Small-Ball Poker involves deliberately playing in such a way as to keep the pot small, minimizing your risk of losing your entire stack in any single hand. This approach will both decrease your overall variance and increase the role of skill in the game – the chances of losing your stack to a miracle river card go down. Playing small ball poker involves good hand reading skills and astute betting. This article shows you the basics of this approach and how to profit from small ball poker.
See the Flop The first consideration in playing small ball is to bet less before the flop. This keeps the pot relatively smaller on later betting rounds – since those later bets are usually sized as a proportion of the pot. A raise of 2 ½ times the big blind is likely to have a very similar effect on the actions of your opponents as a 3 ½ or 4 times the big blind raise. However if we look at the effect on the size of post-flop bets, especially on the turn and river, then these become significantly smaller.
Pot Size Keeping the pot small in the early betting rounds will enable you to slowly gain a better understanding of your opponent’s hand. This makes position more valuable in small ball poker than when the bets are larger – there is simply more time for your good position to benefit you when betting is over several rounds. Combine this with the ability to gain cheap information (since you kept the pot small on early rounds) and you have a winning proposition. Managing the size of the pot must take into account the texture of the flop. For example if there are many draws present then betting too small an amount may in fact give your opponents the correct odds that they need to continue with their draws. If you have a drawing hand yourself then a small flop bet from position may enable you to take a free card from position later - if you feel that the table dynamics warrant this.
Switch it Up Employing a small ball poker strategy must be balanced with the occasional larger bets. This is because it may be difficult to build a very large pot when you hit a monster hand if you have employed an exclusively small-ball strategy. Escalating the size of the pot only after you have made a monster is most consistent with this style. After all betting big with only aces and kings (for example) pre-flop would give astute opponents too much valuable information to use against you.
Managing the size of the pot on later streets will often involve checking behind with a hand that is likely to be the best at the moment. While this carries some risks that an opponent will hit their hand, these risks can easily balance the benefits of the small-ball approach. If an opponent holds a pair under yours after the flop then they are 23-1 against improving to trips on the turn card. If they hold an ace then there are only 3 ‘outs’ in the deck that can destroy your hand.
Conclusion To summarize, small ball poker involves deliberately playing in such a way as to keep the pot sizes small. This is used when you feel you have a skill edge over your opponents that will show over time – after all anyone can get lucky during a single hand. Betting less pre-flop will ensure that the pot is smaller on later betting rounds, giving you more time to read your opponents hands. Checking behind or betting smaller amounts on later streets will often depend on the board cards containing likely draws.
Complete Multi Table Tournament Strategy
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Playing Multi-Table tournaments is a great way to turn a small investment into a potentially large payday. Online tournaments are available in a wide range of field sizes and buy-in levels. Successful multi-table tournament play involves adapting the stages of a tournament. This article describes how your strategy should change from the early stages through to the final table.
Beginning Stages During the early stages of any poker tournament players are faced with a dilemma. The number of bad players will never be higher – representing a great opportunity to accumulate chips. Yet those same bad players can often ‘get lucky’ decimating your stack with a fortunate out-draw. Adapting to these conditions involves looking to play hands with high implied-odds value when it is cheap to enter the pot. These include small pairs, suited connectors and sometimes suited aces. All of these hands can hit a well concealed monster when the flop is favorable and result in winning a big pot. In order to survive the middle stages you will need to accumulate chips. Playing quality hands from good position, value betting more and bluffing less is a sound strategy while there are many weak players in the field.
Middle Stages As the multi-table tournament progresses the blinds will be higher in proportion to the average stack size. At this point hands with high implied-odds potential go down in value and high card hands rise. Stack sizes, both your own and those of opponents, also take on a significant role.
The key to middle stage tournament play is to be careful what you call with! Raising from good position should be a default strategy as you will often take the blinds uncontested. However if someone has raised ahead of you then stay out of the pot unless you have a quality hand – and re-raise often with those hands.
The Bubble Just before the paying places at the bubble your strategy is actually determined more by stack size factors than your cards. Here your opponents will usually tighten up in order to make it to the money. Take advantage of this tendency by raising a wide range of hands – especially if you have a big stack yourself. The best opponents to steal from have stacks which are ‘comfortable’, beware of big or very small stacks as they will call more often. Once you reach the final table strategy considerations must also take the prize structure into account. The top 3 places will usually pay considerably more than the remaining slots. If there are ‘micro stacks’ at the table who are folding trying to move up in the money then you should look to aggressively attack the medium stacks – especially if you have them covered. Conversely try to avoid playing big pots with other large stacked opponents who have the potential to knock you out.
Conclusion To summarize, playing multi-table tournaments is a great way to turn a small investment into a potentially big payday. Strategy for these games involves adapting to the various stages of the tournament. Early play is focused on your cards, middle game play involves accounting for stack sizes and late game play must also consider the payout structure.
Joined: Jan '08
Location: Canada
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 1354
wow good post... definatly some things in there that i will keep in mind next time that i play its good.. i like reading things like this that helps me out with my over-all game
