From The Felt: Duck, Duck, Duck, Goose.
Monday, January 5, 2009 - John Greene
It’s a simple fact: in poker, it’s the player who raises who controls the table at any given time. Other players have to react to this decision and it’s something you can use to your advantage whether playing poker online with us or when trying to take your friends’ money in that Tuesday night basement game. You’ll see it most often in limit poker games among neophytes, where it’s “Raise, Call, Call, Call” all night, but it happens more often than you’d think at “real” games, particularly if they’ve lasted a good while.
As most experienced poker players know, someone who calls consistently rarely has the cards they should be playing with in the first place. Whether it’s simple laziness (which is more common than you’d think) or an urge to be involved in the game at any cost, it’s a behavior that will allow you to plunder their bankroll. If there’s a short-stacked player in a Limit game, you may be able to bluff him out of some pots after you raise.
Another hazard of being a player who calls when they should raise is that you’ll lose your money to good players that will bet you out of pots that you should have won because you called and kept calling without paying attention. If you decide to raise pre-flow, you make a decision to show that you’re confident in your hand and the weaker players will either hand you their money later or fold.
Obviously, In no-limit games, the strategy of raising people out of pots can work better than in limit games, where the big bet is small and constant. Players have less to lose and the play tends to be a lot more free-wheeling in limit games, for good reason. Next time you’re sitting down to a no-limit table and you see this “duck, duck, duck” action, be the goose and raise, especially on the pre-flop. Shake them up a bit and get a little more money at the same time.
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Tags: call, limit poker, no limit poker, pre-flop hands, raise
January 5th, 2009 at 11:51 am
If you decide to take advantage of the live stream of the WSOP, then you are obviously a poker fan like I am. I’ve been playing the majority of my life, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. There are poker tournaments going on all the time from various places around the globe. Many poker fans have searched endlessly for stores providing poker apparel and poker accessories. Remarkably enough, almost everything you could possibly want can be found on the World Wide Web. The Internet will also provide footage from all the tournaments that the poker fans aren’t able to view in person.