Posts Tagged ‘hold em poker’
All champion poker players have to start somewhere, though. Learning to win limit Hold'em poker tournaments was very difficult for me. Even though I was already a world champion of poker and had won many big no-limit Hold'em events by the time I was 26 years old, I still hadn't even made my first final table (which is usually the final nine players) in a limit Hold'em tournament.
If you were a pro and I told you this, you would think it was really odd. How could I win so many no-limit Hold'em events but consistently have trouble making the final nine in limit Hold'em events? After a while, I began to realize that the way I was playing my hands was holding me back, so I did what I had never done before in poker: I studied a couple of other players to see what they were doing differently from me. Remember this the next time you start to blame your lack of success on bad luck: even a world champion was willing to admit he had things left to learn.
With no-limit, I could see what everyone else was doing wrong in the late 1980s. For some reason, the right way to play no-limit just seemed obvious and easy to me. Of course, I also did my fair share of playing no-limit Hold'em badly, but at least I knew when I was playing badly. (Moreover, that had to do with emotional issues, which I discuss elsewhere in the book.)
In this chapter you will learn:
- Aggressive play is right in limit Hold'em tournaments.
- Tight play is right in limit Hold'em tournaments.
- Stealing blinds helps you survive late in limit Hold'em events.
- To win, steal more blinds at the money-cutoff line.
- Survive and thrive.
- Bring your big guns to a war!
- How to trap in limit Hold'em tourneys.
- Playing satellites improves your game.
Aggressive Play Helps in Limit Hold'em Events
One day after I was eliminated from a limit Hold'em event, I sought out Jack Keller, who at the time was really hot in limit Hold'em tournaments, and watched him play for a couple of hours. It was obvious to me that Jack was doing a number of things I hadn't been doing. He simply tried to win every pot that he played. Jack never just called someone else's raise before the flop: he always either threw his hand away or three-bet it.
This was quite different from my old strategy. I used to just call when I had a small pair, hoping that others would call as well, and that I would win a big pot when I finally hit my set. Jack, however, always three-bet before the flop, even with only a small pair, and continued to play his hand aggressively from that point on in the hand. The percentage of pots that he won was much higher than the percentage of pots that I had won, for three reasons.
First, Jack's constant three-betting before the flop helped him win more pots by eliminating more opponents preflop. When you start with fewer opponents before the flop, you'll win more pots.
Second, Jack would play his hand pretty hard on the flop and win a lot of pots if his opponents had, say, king-high when an ace hit the board.
Third, Jack would just plain try to bluff you out if he thought he could.
This aggressive play of Hold'em hands is something I've already preached to you in earlier chapters of this book. Once I began using this system, I couldn't believe the results I achieved. I made five final tables in a row playing limit Hold'em this way, and eventually, in the 1990s, I won two world championships in limit Hold'em.
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