Mad Man Poker

If you don’t consider every suit for itself, you can pick up 169 different combinations in Texas Hold’Em.

At least 20 to 30 of them are complete crap.

A good 50 more are doubtful to say the least.

Around 20 more are only playable in very specific situations and to be really honest, only a mere 10 to 15 can be considered absolute monsters.

Today’s topic: Fold’Em

A

K

Q

J

10

9

8

7

6

A

K

Q

J

10

9

8

7

6

Ks

Ko

Qs

Qo

Js

Jo

10s

10o

9s

9o

8s

8o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

Qs

Qo

Js

Jo

10s

10o

9s

9o

8s

8o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

Js

Jo

10s

10o

9s

9o

8s

8o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

10s

10o

9s

9o

8s

8o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

9s

9o

8s

8o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

8s

8o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

7s

7o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

6s

6o

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

5

4

3

2

5s

5o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

5

4

3

2

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

4s

4o

3s

3o

2s

2o

3s

3o

2s

2o

3s

3o

2s

2o

2s

2o

2s

2o

Big table to enlist a humble view on the 169 starting hands. The grey boxes always give the high card, where the column itself displays the kicker, with “s” for suited and “o” of off suit.

Do I advise you to use this table? No I don’t, I merely want to show you one that is a bit off from what you usually find on the internet. I do advise you to start on your own one. Enlist every hand in a way you find comfortable and think about every hand separately in every situation. Then give it its place in your pre-flop game.

This is my original one, I made when I just started playing and believe me, I hardly recognize my own style anymore.

But how do you start?

First, take a piece of paper and write down all possibilities for types of hands you are willing to play. These are the only ones you should mark in your grid anyway, so you avoid including hands you afterwards can not explain how to play.

I started out with my monsters: the hands you see here in red. You see: my full-game requirements for pocket pairs are a bit stricter than that of for example, Phil Hellmuth, who considers every pair down to the 7’s as one of his top 10 hands. I on the other hand considered AK and AQ as monsters, be they suited or not.

Secondly, I sorted out the high potential hands. The pocket pairs from 9’s down to 4’s, hands like KQ or KJ and the “strong aces”. Mind you, like I already said this is an example list, the assessment that KJos should be considered a highly potential hand is doubtful to say the least, counting all suited aces down to A7 is plain wrong.

Third, in this list, I went for “late calling hands” or “late small opening” hands, herein counting all lower suited connectors. Again, older me thinks younger me is an idiot for including hands like A5os or 43s in this category, but again, you get the point.

Last, in blue, I colored in the more risky connectors and possible stronger steals. Again wrong, but by now you already realise that this table is here just because it’s wrong and can be safely abandoned by yours truly. After all, I started out by stating that you should do this for yourself and it is hardly my intention to do your work for you or influence you in any way.

These categories should definitely be in your arsenal. But then you should think about the rest. In my recent grid, I now also have a purple category, indicating hands I like to flat out steal with or try to hit cheap flops. A sort of hands I needed to sort out for myself because of my style.

Should you ever be so lucky as to watch the grid for a player like Michiel Maes, you’ll see that this category simply lacks or is considerably smaller (I have 29 hands like this).

Your own “extra” categories should off course suit you best for your own tendencies and style.

Eventually (and then I’m talking about the up-to-date grid I’m not willing to show) I end up with 65 hands I am under no normal circumstances willing to play. For them to enter my board I have to have extremely promising odds, or plain simply never been pushed out my Big Blind.

Don’t be afraid to alter your own grid. I did and did it for the better.
I, first of all included a few hand possibilities into my pre-flop game, but also abandoned some. I will, for example, nowadays rather play Q8 off suit than I would A2 off suit. The first one maybe doesn’t have the ultimate ace, but at least gives me 2 cards to draw to and a live pot when I do hit it hard. With a hand like A2 you have to realise that hitting your deuce is redundant, simply because it is almost always unplayable and hitting your ace will result in either winning a small pot or loosing a big one to hands like AK, AQ, … .

Furthermore you should realise that aggression is not your birthright and every one of your opponents is capable of raising or even reraising behind you. Therefore, definitely in early position, live by one simple tantra: “If it is not worth raising, It is never worth playing”.

Eventually counting playable hands, position, previous action and even table image you should be folding about 60% to 70% of your hands. These numbers are slightly higher than the numbers you’re advised by more “standard” guides.

Therefore you should temper you’re pre-flop action a bit in terms of massive bets. Every cheap flop you can see with a high mediocre hand can lead to a big pot afterwards, but at least when you didn’t hit it, you can now quite cheaply throw your garbage away. Also entering more pots will cost you more than entering fewer pots would. Sounds extremely logical, but is often forgotten by more aggressive players. They see the standard raises in the arsenal of the tighter imaged players and tend to adapt to those. Don’t! I rarely go over a preflop raise of 4 times the big blind, and when I do, it’s mostly because I’m reraising someone, want to pick up the pot at this point really badly or plain simply have a monster in my hand and don’t expect people to pick up on my higher raise.

Let’s get really practical right now. I already told you to define what monsters are to you, what are good hands, and so on.

Once facing a pre-flop raise, consider the following rule of thumb:

When you are in early position: You won’t face a lot of these situations, being that the initial raiser should then be in an even earlier position. Should you be confronted with this, holding one of your monsters, you can call, or with AA and KK even reraise. All the rest goes in the muck.

In middle position: The early raiser is just as dangerous as he was a minute ago and once again you need a good hand to be even able to call him. Here on the other hand, you may surf along on a larger stack with a bit more questionable holdings, given that the raise isn’t too steep. The middle position player is still early enough to be considered “not making a play here” most of the time, but late enough so that the few players behind you might be willing to lay it down. Be prepared to follow up on your surf strategy though. Anyone in late position now is getting pretty nice odds to call as well, and the blinds are almost priced in as we are.

In late position: you can now get a bit looser. You’re in position against most of the table and unless you’re raised by a very tight early position player, I’d consider reraising, rather than calling with your monsters and the top part of your “good hands”, that way at least you have some idea where you’re at against the raiser and you make odds harder on the blinds who now also have someone deciding behind them.

In the blinds: when getting odds, don’t be afraid, but only reraise with your monsters. Do you reraise, then really raise the bar for the initial raiser. Put him on a decision, you’re out of position for the rest of the pot otherwise.

When you would be the first raise of the pot, bear these in mind:

In early position: Make sure your raise is substantial. The fact that you are in early position means a lot of hands could be behind you. Any nut caller leaving 2 or 3 decisions behind him is giving the rest odds. Make sure that if you do want to play out of position, that you do it with a strong hand and a strong signal that this is your pot.

In middle position: You’re now stuck between a rock and a hard place. The early ones laid it down, which is good, off course, but you still need to think about the late positions and the blinds. Again, make sure people have to think about your raise. A big starter raise usually also stops any more raising. This is a good thing with a lot of people behind you, since you filter out the “making a play” hands.

In late position: Now it gets really fun. As long as your hand has some potential (2 high cards, suited connectors, …) it’s worth raising. Also, a lot combinations are worth the shot to pick up the pot right here. This will mean that your monsters get drowned in the sea of raises and that sometimes you will see everybody in standard folding mode because “the idiot is popping it up again”, but that gets well compensated by the fact that people will often mistake your raise for a steal attempt and run head first into your hand.

In the blinds: raising is for monsters or against late position raisers. Every pot you can pick up right here is one more you don’t play out of position.

All the rest: FOLD !!!

If you get confused, come see us, we’ll fold you up, real nice.

The Mad Man