On Risking It All - Part 1

SUBTITLE: Thoughts on No-Limit Texas Hold'em

No-limit Texas Hold'em is an extremely popular card game at the moment. That picture to the right is a shot of Mike "the Mouth" Matusow betting all of his chips during the main event at this year's World Series of Poker. He was the chip leader (I believe) when they started play at the final table, but he finished ninth.

I just played about four hours of no-limit Texas hold'em on the internet in a ring game (not a tournament). I came away from tonight's session believing that the idea I'm about to publish for your thoughts and reactions is absolutely the most important key factor in determining whether you will make money playing in a no-limit Texas hold'em ring game or not.

• If you don't hit something good on the flop, fold if there is any significant action.

That concept seems so simple. But I saw almost all of the players at the table make plays that were not consistent with that idea. People routinely call pot-sized bets and even bigger bets with flush draws on the flop (that's four to the flush, not three, of course). And many of these same players will also call a pot-sized bet again on the turn if they didn't make their flush.

Tonight I concentrated. I played only one table. Prior to starting the session, I articulated my strategy out loud: be patient and wait to catch your opponents making the big mistake; do not get emotionally involved in any pots (if you make a decent sized bet hoping the other players in the pot will fold and one of them raises, then you fold (unless it is fairly likely you have the best hand, although in that case I am hoping that they call). And periodically during the session, I reminded myself of this strategy. I tried to stay alert to the the inevitable boredom. I tried to bet, raise, call, and fold intentionally (this is harder than it should be for me; I think generally it is harder than it sounds).

I wanted to see if that approach (a serious one) would make a difference in my results. And, happily, it did. This weekend I'll try it again.

So, to review - I think in playing a no-limit Texas hold'em ring game, if you don't flop what you think is likely to be the best hand, generally look for a reason to fold. Generally do not play draws (unless your opponents price you in by betting too little, of course).

I would note, also note, of course, that none of this jabbering in this post is different from the ideas expressed in basically any hold'em poker book out there. This concept bullet-pointed above is not an "insight." But it does seem to work (at least it did tonight). However, like so many fairly simple things, it's difficult to stay up on that tightrope.

It's easy and in many ways tempting to try to fly.

It's probably not actually that tempting to tightrope walkers to try to fly. So that's really not a good analogy, is it? The danger to tightrope walkers is much more apparent and significantly less open to disagreement. So never mind. But it is kind of a neat picture, don't you think?