Jan. 29, 2005
 

The Biggest Mistake

In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams

I do believe the current crop of information about hold'em falls short in the area of early-position instruction. With so many books and articles devoted to theory and to all the intricacies of the game that don't have anything to do with the two cards in your hand, I would expect a good teaching text to spend more time on the rudiments than on the advanced moves. Maybe today's writers are assuming that everybody knows the basics?

Put it this way. What if in the first grade, you received a single book called "My Primer," which contained the alphabet, a pronunciation guide and some simple words and stories that used these two elements. With guidance from a teacher, you completed the studies from page one through to the final page. Immediately afterward you receive a second book, which you are expected to read and understand, based on the basics you just learned. The title of your second book is "The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time."

Did "My Primer" contain enough information to enable you to master Stephen Hawking's work?

Not likely. And of course this is an exaggerated example that stretches to make my point but there is a kernel of truth there that every aspiring hold'em player should pluck and study and save.

You must train yourself to understand that early position is the most dangerous place to be. If you choose to get involved in a hand, you will be front, leading the way, with the enemy behind you and in front of you. Potentially, if there's a cap of three raises, players could require you to contribute a total of four bets to defend those two cards lying face down on the green felt in front of you.

Are those two cards worth four bets?

If they aren't on the starting hands chart for early position, then no, they are not worth four bets. They are not worth a single bet. Remember, this isn't the heads-up tournament play you're learning here. This is the real thing, the ring game where you expect to make money on a regular basis.

And if they are on the starting hand chart for early position, as a beginning player you should play them for all they are worth. A pair of aces in early position, slow played, could spell as much disaster as a queen-six suited in early position played with strength. Think it out. If you don't scare away most of the middle- and late-position hands when you have strength, you are giving them a chance to improve at a very cheap price. Your intimidation move won't get the potentially good hands to fold but it should get the mediocre calling hands out of your way. By plowing them into the muck you save yourself from budding bad beats.

Don't worry that you might be cutting down the money in the pot. Any win is a good win. Besides, considering that most people don't really understand hold'em, you'll get more than a decent share of bad players who will go all the way to the river with you in hopes of filling that inside straight or just keep you honest. They'll beat you sometimes but you will beat them more often, and that's where your profits will begin to rise.

Sadly, though, by faithfully limiting your early-position play, you already cut your action severely. Most of the time you'll be tossing your cards away when you're in early position. You can't let that influence you. This is a discipline you have to learn, like those ABCs you had to repeat over and over and over, like those words you had to sound out and pronounce until you could read a three-syllable one as easily as a single-letter one.

So, if you are a beginning player -- someone who is just starting out, someone who has very little table experience, someone who just isn't winning -- stay away from the lessons aimed at improving your game. Dig out the basic books, the baby articles, the primers and pour over them again and again. Get yourself some Texas hold'em software and set up various hands and rather than running simulations, actually play them out from early position to experience the true value or lack thereof.

Sure it's boring. Certainly it can be frustrating. Absolutely you're going to think it's an overall bad idea. Then again, the basics of early position are the building blocks of your future. If they aren't on solid ground, well ... need we say more?