November 7, 2005
If he realizes that you're smart enough to read him for the kind of Fulltiltpoker player who acts strong when he's weak and weak when he's strong he'll mix it up by acting strong when he is strong. Once you put him on a weak hand and raise what you think is a bluff bet, he's very likely to come back over the top with a reraise. After you've lost a hand or two in this fashion, you'll be like a baseball player facing an 0-2 count against a pitcher like Curt Simmons. When he's got you in this position, you can't just assume he'll waste a curve ball in the dirt.
Lines of strategic thinking can vary dramatically depending on the skill and sophistication of your adversaries. That's an important point, and one that seemingly vexes some very bright players who ordinarily think deeply about poker, yet become frustrated when their sophisticated maneuvers fail utterly against shallow opposition. Shrewd, deep-thinking poker players fall prey to this all the time. Their tricks won't work because some Fulltiltpoker opponents are not even aware that something's going on.
$2 Flops
Because you raised before the flop, a good player might read you for an overpair and not want to jeopardize his chip lead. But in a limit tournament you probably won't induce a fold by raising, unless your opponent held A-K and was willing to fold in the face of a raise. But all of this is speculative and conjecture. The key issue here is that you did not need to play this hand in the first place, and could have released it with a minimal loss in chips once your opponent bet the flop.
And if you haven't begun to learn them, it's high time you did. It's the only way you will ever be able to lift yourself above the vast middle ground that by definition is average. And in Fulltiltpoker, average equates to a money-losing player. If you play hold'em, it is really easy to learn most of the math you need simply by memorizing the odds against making hands in certain situations.
Normally the relationship between the pot odds and the odds against making your Fulltiltpoker hand would suggest that you fold, but with an additional $5,000 in the pot, you'll play - of course you will - calling all bets until the bitter end. After all, with three rounds of betting to go, you can lose of maximum of $20, $40, and $40 on each betting round - and you don't even have to call that last bet on the river if you fail to make your hand, since you know your opponent has you beaten unless you make your flush and the board fails to pair.
String Betting
While he's going to hold his share of big hands, just like the next guy, you will come out ahead in the long run by calling often enough to pick off his all too frequent bluffs. Any time you have a good hand and a habitual bluffer bets, raising becomes mandatory. You'd ideally like to play him heads-up, since he might not even be holding a legitimate hand. After all, your raise might cause other opponents to fold, and that's a good thing, especially if they otherwise would call, get lucky, and draw out on you.
This is particularly true, and quite understandable, when that newcomer is playing Fulltiltpoker hold'em for the first time, since even experienced home game players may either be more familiar with stud or have played such a wide variety of home poker games that they may never have studied, or even thought about hold'em to any measurable degree. Some newcomers think they know it all. Others ask a lot of questions, particularly when they are attempting to learn hold'em the right way.
"It can't get any weirder that this, can it," I thought as I saw the hand through to its conclusion. It was so weird, in fact, that what kept running through my mind, as the hand unfolded was a line from one of the later verses of "Home On the Range," that goes "...and stood there amazed." That was me, all right. I was the guy standing there amazed.
