Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

Todd Arnold, known as NSXT2 on the online poker circuit, wrote an article a couple months ago on the way he thinks AK should be played. It does seem to me and others that I talk to on a regular basis that AK is the favorite hand of a lot of players who play online poker. Arnold discusses this in his article, but he doesn’t mention (at least not directly) the fact that players, especially beginners, like AK so much because they know that in this case, they probably can’t be making a mistake by pressing the issue with this hand.Playing a hand like JJ can often lead to calling off all your chips to an overpair, but AK rarely runs into AA or AK, meaning that it is always at worst a coin flip. I think this fact alone gives players a confidence boost when playing AK, making them feel like they can play it more aggressively because they really don’t have to do any catching up. Arnold advises not to put too much stock in the hand, and I must say I agree with him, because as he points out, “hell, its just a drawing hand.”

Don’t show your level of poker expertise (beginner) by playing this hand much too strong. Know when and how to get away from the hand, and let your better judgment prevail, even if it is the first big hand you’ve seen in a long time.

Also known as paying for information, calling to see if you’re right is very tempting in a lot of situations. The problem is, sometimes we can call too much for information that isn’t very useful in the long run. For example, if you call off half your stack late in the tournament because you have a hunch that you might be ahead - what information does this provide in the long run, since your opponent and/or you will be gone from the tournament in a short period of time? Obviously, if you are 90% sure you are correct, then by all means, call. If you are 50/50, forget it - it’s not worth half your chips to find out you indeed made a horrible read.I think that paying for information is most valuable in the early and middle stages of the tournament, because getting players to show down the cards they are playing is such a valuable piece of information. By getting an opponent to show their cards at the end, you can see if they are playing garbage, and how they play that garbage. On the flip side, if they show AA, you can see how their betting patterns were similar or different from other hands they may’ve had to show down.

If you obtain this type of information early in a tournament, you can apply it through the duration, which could payoff big time in a future hand with that opponent. Also, by paying for this information early, you can keep your losses at a minimum because the blinds will still be small relative to your stack.

Everyone wants to know if what they are thinking is correct, but that’s part of the mystique of holdem: sometimes you just don’t get the luxury of finding out what two cards your opponent is holding. Don’t get lured in to making an expensive call just to see what your opponent has, because a chunk of your stack gone is a chunk of your stack that you can’t use in the future. Draw a line for yourself - an amount of chips that you are willing to give to your opponent for information, but make sure that line doesn’t cross a significant portion of your chips.

Some situations on the flop in holdem, especially drawing situations, bring up an interesting scenario: is raising in the hopes of getting a free view of the turn and river the right play? Or is calling to see a cheaper turn card the correct way to go about the problem? In the new issue of the two plus two internet magazine, Drew Pruitt analyzes this situation.Drew likes to use the word “equity” in the article, and I haven’t done a very good job of defining it here on Hold Em Authority. PokerNews defines equity this way:

Your “rightful” share of a pot. If the pot contains $80, and you have a 50% chance of winning it, you have $40 equity in the pot. This term is somewhat fanciful since you will either win $80 or $0, but it gives you an idea of how much you can “expect” to win.

This article really makes you think, which is why I like it so much.

Enjoy!