Big Hand First Hand, Rushes, and Big Stack Play

I was contemplating blogging some early tournament strategy, and how to exploit some weaknesses I've been taking note of in the local league games, but thankfully something else came along... besides, I don't really want to help the other guys in the league who read this blog.

So I suppose this would apply to tournaments as well, but primarily I'm going to be talking about the online NL cash games. I've seen this play time after time, and it nearly always works well: you sit down and are graced with a big pocket pair on the first hand... what should you do?

Of course you're probably going to raise, but I advocate overplaying the hand. More often than not, someone at the table will make the mistake of assuming you're a pot-jamming idiot and overplay right back at you... it's your first hand, and few people will believe your aggressive play is actually backed with a big hand. There is a point where you can probably overplay it too much, but I think a big raise pre-flop will give you the information you'll need to decide how to play the flop.

Similarly, is when you're getting a rush of big hands... people don't believe you... they just tend to believe that you can't have a big hand again, or that you're trying to capitalize on your table image to buy pots.

These situations don't come up that often, and when they do, you want to do everything you can to maximize the profit of them. Today, I ran into both of the above scenarios at the same time!

I sat down to pocket kings, and nearly doubled on the hand right off the bat. Then AQo hit me with top two pair. Then I raped some guy when I held pocket aces! Then 54s flopped a straight. In 4 hands I'd more than tripled my $25 buy in... and every hand I had overplayed, and every hand I got callers or even raisers.

Then it became a me vs. the table battle... it was apparent from the play and the chat that the table wanted a piece of me. I appropriately tightened right up, being careful not to assume that hands were being overplayed against me... respecting their raises, and getting in good limps with my big stack when I could.

This final point is one that I've been working to incorporate more into my game, both cash and tournaments... when you're a big stack, and against opponents who have stacks large enough to pay you well if you hit, but small enough not to be a major threat to you, many hands are worth limping. I'm talking medium off-suit two-gappers... suited kings and queens... sometimes even baby aces. You've got to play them very smart post flop... but when your opponent has about 1/3 to 1/2 your chips, and a limp costs you less than 5% (there's that 5-10 rule again) of your stack, calling the blind is a no-brainer.

I think a lot of people start out playing poker focusing on how to play the big hands... how to play when things are going good. Then the natural progression tends to push people toward how to play when they're in the grind... when they're losing... when little is working. A big early lesson for everyone is the "got to fold to win" epiphany... learning to endure the long hours of boredom accompanied by moments of sheer terror. There's a lifetime of strategy to study and implement here down in the trenches. But at some point I think you've got to come back to those big moments and big hands and big rushes, and think about how to better maximize profit.