Column Rolf: The size of the buy-in: Same game – different approach

Deze column is afkomstig uit Rolf Slotboom’s nieuwe boek “Secrets of Professional Poker, Vol. 1”. Meer informatie, reviews, en directe bestellinks (soms met flinke korting) zijn beschikbaar op www.rolfslotboom.com.

While on my travels, I recently bumped into two very juicy online pot-limit Omaha games. Quite frankly, I had not much interest in playing as the $25-50 blinds games that I sometimes play nowadays were not very interesting, while at another site the $100-200 and $200-400 games seemed very tough: with some very good players, and short-handed too. Not exactly the type of composition I was looking for.

But then I noticed the $10-20 games at yet another site, in what used to be my bread and butter game. I noticed that these games were unusually good – and it didn’t take me long to find out the reason. A friend of mine, who is actually a more than decent player when it comes to reading hands but who is simply a bit too overaggressive both before and after the flop, was what is considered to be “throwing a party”. However, this time he was throwing a party at the other players’ expense. Knowing that he hardly ever buys in for the full $2000, he now had $5800 in one game, and $3700 in another – so it was quite clear that he was on a roll.

Of course, I immediately put myself on the waiting list for both games. Despite the fact that normally when a table is on fire it could take quite a while for a waiting player to get a seat (now that the game is so good that no one wants to leave), in this case I was fortunate. Within five minutes seats became available, and I could enter these two very juicy games both at the same time.

Now, while most players always buy in for the same amount, regardless of the texture of the game, I am one of the few players who varies these amounts. As people should know by now, I am actually one of the few “good” players who often buys in for the minimum, rather than the full amount. But “often” isn’t exactly the same as “always”. Some tables simply require a different approach than others.

Table one – approach A

At the first table, I got the seat to the immediate right of my friend. Now, knowing that despite his many strengths he also has some exploitable weaknesses (as said, especially his overaggression early in the hand), it was quite clear to me which strategy would be best here. I bought in for the minimum $400, in the hopes that I could either limp-reraise him before the flop with my good hands (the premium pairs of course, but also the double-suited coordinated hands), or else check-raise him after the flop when the situation seemed right. In fact, I was now in the exact position that nowadays is often referred to as “Rolf’s seat” – the seat to the right of a maniac that in the past most people tried to avoid, but that – as I have shown – can actually be one of the most profitable seats in the house. When playing short money, you may not only be able to trap the overaggressive player to your left, but by doing this you will also be bagging the entire field. This means you can create lots of dead money for those times when you come over the top, giving you extra EV when your hand is good, and also making up somewhat for the times where you have misjudged the situation, and your hand is not good. But that’s not all there is to it. Because you’ve got everyone caught in the middle, you will often get a reliable response from them to “see where you’re at”. Let’s say that you limp with a relatively marginal A?Q?Q?8?, your loose-aggressive friend raises, and then no one reraises – well, then it should be clear that this relatively marginal hand could be worth playing for all your money. So, by always letting him do the betting for you, you will have found an excellent check-raise station where, once the action gets back to you, the best decision should be quite clear, and where you will be in perfect position to both maximize your wins and minimize your losses.

Now, those who are familiar with my works know that this is one of my favorite game plans, one of the strategies that I frequently use. And therefore, I am often referred to as someone who advocates a short-stack approach. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you are a really good player, you would more often than not do even better by buying in for the maximum – which is exactly what I did at the second table.

Table two – approach B

Also at this second table, I got offered a seat next to my overaggressive friend – but this time, it was the seat to his immediate left. A seat that in general I like to avoid, as it carries the danger of getting sandwiched, squeezed or sandbagged by the other players who are using the overaggressive player’s tendencies to their advantage – and thereby putting me in the middle. With anywhere from a small to fairly large stack in this position, it is entirely possible to lose a significant percentage of your stack coldcalling or reraising the maniac before the flop with your decent hands, only to get faced with an over-the-top reraise that you cannot call.

Still, because the waiting list behind me had grown, I took the seat – and obviously, this time I bought in for the maximum $2000. The reason was simple. I would now be trying to break my opponent in a heads up situation by trying to isolate him either before or after the flop, knowing that he would give lots of action with sub-optimal holdings. In other words: I would now be trying to get as much money as possible off this one player, with the ultimate goal of trying to break him on one single hand. This opposed to the situation at table one where I would be using my mini-stack to get myself all-in early, almost certainly in a multiway pot or else heads up with lots of dead money. In this situation, I would probably be getting a clear overlay despite the fact that I would not necessarily be an absolute favorite, but rather just a money favorite.

The end result

Fortunately for me, both approaches worked. On table one, I managed to turn my $400 into $1260 with my fairly marginal A?J?T?8?. I had gone all-in before the flop in a three-way pot, and had gotten protection after the flop because my friend had bet the eventual winner out of the pot. And at table two, I was able to break my opponent just like I had planned to. Having flatcalled his raise while holding crappy kings, a loose-aggressive short-stacked player behind us went all-in. When my friend then just flatcalled this all-in raise, I knew for a fact that he didn’t have aces – so I moved all-in with my kings. As it happened, my unimproved kings would scoop both the main and the side pot, meaning that in just ten minutes time I had won two major confrontations.

As I had been using two entirely different approaches to win these pots, I am certain that some of my opponents might reason something like this: “Gee, this player is strange. At one table, he buys in small, yet at another table he buys in big. Strange player – probably doesn’t have a clue.” Well, now they know the reasoning behind it, I guess. Same game, different approach – yet in both cases, clearly correct.

Iedere week verschijnt de column van Rolf Slotboom op PokerCity. Rolf is een van Nederlands beste pokerspelers en tevens een internationaal gewaardeerd schrijver van pokerboeken en artikelen.