I have a different preference. I like to reraise with a small pair before the flop and then "represent" whatever hits the flop (to your opponents, you seem to have started with something before the flop, and to have hit it on the flop). This is a more deceptive approach, allowing a chance to win every pot you play. Imagine having made it three bets with 4-4 over the top of your opponent, and now the flop comes down A-8-2. Your opponent checks to you, and then you bet out with your 4-4, just as if you have A-K. Your opponent now folds his K-Q, and you have won this pot fairly easily.

But let's suppose you play this hand according to the mainstream "calling" theory. You call the two bets with 4-4, and one other player and the big blind also call. The flop comes down A-8-2, and now the big blind checks. Now the original raiser bets out with his K-Q, hoping that no one calls him. By just calling the preflop raise, you've given the K-Q the chance to use deception. The K-Q is now representing an ace! You have to fold your hand right here. You can't call the first bet, because you have to fear that someone has an ace, or maybe the big blind has an eight. You have gone from a position of power to a position of weakness simply by not reraising before the flop—quite a difference.

By reraising, you'll win more pots, but you'll also get yourself into trouble more often. Consider the following scenario. You have three bets in with 4-4, but the original raiser has K-K. He decides just to call your raise and then play his hand hard on the flop if an ace doesn't come. This is a common strategy for people who hold aces or kings. The flop comes down B'O'S-This appears to be a good flop for you. After all, it's unlikely that the original raiser has a seven or an eight in his hand, so unless you're up against a big pair instead of the more likely two big cards, you're winning at this point. The K-K bets out and you raise him, and now he reraises (three-bets) you.

You have a fair amount of money already invested in this pot. If you had known your opponent had kings, you would have thrown your hand away, but it's also possible that he could have been playing a big flush draw this way. You end up calling him all the way down, only to have him show you K-K. You have just lost a fortune using my reraising approach! Every approach offers its own risks and its own possibilities.

Now let's look at the play of the hand using the mainstream calling approach. You just call two bets with 4-4 before the flop, and now both blinds call. The flop is [Q-jVJ-g, and the big blind (who wouldn't have been in the hand using my approach, because the reraise would have pushed him out) bets out, and now the K-K raises to protect what he correctly feels is currently the best hand. You now fold, having lost only three small bets. Clearly the mainstream approach has done well in this situation.

But if the original raiser had A-K rather than K-K, then my reraising approach would yield better results here. I like my approach because it is mathematically more likely that the first raiser has two big cards than that he has a big pair. But remember, my aggressive approach does lead to more fluctuation in the size of your stack across time, and if you don't have much of a bankroll, pursuing it may put you in an awkward spot. online sports betting

Now let's look at a few other examples that compare the two approaches to playing small pairs, using my "three bet" theory with the mainstream theory of calling to build a pot.

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• Poker – Stealing The Blinds (0)
• Poker – Playing The Majority Play Hands Before The Flop (0)

Now it's time to examine the play of the majority play hands of 6-6, 5-5, 4-4, 3-3, 2-2, A-x suited, and K-Q before the flop, all of them weaker than the "top ten" hands in Chapter 3. Common sense and deception are two important concepts in the play of these hands. I view the pairs 2-2 through 6-6 as basically being of the same value before the flop in limit Hold'em. A-x suited is slightly below the value that I assign these pairs, and K-Q is the weakest.

Calling with Small Pairs

Most theories agree that you should be the first raiser with a pair before the flop, that is, that with your small pair you should usually make it two bets to go. But when it is already two bets to you, a popular theory says you can either call the two bets or fold. Some top pros want you to call two bets with these pairs in order to lure other players into calling and therefore "build the pot" before the flop in the hope that you'll flop a set. So they'll have you passively call someone else's raise before the flop, leaving you hoping that others will call two bets before the flop as well.

Although this sounds good on paper, keep in mind that you'll flop a set roughly once in every eight tries. Now what do you do with your 3-3 when the flop comes down J-10-2? You're forced to fold, because you've let other people into the pot, some of whom probably have you beaten at this point. (If you'd reraised, they would probably have folded.) One advantage "calling to build a pot" does have going for it is that if you miss the flop, you can generally just fold your hand and be done with it. In other words, no thinking is required. If you flop your set, then you jam it, but if you have a bad flop, then you just fold your hand right away. Generally, this is a relatively easy way, and not a bad way, to play limit Hold'em.

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• Poker – Stealing The Blinds (0)
• Poker – Reraising With Small Pairs, Before The Flop (0)

I still remember a hand that came up with 11 players left (five at one table and six at my table) in a limit Hold'em event at Caesar's Palace in 1991. With the limits at $l,000-$2,000 I decided to raise in late position with 0~[Vl- The poker legend Hans "Tuna" Lund (twice a final-table finisher at the World Series of Poker!) decided to call me with 10-J in the big blind, because he thought that I was just trying to steal his blind.

The flop came up Q-10-7, which gave me a very powerful two pair, and Tuna checked and then called my $1,000 bet. When a jack came off on fourth street, giving him two pair (tens and jacks), he bet out $2,000 and I raised him to $4,000. He then reraised me, and I just called his three bets ($6,000), thinking that he probably had me beat. Tuna then bet out $2,000 on the end, and I called. He then stated, "Two pair, jacks up," and I responded, "No good, I have queens up." Tuna replied, "You lucky puppy, I knew you were just trying to steal the blinds!"

It was indeed a very lucky hand to have come up with, when 11 players were left in the tournament and the limits were as high as they were. I won a $22,500 pot all because I was trying to steal the blinds! Of course, although an attempt to steal may lead to either a successful steal with nothing or a big win like the one I got against Tuna, you can also end up losing a big pot if you flop something good in that endeavor and it loses to something better.

