Poker for Dummies (Mini Edition) (15 page)

Still, K
2
and a lot of the other playable hands in late position are vulnerable from any number of directions, and it takes some degree of skill to navigate your way through the murky waters of a Hold’em pot in a rickety canoe like this one.

The Art of Raising

Raising adds spice to the game of poker and money to the pot. Raising is an act of aggression and causes everyone to sit up and take notice. When there’s a raise or reraise, the level of excitement escalates. Sometimes you’ll be raised, and sometimes you’ll do the raising. Regardless of whether you’re the raiser or raisee, it’s time to sit up and take notice whenever a raise is made.

You’ve been raised

If the pot has been raised before it’s your turn to act, you must tighten up significantly on the hands you play. Savvy players might raise with almost anything in late position if no one except the blinds are in the pot, but if a player raises from early position, give her credit for a good hand, and throw away all but the very strongest of hands.

You need a stronger hand to call a raise than to initiate one. After all, if you raise, your opponents might fold, allowing you to win the blinds by default. If you call a raise, you have to give your opponent credit for a strong hand, and generally you should call only if you believe your hand to be even stronger.

When someone’s raised after you’ve called

When an opponent raises after you’ve called, you’re essentially committed to calling his raise, seeing the flop, and then deciding on the best course of action.

But when you call only to find yourself raised and raised again by a third opponent, you should seriously consider throwing your hand away unless it’s extremely strong.

Suppose that you called with a hand like 10
9
. Just because this hand may be playable in a tame game doesn’t mean you must play it. In a game with frequent raising, it may not be a playable hand because it is speculative and best played inexpensively from late position. The ideal way to play this hand is from late position, with a large number of opponents, in a pot that has not been raised. Now this hand is worth a shot. You can always throw it away whenever the flop is unfavorable.

When should you raise?

Hold’em is a game that requires aggressive play as well as selectivity. You can’t win in the long run by passively calling. You have to initiate your share of raises, too. Here are some raising hands:

You can always raise with a pair of Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks, and 10s.
In fact, if someone has raised before it’s your turn to act and you have a pair of Aces, Kings, and Queens in your hand, go ahead and reraise. You probably have the best hand anyway. Reraising protects your hand by thinning the field, thus minimizing the chances of anyone getting lucky on the flop.

You can also raise if you’re holding a suited Ace with a King, Queen, or Jack, or a suited King with a Queen.
If your cards are unsuited, you can raise if you’re holding an Ace with a King or Queen, or a King with a Queen.

If you’re in late position and no one has called the blinds, you can usually safely raise with any pair, an Ace with any kicker, and a King with a Queen, Jack, 10, or 9.
When you raise in this situation, you’re really hoping that the blinds — which are, after all, random hands — will fold. But even if they play, your Ace or King is likely to be the best hand if no one improves.

Playing the Flop

Defining moments are crystallized instances in time, forever frozen in memory, imprinted into consciousness, never to be forgotten. Like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, and the first home run you hit in Little League, these magical moments shape the way you perceive and value the world around you.

Hold’em also has its defining moment, and it’s the flop. (See the “Basic Rules” section for details about the flop.) Unlike Seven-Card Stud, where cards that follow your initial holding are parceled out one by one with rounds of betting interspersed, when you see the flop in Hold’em, you’re looking at five-sevenths of your hand. That’s 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting.

The implications of this situation should be abundantly clear: If the flop does not fit your hand, be done with it. Playing long-shot holdings after the flop is a sure way to lose money. After the flop, the relationship between the betting and cards-to-come is reversed. Now you’re looking at spending 83 percent of the potential cost of a hand for the remaining 29 percent of the cards!