12- 9-04, LearnTexasHoldem:
Getting Trapped In No Limit Holdem
I was in the big blind with 10 9 suited, three or four people called and no one raised before the flop, so I just called to see if I could catch something on the flop. Turns out the flop came 10, 9, 9. So with my nines full, I figure I'm sitting pretty. I'm not worried about straight or flush draws and don't want to scare off other people in the pot (which is now only around 50 cents). So I check.
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My question is this: I could very easily see myself playing my opponent's hand the same way he did and losing my stack on a set. I think one of the hardest things for a beginner to do is to correctly play a big hand while making sure not to get busted by an even bigger hand. The simplest example of this is someone overvaluing pocket aces and getting beat by two small pair. I can avoid doing that now, but how to play at this next level of sophistication seems to be eluding me.
Any advice?
Answer: The way you don't get trapped when you have AA or another strong preflop hand, is to raise enough preflop to purify the callers to only a couple who also have decent hands. AA and other big pairs do well against other good hands, they don't do well against a lot of people with garbage. Hands that you are likely to get married to (go to the river with), you need to play aggressively early on so you don't end up in trouble.
If a bad player ends up calling you with 67 and hits two pair against your AA after you have made an adequate preflop raise, good for him. That will reinforce his bad play and he'll end up losing far more back than he won from you on that one hand -- consider it an investment.
Now as for other hands that aren't like AA or KK where you make a large raise preflop, you have to play each situation differently. Sometimes you'll just lose like in the example you gave above where you had a boat and the other guy had trips. If he had A9 there, it would be very hard for him to fold. If on the other hand he had a hand like 79, he couldn't have felt very good with it.
Most of the time you'll be able to determine if you want to call or not based on how much it will cost you. In the example you gave, either way it wasn't going to cost you guys much because you were almost out of chips. So in most cases, you'll have an easy decision because it won't end up costing you a large amount of money. On the rare occasions where you both have a lot of chips, the best approach is to make bets relative to the pot size and try to avoid the all-in (when you are on the receiving end). If the person does go all-in, you'll have to weigh what your chances are that you have the person beat.
In no limit holdem, you can't take the approach that if you have trips or two pair or a straight you'll pay any hand off. If you do that you'll lose. No Limit Holdem is a game where if you can just make fewer mistakes than your opponents you do well. If for example you have 94 in the big blind and the flop is 99T and you get action from a tight player, I'd muck if it was going to cost me a lot of chips.
Obviously he knows what you have and there is no hand you can really beat. It is hard to lay down hands like that but you have no choice if you want to win. In Limit Holdem it would be a no brainer to call to the river after getting reraised. In No Limit though, you need to pick your spots much more carefully.
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