SLOW PLAYING POCKET PAIRS A lot of poker players will slow play high pocket pairs like Queens-Kings or Aces with the intention of not driving money away from the pot. I think this is a mistake. With any of the above pairs I would raise pre-flop for one very good reason. You want to get people with potential drawing hands (especially suited connectors like Jack-Queen of Spades for example) out of the game. Good poker players won’t invest much in the small chance of a drawing hand so if you hit them with a good pre-flop raise most will take the opportunity to fold rather than make a risky investment at long odds. You need this security because the threat to your high pair comes from the potential flush or straight that might be out there among your opponents and the cards due to them. By clearing out the drawing hands you are making that scenario much less likely. You are really looking to find yourself facing a lower pair than your own and the pre-flop raise clears the way.
RELEVANT ODDS A pocket pair comes along about once in every sixteen hands. At a normal size table of ten players you can therefore expect to find a pocket pair up against your own pocket pair about fifty percent of the time.
THE CUT OFF POINT It’s difficult to exactly define what constitutes a high pair because it depends on whether you’re thinking about a short handed table or a full table. My personal cut off point at a full table is to fold anything below a pair of tens if I’m in early position. If I’m in late position and there’s no real action ahead of me I might well take a more aggressive view with any pocket pair.
POKER TOURNAMENT TIP OF THE DAY If you’re up against a big stack, don’t take it on. The Americans have spent $19 trillion dollars on defence since the end of World War 11. That’s $26 million a day since the birth of Christ. You don’t try to match that, you simply steal three of the big stack’s own planes and we all know the rest. It’s poker at its most horrific but you apply the same approach when you tackle a powerful chip leader.
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FIGHT ON YOUR TERMS Find his weakness and apply maximum pressure to it. Big stacks are either bullying or preserving. If they’re bullying, only attack when you have a killer hand. If they’re “preserving”, your strategy is to bleed them a little at a time. In the latter situation you can afford to add bluffing to your arsenal because anyone preserving their stack is playing cautious, tight poker and is vulnerable to a good bluff.