In another tournament, this one at the U.S. Poker Open at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City in 1997, I kept trying to steal the blinds, and I kept getting crushed! I would steal from a position one off the button (you will observe that a steal attempt looks less like a steal attempt the farther you are from the button) with 9-10, and I'd get called with K-10. Then the old 10-4-2 flop would hit and I would lose the maximum. Or I would raise with stealing on the button and be called with Q-J. With a flop of J-10-2, I then had to play my open-ended straight draw all the way. And boom—an eight would come up on the last card and I would call that bet too! After repeatedly getting crushed stealing the blinds that day, I decided to be more careful in the future, both in using that play and in how aggressively I would continue on after I got called, and so should you. So again, blind-stealing can cut both ways. (It will crop up in various examples in this chapter, and you should already understand the strategy when it does.)

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• Poker – Reraising With Small Pairs, Before The Flop (0)
• Poker – Playing The Majority Play Hands Before The Flop (0)

We'll get into the play of these majority play hands soon, but first I need to introduce a strategy called "stealing the blinds," one that can yield a few chips in certain circumstances, even with a worthless hand, and at minimal risk.

In most tough games, you'll see a lot of folding before the flop. When everyone folds up to the player on the button, then that player will usually raise in the hope that the small blind and big blind will fold their hands too.

If they do, then the button player gets to keep the blind money. Even if the player on the button has something like 5-8, he will often raise in this situation in order to try to steal the blinds. Experienced opponents will know that the button player who raises at this point might be attempting to steal, but if their hands are just as bad, they'll fold rather than get involved with a bad hand in bad position. You can see how the term "stealing" would have arisen when players put in a raise with a hand this weak!

The power of the blind steal is related to the fact that the button player has the best position. Being on the button gives a player the advantage of position, in that he will act last during the whole hand. In Hold'em acting last (having position) is a huge edge. If you're powerful, weak, or somewhere in between, you can sit back and wait for all the other players to reveal their strength or weakness before you act on your hand.

Two good reasons for you to fold a marginal hand in the blinds when the button raises are that you're in bad position and that the button may actually have a real hand instead of a weak hand.

• Extending Your Play Beyond The Top Ten Poker Hands (0)
• Poker – Weird Things Can Happen When You (0)
• Poker – Reraising With Small Pairs, Before The Flop (0)

It's time to add a few more hands to the mix. I call the new group of hands the "majority play hands" because you can play all of them in the majority of the Hold'em games you find yourself in. Recall that the top ten hands in Chapter 3 were A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K, J-J, 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, A-Q, and 7-7. The majority play hands are 6-6, 5-5, 4-4, 3-3, 2-2, A-x suited, and K-Q. "A-x suited" simply means an ace and any other card of the same suit, like
In this chapter you will learn:

I How to "steal the blinds"
I Phil's "majority play" hands
I The "calling" theory on how to play small pairs
I The "reraising" theory on how to play small pairs
I How to play K-Q
I How to "trap" players ("slow playing" and "smooth calling")

The intermediate-level majority-play-hands strategy will be more "swingy" than the top-ten-hands strategy. By swingy, I mean that you'll find that your chip stack goes up and down both more frequently and for higher amounts when you use this intermediate-play strategy along with the top-ten-hands strategy. For example, you may now lose a small pot or win a big pot when you play against your opponent's A-Q (most of the
time you'll lose). Using just the top-ten-hands strategy, you would never have gotten involved in this hand, so your chip stack wouldn't have had to endure the swings up or down that this confrontation can create.

Similarly, you will lose many small pots when you play hands like 2-2 or 3-3, but you will also win some really big ones when you flop a set, the poker slang term for three of a kind. Of course, you're not guaranteed to win when you flop a set, but I like your chances! The problem is that you will flop a set only one time out of every 7Vi attempts. That's why playing this hand will cause you to lose a lot of small pots: most of the time you'll miss the flop, but you'll be smart enough to fold when you do, and when you do hit the flop, you'll probably score well.

• Poker – Stealing The Blinds (0)
• Poker – Weird Things Can Happen When You (0)
• Poker – Reraising With Small Pairs, Before The Flop (0)

If you have a really steep learning curve, and the ability to read players well, then you may be able to move up rather quickly from the beginners' level to the next, intermediate level of limit Hold'em. But usually, in order to reach the intermediate level, you will need to play for at least a few months and absorb the nuances of limit Hold'em.

The intermediate-level limit Hold'em player does extremely well in low-limit games. In fact, he does so well that he wants to test himself at the next level up. For example, if you begin to beat your $2-$4 home poker game consistently, then it is time for you to try a higher-stakes home poker game (or casino game)—perhaps $4-$8 or $5-$ 10. If you're only breaking even or losing at this higher level, then you need to drop back down and continue to win at the lower levels for a while before you test your game again. But if you're a good intermediate-level player and you do well in the $4-$8 games, then you will want to try playing $8-$ 16 or $10-$20 limit.

Every great player that I know of has moved up through the limits in this way, with some drop-offs along the way. You start out playing $l-$2 limit Hold'em with your friends, and the next thing you know, you're playing $400-$800 limit at the Bellagio with Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, and Doyle Brunson! I personally won about $20,000 in home games in 1986, but when I stepped up to Las Vegas casino play, I slowly lost the whole $20,000 and went broke for the first and (so far!) last time. A bumpy road on the way up is to be expected—no one climbs Mount Everest with ease!

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• Poker – Stealing The Blinds (0)
• Poker – Reraising With Small Pairs, Before The Flop (0)