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October 17, 2005
What are "better starting pokerparty hands" in shorthanded play? Big cards--suited connectors and small pocket pairs are still inherently vulnerable to bluffs and semibluffs. Smaller cards remain profitable against other vulnerable hands (or many opponents of course), but they are marginal at best against a more legitimate preflop raiser. In my opinion, a good list of hands to play against an opponent raising 40-50% of the time is listed below.
As you can see, the expectation earned by knocking out the big blind is worth more than $10 postflop. There are settings where this will not be the case. If the opponents' skill is sufficiently higher, the big blind is very loose (and will call a reraise cold), or the big blind is very tight (and will fold to a single bet very often), the value of a reraise is diminished. However, these conditions are rare enough to make a reraise in the small blind profitable in most circumstances in my opinion, and I believe our arithmetic above confirms my Pokerparty advice.
On Tilt Denial
Of course, a dramatic and critical difference between small and big blind defense surrounds the amount required to call. In all our past examples, we have assumed the button raises 100% of the time. We will continue that assumption in this Pokerparty article for the sake of simplicity. In addition, we will assume an equal and average opponent on the button. The main interests of this article will be pot odds and the effect of being squeezed between the button and big blind.
David realistically points out that there are many deluded individuals in the Pokerparty world who mistakenly fancy themselves as "professional poker players". He also highlights the enormous sum of dreamers who erroneously judge themselves as long-term winners. Of course, if you are a regular reader of the articles at PokerPages, the chances are that you have a more accurate picture of the percentage of winners and losers in the poker world; I doubt you're surprised or unaware of this discrepancy.
The exact number is impossible to discern, because it depends on the skill of both you and your Pokerparty opponent. If you are a complete novice, but your opponent is a novice also, the disadvantage of being out of position is lessened. If you are an expert, but your opponent is also an expert, the disadvantage of being out of position is magnified.
Tony G is the New Bad Boy
Since you will be going to the river with many hands, you should get the money in early, which makes a showdown strategy more likely to be correct and profitable in the long run. A second factor is initiative. I mentioned above that most preflop stealers will not be affected by reraises, especially those raising 100% of the time preflop. In my experience, most opponents simply fold if the flop didn't hit their hand since they expect to be against a monster hand.
The bottom line is that the bigger card took down a pot unexpectedly, and Player 1 is several bets richer. It is hard to overvalue the extra small pots earned by the high card; it happens far too often in heads-up and shorthanded Pokerparty play to ignore. The other advantage of big cards is that they upgrade guesswork into value bets and semibluffs. The following scenarios better illustrate the advantages allowed by high cards.
Bellagio's glorious Pokerparty room. I was impressed, and the style fit right in with my desire to take it easy and have some fun. After a short wait, I sat down at a lower limit table, ordered myself a drink, and went crazy. It was a raucous game. I dropped $500 and had a great time. After just a few hours, I was down to my final $200 of the day.
