11:16pm: Pick up any poker book — and I do mean ANY — and I guarantee you that you will find written at least five times written in different ways that you should always be raising the button when only the blinds remain, and nearly 100% of the time heads up. Time and time again, you heed their warning, and never stop pounding the big blind with your button raises but it never seems to translate into anything more than you playing a big pot with a hand you have no idea how to play postflop, am I right?

Anyone who has seen my tutorials quickly remarks about the odd number of times I limp (for the most part in the early blinds), and are equally as baffled at how this strategy can translate into such a positively-sloped profit graph.

Raising is traditionally to be taken as a sign of strength, and limping as a sign of weakness. However, recently in poker there has been more of a shift towards each one indicating the opposite. Fortunately for you, most people are still unaware of this fact, which will allow you do this:

Setup Hand #1:

PokerStars Game #18343957608: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:03:12 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2230 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (770 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [9c 7c]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 740 to 770 and is all-in
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (740) returned to DGDeuce11
DGDeuce11 collected 60 from pot
DGDeuce11: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60 | Rake 0
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) collected (60)

Setup Hand #2:

PokerStars Game #18343939281: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:02:06 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2585 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (415 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [7c 9h]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 385 to 415 and is all-in
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (385) returned to DGDeuce11
DGDeuce11 collected 60 from pot
DGDeuce11: doesn’t show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 60 | Rake 0
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) collected (60)

The Kill:

PokerStars Game #18343981563: Tournament #93189771, $100+$5 Hold’em No Limit - Match Round I, Level II (15/30) - 2008/06/24 - 00:04:38 (ET)
Table ‘93189771 1′ 2-max Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: trujm (2320 in chips)
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (680 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
DGDeuce11: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [Kh As]
trujm: calls 15
DGDeuce11: raises 650 to 680 and is all-in
trujm: calls 650
*** FLOP *** [4s Tc 7d]
*** TURN *** [4s Tc 7d] [7c]
*** RIVER *** [4s Tc 7d 7c] [9s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DGDeuce11: shows [6c Ah] (a pair of Sevens)
trujm: shows [Kh As] (a pair of Sevens - Ace+King kicker)
trujm collected 1360 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1360 | Rake 0
Board [4s Tc 7d 7c 9s]
Seat 1: trujm (button) (small blind) showed [Kh As] and won (1360) with a pair of Sevens
Seat 2: DGDeuce11 (big blind) showed [6c Ah] and lost with a pair of Sevens

There’s a certain point in a heads up sng where grind your opponent down to the point where they will start open shoving — either on the button or when you limp into the pot. When I limped the first two hands, I was relatively sure he was at this point, and would indeed soon start shoving. I needed to implant the idea that limping equals weakness into his head, so I made some loose calls preflop knowing that I was probably going to have to fold them. This was done, of course, with the hopes that I would eventually wake up with a hand (which I did) and would play the hand the exact same way that I did when I was truly weak — to induce a shove. Our opponent bit, and he put his money in as a big time dog. The hand held, and I won the match.

The moral of the story is that the problem a lot of people have with limping sometimes simply has more to do with ego trips, and commitment to play “power poker” than it does with actually using it effectively. There’s a time and a place to pound the big blind, but you’d be surprised at the whole new set of tools available to you when you limp into the pot a lot. A good portion of the time you will get even more action this way.

Try it sometime.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

3:57am: Don’t ask me how I did it, but I finished up nearly $200 on a night where I should have finished down — big time. The bad news was that I was completely card dead all night long. The good news is that because of this, it made nearly all of my decisons really easy and prevented me from losing a lot on any one single hand.

The hand of the night:

Ks3s on the button. 6 people limp preflop. I am the 7th person to enter the pot, and eventually 9 people saw the flop, which was Kc 5s Jd. Everyone checks to me, and I’m relatively sure my King is no good at this point, so I check hoping to spike a 3 or to pick up a spade draw. The turn is 10s. Someone in early position leads out for $35, and 3 people call. I thought about raising, but I didn’t want to scare anyone off in case a spade that puts a 4 card straight on the board hits.

The river is Qs. Everyone checks to me, and I bet $75 — and I get two callers, one of them having the straight as I suspected.

The rest of the night consisted basically of me perfecting the art of picking spots to take down small pots with air, and also perfecting the art of folding pre flop. I can’t remember a single night where my “% of flops seen” was so low in a very long time. The night ended with FINALLY (after 8 hours of play) picking up a pocket pair higher than tens (QQ). I made it $40 on the button, and was called by three people. The flop brought an overcard (King), and everyone checked to me. I checked behind everyone, and hit my set of queens on the turn. Once again, everyone checks and I bet $75 and everyone folds.

When it was all said and done, I counted my chips and to my amazement I was up $185. It’s amazing how bad you can run and still get away with a winning session, as long as you don’t get outdrawn or lose any big pots.

I might finish off the night with a couple of $100 hu sngs — that is, if some players deep in the red register before me. When moving up in stakes, I highly suggest treading lightly and only playing those in which you have a decided edge.

More later…

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process