Once you have the basic strategy position plays down cold— and it won’t take long—I suggest you start playing in the dark in inexpensive live tournaments.
Believe me, this is incredible fun. You’ll be amazed at how far you’ll get in tournaments just by using position plays. Every time you take down a pot you’ll feel like the legendary blind Samurai, slaying opponents left and right with your eyes closed. And definitely take a few of the more risky postflop position shots. Test your reads on your opponents when you don’t have a hand or, at least, you don’t know if you have a hand!
Again, you shouldn’t expect to make it into the money in real tournaments with all of your play in the dark. The value of playing without looking at your cards is to demonstrate to yourself how truly strong position play is. Many times, experienced hold’em players who have come to the tournaments from the ring games have told
me that they get to a point in a tournament where they can see that their chip stack is getting dangerously short, and know they have to take a shot, but just can’t bring themselves to push in their chips without a legitimate hand. In fact, you’ll be amazed at the number of players in the small buy-in tournaments who never even take a shot at the blinds! If you make the basic strategy of position play part of your regular strategy, you will get short-stacked much less often, and you will be so comfortable with pushing in your chips without a legitimate hand that you’ll be aching for opportunities to take position shots long before you’re dangerously short-stacked. To me, one of the greatest thrills in poker is taking down a substantial pot without a hand. And this is what the fast tournaments are all about. If you don’t really get a kick out of this kind of kamikaze play, and if you think the fun of poker is in being dealt pocket aces or flopping a set, you’ll rarely make money in the fast tournaments.
Once you get good at combining your pure position plays with actually playing your cards, you’ll find that you will almost never bust out of a tournament, or even lose any substantial portion of your chips, on position plays. You will lose your money when you’re playing your legitimate hands and you get sucked out on, or your pocket kings just happen to bump into pocket aces. That is a fact. You will see this over and over again. It’s good cards that get you in trouble.
If the thought of playing in real money tournaments without looking at your cards strikes you as a very expensive way to learn, ask yourself how often you’re making it into the money when you are looking at your cards. If you want to beat these tournaments, you’ve got to pay a little for the education. The cost of a few small buy-in tournaments played in the dark is a pretty cheap price to pay for an education you can’t get any other way.
One very important point to keep in mind when playing in the dark in a live tournament is that you must absolutely appear to be looking at your cards. You must cup your hands around your cards and appear to be peeking at the lifted corners, when in fact you’re leaving your cards flat on the table and looking at nothing but the darkness inside your hands. Also, you shouldn’t tell any of your opponents later that you played in the dark. If you are suspected by your opponents of playing in the dark, you’ll be raised and reraised on every hand you play. This is your secret. You do it for a few tournaments until you have the basic position strategy down cold, then you’ll never have to do it again.
Some players to whom I’ve described the basic position strategy have asked whether other players at the table get suspicious of these consistent raises from the same late positions. The fact is that there will be nothing all that consistent about your play. You only make these plays under specific conditions that depend on the prior actions of other players at your table—usually, they must all fold in front of you before you even enter the pot—so you do not keep raising from the same positions round after round. Many rounds, you will not play any hand at all. If
anything, your opponents will think you are a very tight player looking for exceptional cards. After your initial practice plays in the dark, you will be adding plays from other positions based on your cards and/or your chip stack, and that will mix up your play quite well.
Postflop Basic Position Strategy 101
There are two major postflop basic strategy position plays that cover the majority of the postflop situations in which you have position on your opponents. Here are the two secret strategies for making money after the flop:
1. He checks, you bet 2. He bets, you fold
That’s it. If you’ve played in a few tournaments already, then you know this is no big secret. You see it all the time. But do you do it? You have to do it! In fact, about the only time you shouldn’t bet when your opponent checks is when you’ve flopped such a monster hand that you want to give your opponent every possible chance to make something so that he’ll be willing to put some money in the pot.
Let’s dissect the logic of these two postflop strategies.
He Checks, You Bet
He-checks-you-bet is just a standard basic strategy play when you have position.
Standard. Requires no thought. Just do it. As your skill level increases and you begin to get meaningful reads on your opponents, you will occasionally make an exception to this play, but don’t make a habit of violating this strategy.
If your opponent didn’t bet, it is far more likely that he disliked the flop than that he is slowplaying you. About 90% of the time, the routine is: He checks. You bet. He folds. Forget about the 10% of the time when he is either slowplaying you, or likes his hand just enough to call, or has a strong draw and wants to see the next card even if he’s not getting sufficient pot odds, or just thinks you’re taking a position shot and is determined to be the sheriff. Unless you have some kind of an actual read on your opponent, ignore these possibilities. Follow the basic strategy.
If your opponent calls your bet, you continue with the he-checks-you-bet strategy on the turn, though in fast tournaments there’s a good chance your bet on the turn may have to be all-in. It doesn’t matter what your cards are. The simple math of this situation is that your opponent is unlikely to have a hand he can call an all-in bet with. If this play knocks you out of a tournament, so be it. You’re going to get knocked out of most tournaments before you reach the money, and if you get knocked out on aggressive plays, that’s a hell of a lot better in terms of your long-term prospects than getting knocked out by being slowly ground down by the rising costs of the blinds and antes. You want to go down fighting, not whimpering.
He Bets, You Fold
The postflop he-bets-you-fold move is also basic position strategy, but it will be one of the basic strategy plays that you will be correct to violate most frequently.
Basic strategy decisions are never based on any specific player who is betting at you.
Assuming you have no read on your opponent and no legitimate hand yourself, the correct play is to just get out of his way when he bets. Now let’s look at the times when it’s correct to violate this basic strategy.
The main reason you will often depart from this strategy and play back at your opponent is because experienced hold’em players all know that they should not
“give up the lead” in their betting. Any skilled opponent knows that to check here just because the flop didn’t hit him would simply be giving you an opportunity to take a position shot at the pot, which he couldn’t call. So, if you believe that the player who is betting has a pretty good grasp of traditional hold’em theory, there’s a good chance that this postflop bet of his is meaningless. If you raise him here, he’ll often fold.
One guideline to use on whether to play back at this player is the size of his bet. If his bet is a standard postflop bet, somewhere around half the size of the current pot, you should call. This is most likely a meaningless “don’t give up the lead” bet in which he is simply not giving up his aggression. The reason you just call is to try and get him to make another of these don’t-give-up-the-lead bets on the turn, so that you can get even more chips out of him.
If his postflop bet is much smaller than half the size of the pot, then make a substantial reraise to take the pot right here. Don’t just call if he makes one of these half-hearted stabs at the pot. That weak bet usually means that he won’t bet again on the turn unless the turn card gives him a strong hand, and you just don’t want to give him a free chance to beat you. Take that pot now. You won’t get any more chips out of him. Some players hope that a small bet like this will make you believe they’ve got a strong hand and are just trying to get more chips out of you. But in the fast tournaments, that’s almost never the reality. Push all-in on that sucker and take the pot.
If his postflop bet is much greater than half the size of the current pot, however, get out of his way. He probably has a pretty good hand and he’s unlikely to give it up.