A Good Play

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

It's fun to watch the big tournaments and to witness some incredible move that one guy makes to win a huge pot. One celeb has 6-2 off suit and pushes all in to take a stab at a huge pot of $300,000. Everyone folds and the pot is won with this massive bluff. That's drama. That's action. It's also a world away from what most of us face on a regular basis.

We're faced with more mundane decisions, especially in the limit games that many of us play regularly. There's no shoving of mountains of chips. There's no serious and dramatic stare down as we desperately look from some hint of a glimmer of a tell. No. For us, the decisions, the plays, the action and the moves are much more commonplace.

Here's a typical situation. I face it at least a couple of times an hour when I play on line in the $5/10 game on Party.

I'm dealt (ThAc)Jc. The bring-in 2d is to my left. I see after me the 6h the 9c, Ts, 4h, 4d, and the Kc. I've folded about eight hands in a row. I have little intelligence on my opponents except none seem especially loose or wild or crazy. If anything the game is slightly tight - with few showdowns and no more than three and usually two players generally taking the hand to Fourth Street

Here's the question that a good stud player often asks himself in a game like this. "Do I attempt a steal"? I'm not the highest upcard and I'm not in late position. Still, there are many things recommending a steal attempt. I have an Ace in the hole, meaning that even if I don't win the steal I may improve to what is likely to be the best hand on the next card by hitting an Ace, even if my opponent with the higher upcard, the King, has a pair of Kings. My Jack and my Ace are live. Both are points in favor of a steal attempt. No one has called the bring-in before my bet. That's true because I'm the first to act so you might tend to discount it as a point in my favor. But, in a significant way, I like being early against these relatively good tight players. Though it's true that I have to convince all of my opponents that I have the hand I'm representing, and that none of them have yet folded, by raising in early position I am telling them that my hand really is legitimate. This makes it more likely that they will fold if they don't have the hand that I am representing beaten. I can also safely assume that if they reraise me, something that is done in this level of competition, that they really do have a very strong hand and I should give up on the bluff right and fold.

But I have a couple of reasons not to raise. First of all, there is a King after me. I don't know enough about him to rule out a re-raise bluff. So he might try to manipulate me if he suspects that I'm bluffing. It would be better if I had the highest up card so no one could make that kind of a move on me. It would also be better if I had some more intelligence on the field - knowing something about their propensity to fold with a raise like this from early position. I'd also prefer it if all of my cards were fully live - if there were no Ts out there either. But you can't have everything.

As it turned out, without any fanfare or drama, I raised. Everyone folded up until the bring-in. The bring-in paused. I'm never sure what a long pause means these days. I'd like to think that it means something like indecision, but there's no way to know that it's not just a connection problem or a delay as my opponent switches form another game he might be playing. But the pause was a good sign that he was not going to fold automatically.

As it turned out he called. I hit an Ace on the next card. He hit an off-suit 6. There was no question about my move and I bet. He immediately folded.

My routine semi-bluff worked. I won the pot and maybe a few extra dollars because of my Third Street aggression. I made a good move. No lights, no camera, no huge pile of chips to be sure. But it was a good play nevertheless. Over the course of the night it's the good plays, not the spectacular ones, that win the good player his profit.

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