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No-Limit Hold Em Cash Game Strategy - Sample Hand Analysis
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Author: Marc Weinberg
When you're playing in no-limit cash games you're often faced with incredibly tough decisions, and even after a winner is determined it is tough to know if you followed correct strategy. Here is a sample poker hand, with detailed analysis.
The Game is $2-$2 No-Limit Hold'em. You can bring a maximum of $200 to the table.
The Players: In the small blind we have Player A. He is Aggressive, a bit of an Ass, and an Accelerator - which means he likes to push when he's involved. He is a tricky player who plays a lot of pots and is not afraid to check-raise. He has $160 in front of him and started with $100 fifteen minutes earlier.
Player B is on the Button. He is very tight. He has $155 in front of him and hasn't played in many hands the past fifteen minutes.
The Action: Folds round to Player B on the button who makes it $8. This is a raise of 4x the blinds. Ordinarily, a typical no-limit cash game player could make this raise with any two decent cards. But we know that Player B is very tight. Our analysis - he has a good hand.
Player A looks down and sees Ah8h. He makes the call. That's a pretty good small blind hand and certainly worth a call. It is also a very volatile hand and needs to be treated with care because it can get inexperienced players in a lot of trouble. If you flop an Ace and come under pressure from the button what do you do? It can cost you all your cash, so take note!
The big blind folds and we're heads-up. $18 in the pot.
The flop comes 8d-6h-3d
The small blind checks. Our analysis - a mistake here. Player A needs to establish that he has a big piece of the hand - top pair and top kicker. The way to do this is by betting out. By checking he invites Player B to make a continuation bet. The problem with this is that Player A's hand is nowhere near strong enough for a check-raise, so giving away momentum here isn't smart.
Player B bets $12. Our analysis - this is a fairly standard continuation bet. It tells us that Player B still likes his hand but it isn't a monster. He's betting it in such a way that it isn't a set for instance, where he may well have checked. It's also not likely to be AA but it is likely to beat the board, so any pair between 99-KK is in play.
Player A makes the call. $42 in the pot. Is this a good call? It is if the hand improves on the turn. Another 8 or an A could make this a major pot for Player A where he doubles his stack. The implied pot odds are huge. Is it worth a $12 bet to win a $30 pot? Strictly speaking the answer is no.
Player A probably needs to improve to win. He could catch runner-runner hearts, another 8 or an A and all of those would be good. We'll give him 6 outs in total (roughly) and say that he's 25% to win this hand or 1 in 4. But the pot odds he's getting right now are nowhere near that. The implied odds, however, make it worthwhile, especially if his opponent holds AK and an A comes on the turn.
The turn is a 5c
Player A checks. Player B is in fact holding TT. He is probably thinking that the 5 didn't help Player A's hand. Player A may be drawing to diamonds or he may already have something. He could not have liked the check-call on the flop a lot, or the call pre-flop for that matter. His Tens beat the board but if Player A is slow-playing anything Player B is in a lot of trouble.
What should Player B do? Our analysis - the pot is $42 so a bet of half the pot looks about right, say $20. That way it keeps the pressure on Player A but doesn't leave you open to a huge check-raise, which should move you off your hand at this point. They're only Tens, remember.
Player B actually bets $50 making the pot $92. This is a strange move by Player B. In no-limit cash games overbetting at a pot is a frequent sign of weakness. What should Player A do?
Player A, who is aggressive and tricky, senses weakness and check-raises all-in for $140! Our analysis - what a gutsy play, but was it the smart thing to do? If you could see both hands you would think it was an even better play because TT is so vulnerable to a wide variety of holdings. But the key here is does Player B believe that Player A could have slow-played a big hand?
If I was Player B I would now put Player A on 8-6 or 6-5, an iffy hand that has improved to two-pair. If he had a set chances are he would have smooth-called the turn as well and then bet out on the river. But I would certainly feel that my overpair was in trouble.
The problem with an audacious check-raise semi-bluff is that you could run into an opponent who isn't sophisticated enough to spot any nuances. Instead he has an overpair, figures he's already in for $70 and is going to go ahead and put his remaining $85 into the pot. Player B calls the all-in.
The river is another 8. Player B ends with Tens and Eights. Player A ends with three 8s and takes a very big pot.
Player A got extremely lucky once the cards were flipped up. He needed an 8 or an A to win the pot, and had a 10% chance to win, so Player B was a huge favorite. But, Player B didn't play this hand very well on the turn. He overbet the pot and then called an all-in check raise with only a pair of Tens. As it turns out he was well ahead when he made this call, and if you asked a variety of poker pros out there you'd get different interpretations in terms of how well or poorly Player B performed here.
A better way to play this hand by Player B would have been to limp in on the button with TT. The small blind, Player A, would have raised because he's aggressive and Player B could have then re-raised, which would have probably ended the hand right there. Or if Player A elected to call, after the flop a big bet from Player B now signals to Player A that he is way behind and he could win the hand at that juncture.
By raising on the button when everyone has folded it could easily be any type of hand, and not necessarily a good one. You must keep in mind that aggressive players imagine how they would play and they would try to steal blinds from the button. A rock thinks everyone has Aces when they raise. An aggressive player thinks everyone has rags until proven otherwise.
Player A got very fortunate. He made a speculative call before the flop and after the flop. But on the turn he took a huge gamble by check-raising all-in. Most players would simply fold their top pair here. It is not recommended to be this loose and aggressive, although you can have huge winning sessions this way in no-limit cash games. It is the style of play advocated by Doyle Brunson in his famous book Super System I, and it netted him a fortune in cash games over the years. But you need a gambler's mentality and a thick bankroll to make these plays regularly and thrive.
Related Poker Articles And News Items:
> Online Poker Strategy The Absolute Poker Way
> No Limit Hold'em Cash Game Strategy - Betting On The River
> The Ghost In The Machine - Reading Poker Hands
> The Key To Winning At Hold'em - Part 1
> Shorthanded Limit Hold'em - The Advantages
> Avoiding Basic Mistakes In No-Limit Hold'em
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