They don’t think like us. Poker pros, I mean. They’re levels beyond, especially in a no-limit game, when they’re not just looking to win a hand, but to take all your chips.
So I’m going to show how the pros play–how they think, bet, bluff, trap, smooth-call, even fold kings before the flop–by having them break down hands they’ve actually played.
If you’re going to learn what the pros do with different hands, you might as well start with aces. Doesn’t get much better than that.
And if you’re going to learn from a pro, you might as well start with Howard Lederer. Doesn’t get much better than that either.
“In no-limit, you can get a tremendous amount of information about someone’s hand pre-flop,” said Lederer, who helped develop the software for the new Full Tilt Poker online site and who plays against you at fulltiltpoker.com.
In today’s hand during a no-limit Hold ‘Em tournament at the 2004 World Series of Poker, with the blinds at $500-$1,000, a solid player in middle position opened the pot for $3,000. Lederer drew aces in the big blind.
Howard Lederer’s hand: A (clubs) A (hearts)
His opponent: ? ?
“I’m out of position,” Lederer said. “I don’t want to make it cheap for him to call. I call the $3,000 and raise $10,000.
“There’s about $8,000 in the pot. I’m happy to win it right there, but at the very least I want to be able to put him on very specific hands because that will make it easy to put him on very specific hands after the flop.”
The other player, who began with a stack of about $40,000, compared to Lederer’s $50,000, called.
“As soon as he called the $10,000, I decided that he had to have one of three hands: Ace-king, suited probably, or two queens or two jacks,” Lederer said. “He couldn’t have aces. I had two in my hand. If he had two kings, I felt he probably would’ve raised me back.”
The flop
K (clubs) 2 (diamonds) 5 (spades)
“I knew almost certainly that he had only two outs,” Lederer said. “Now there’s $28,000 in the pot and he has about $30,000 that I would like to win. But I knew that if I made about a pot-sized bet or put him all-in, he’ll probably call me with the ace-king, but he’ll easily be able to fold the queens or jacks.”
This is about getting full value for your aces. Lederer had a free check, with the possibility of a check-raise to trap his opponent, and did just that.
“He bet $15,000 of his $30,000,” Lederer said. “If he has ace-king, I knew I’d get all his money in the pot and just worry about it coming a king. If he has queens or jacks and I call, he knows he’s beat because I can’t have 10s or nines there and be calling. So, I put him all-in for $15,000.
“He probably thought for at least five minutes and I’m certain now it was the two queens. And he folded.
“He was actually thinking that if I checked, his hand’s probably good, which was not good thinking in that particular situation because it’s easy for me to check three kings or two aces, or even ace-king. His hand was so defined by his pre-flop action.”
Poker lingo
Outs: The only cards that can make a hand; if you have a pair of jacks and need at least three to win, you have two outs–the other two jacks.
Check-raise: To pass on a chance to bet, but when it comes back to you in the same round, you raise the pot; a trapping move meant to show weakness at the start, but you risk missing a round of betting if everyone else checks.
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Have a question about playing a specific hand or exploring other parts of the game? E-mail me at srosenbloom@tribune.com and I’ll get a pro to give you an answer.
