SCENARIO 28
Suppose you are in first poker position with introduction:
The blinds are $200-$400 with $25 ante. The pot no limit holdem has $825 in blind and ante gaming money. You have $4,000 in chips.
What's Your Move?
A. Limp
B. Fold
C. Raise to $1,200
D. Move all-in
Analysis
The pot now has some money to fight over. The blinds and antes ($825) amount to 20 percent of your $4,000 stack. In Scenario 1, with only $35 blind money in the middle, the pot amounted to only about 3.5 percent of your $1,000 stack. Now you can see how your chip position improves just by winning principles the blinds and antes when they get higher.
Use option © to try to pick up the pot.
SCENARIO 29
Now suppose you are in first position:
The blinds are $300-$900 with a $50 ante. The pot now has $1,400 from the blinds and antes. You have $3,000 in chips. It's $900 to you.
What's Your Move?
A. Limp
B. Fold
C. Raise to $1,800
D. Move all-in
Analysis
In this situation it is costing you $1,400 for every round you play poker. In two rounds you will be almost broke. You need to improve your chip status. If you make a normal raise of between $1,800 and $2,400, you will be committed to the pot anyway.
Since you aren't going to fold, move all in (D) to try to win the pot now, and to keep your opponents from thinking they can make you fold any time they reraise you.
Big Connected Cards
How to play A-J
Ace-jack is another trouble hand, one that you will be playing sometimes, but very cautiously. You usually cannot call big bets with A-J. If someone raises the pot in front of you, you usually are wise to just fold unless you are in serious chip trouble. An A-J is seven card stud more dangerous than an A-Q because the jack is a lower kicker than the queen.
From front to middle position, you can limp with A-J. From late position, you can make the normal raise of 3-4 times the big blind if No one has come into the pot. Keep in mind how aggressive the players in the blind are. If they are very aggressive poker players, just limp to try to keep from involving too many of your chips in case one of them raises.
Even for very experienced players, A-J is a very tough hand to play. With A-J you are looking for flops like K-Q-10, 5-J-J, an A-A-J.
SCENARIO 30
Suppose you are in the $25 big blind with:
How to play A-J
Tight Ted raises the pot to $100 in early position and everyone folds to you in the big blind.
What's Your Move?
A. Call
B. Reraise to $300
C. Fold
Analysis
You don't want to put much money into the pot with an A-J, especially against a tight player like Ted. You don't want to flop a pair of aces and get into trouble against Ted's Better holdem kicker. Folding © is the correct play extrastuff.