Beyond Rigid Play

It's helpful to come up with a set of starting hand guidelines for the first betting round of whatever poker variant you're playing. A good set of starting hand guidelines will prevent you from:

1. Getting chips in immediately as a heavy underdog.

2. Becoming entangled in later betting rounds in situations that range from being perilous to outright disastrous.

A perfect set of starting hand guidelines should be part of a strategy that's non-exploitable, regardless of how your opponents play. Deducing non-exploitable strategies for many poker variants is extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible. But assume that you find a non-exploitable strategy for your poker variant of choice. If you sit down at a table with a group of players who are all playing this equilibrium strategy, in the end, everyone at the table will lose money because of the rake. Even if they aren't playing the equilibrium strategy, you can still lose money if your edge over them doesn't beat the rake. This is why you can never ignore table selection.

Of course, if I knew the equilibrium strategy for a particular poker variant, it would be the strategy I would use when joining a table of unknown players. But although unbeatable, equilibrium strategies might not make the most money. It's not enough to play an equilibrium strategy against exploitable foes. To optimize your profits, you need play a strategy that maximally exploits the strategy employed by your opponents.

In playing strategies that maximally exploit your opponents, you leave the door open for your opponents to make adjustments that can, in turn, exploit you. But because it's still possible to lose even when playing the equilibrium strategy, poker games featuring rake create an environment where finding exploitable players and exploiting them maximally is pretty much mandatory.

You won't do too much of a disservice to your game by thinking of starting hand guidelines as part of a strategy that works best against a default opponent instead of being part of a non-exploitable strategy. To figure out how to play against a default opponent, just think of the average of how all opponents you've ever played against have played.

Defining the default opponent as well as possible is important if you're to be profitable, but it's not enough in the end. To make the jump from barely breaking even to winning, you need to account for how your opponents play. After sitting at a table for just two or three orbits, you have information that's probably sufficient to:

1. Allow you to deviate profitably from default play

2. Motivate you to change tables

Here's an example of how I deviate from my default play. When I'm playing 6-max no-limit hold 'em online, one of my default lines of play is to open for a raise to three big bets from the button or the cutoff with AA-22, AK-A2, KQ-K8, QJ-Q9, JTs-43s, J9s-53s. But if the person to my left sees at least 40 percent of flops and calls pre-flop raises with about the same frequency, then I put the brakes on from the cutoff because I'm not looking to play hands like 5-3 suited in lots of two- or three-handed pots where another player has position on me.

But if the button and the blinds all see less than 20 percent of flops, I'll expand my raising distribution and raise to 2.5 big bets instead of three big bets since there's no need to risk more than that when stealing the blinds against nitty foes.

If you're not making these kinds of adjustments, you're not doing what's needed to beat the games you're playing in. To be a top player, you need to hone the default profiles you ascribe to your opponents, and have the discipline to avoid playing on autopilot.

Rigid objects break, and you don't want to be broke. Find your opponents' weaknesses and make the adjustments necessary to exploit them maximally-while continually guarding against foes making adjustments in response to the adjustments you've made. And if there's nothing to be exploited, then say no to your ego; just get up and move on.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker by the Numbers and Killer Poker Shorthanded (with John Vorhaus). Visit him online at www.killerev.com, and check out his weekly show, Killer Poker Analysis, on Rounder's Radio (www.roundersradio.com) Fridays from 5:00PM to 6:00PM Pacific Time.