that all they have is an over pair. I would have won the hand if I had some courage but I was afraid they had 10's. Do you have any advice?
Thanks...
DJ
ps.. I should probably add to this. The reason I mentioned my success at home tournaments is because there appears to be a difference between the way I play there and how I play with people I don't know at all. I am much more timid at a game table with strangers then I am with people I know. I understand that because I know many of the people I play with, that gives me an advantage over the way I would typically play with people I don't know.
I suppose I am just a bit distressed at the way I play when I don't know people.
Answer: First of all, congratulations on doing so well so far. I named this question/answer "Courage In Marginal Situations" because any hand where you have a less than strong hand, it is risky and hence marginal. A few points:
1. In holdem, you are inevitably going to fold a lot of hands that would have won had you stayed in. Sometimes you'll fold a winner because someone has shown more strength than you would guess they would if you had them beat and sometimes the turn and river will give you some luck; in either case though, there isn't much you do. If you let yourself get sucked into guessing which hand might hit and which won't, you'll have a hard time winning.
2. You are correct in playing tighter against players who you don't know well yet. In hands like the above example, to make the correct decision, you need as much information as you can get. The less info you have on your opponent, the more likely you are to make a mistake. Baring on the side of caution is smart. Then after you get some more time on the table with them, you can start to open up your game a bit more when the opportunity arises.
3. I'm not sure if "courage" is the right word to use since it suggests that somehow it is favorable to battle over every pot that you catch a piece of. My guess is that the hand above you mentioned wouldn't have made much of a difference in the overall game -- it wasn't a large pot. In tournament play, much of how loose you are willing to get depends on when in the tournament it is and how many chips you have. Early on in the tourney, you don't want to risk much without a strong holding while later on as the blinds increase you'll have to stick your nose out more.
4. What we are talking about here is the ability to read hands. Experience will teach you hand reading more than anything I can write here. Just do your best to pay attention to how the player is playing in previous hands and you'll have a much easier time figuring out the present hand. When someone acts unpredictably -- whether that be because they are bad players or if they are selectively playing loosely -- it makes it hard to read them. The best advice I can give for those hands is to do a risk/reward comparison and see if it is worth it to dance.
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