Extending Your Play Beyond The Top Ten Poker Hands
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.
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Limit Hold Em Poker Intermediate Strategy
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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