JV'S KILLER POKER:
ABSOLUT

BY: John Vorhaus

You no doubt know by now that little cards are "little poison" in hold 'em, but when you really start to treat them that way, an interesting phenomenon takes place. With a righteous awareness of little poison, you start to view with contempt every single 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7 you see. You begin to consider fully half the deck (well, not fully... 24/52 to be exact, or 48% of the deck) to be unworthy of your admiration or even consideration.

You start to hate those cards.

Good! You've eliminated the bad half of the deck. Suddenly, inevitably, the quality of your starting hands - let's call it the purity of your starting hands - goes way up. The Swedes have a word for this pure purity: absolut. It doesn't mean exactly the same as our absolute. The Swedish absolut implies a degree of maximum, total, unblemished perfection. So then let's imagine that you're playing an absolut deck, one containing only A, K, Q, J, T, 9 and 8, while your foes are still playing that regular deck, the one contaminated by all those little poisons. Can you see how this single difference will give you a measurable edge over time? They're playing crap; you aren't. What could be simpler than that?

Perhaps you think playing the absolut deck will make you too tight a player. That's fine - you can stand to play tighter. I'm not talking about cutting back on your raises; to the contrary, I'm talking about a way to ensure that your raises always have at least a little muscle behind them.

And a way to ensure that your calls stop being ridiculous.

So how does playing an absolut deck actually change your play? What sort of hands will you no longer muck about with?

Any two unpaired littles, for starters. And this includes suited cards and connected cards and those hopeless suited connectors that bring you so much grief. Will you miss the stupid connectors? Not at all. Remember, in the real world you're just as likely to pick up suited K-Q as suited 6-5. If you're playing an absolut deck, you're just a lot less likely to get pounded by the bad hand.

Now then, if littles are poison, they are also contagious poison. They contaminate the high cards they come in contact with. K-3? The three makes the king as toxic as an EPA superfund site. Treat the hand like the poison it is, and you will save so much money. 9-6 same way. And please don't cry "suited!" Suited gives you an extra few percent of value, but not enough to make bad cards good.

Needless to say, playing the absolut deck will minimize your legitimate beats. Why would you want to play Q-4 anyhow? So you can flop two pair and get snapped off by a real two pair? Let your perception of poison be your guide. If it's high and low, it's got to go.

So what about little pairs? Can you play them? Is a poison seven neutralized by another seven? Maybe... if you can limp in for a single bet and flop a set, then maybe... But how much trouble are you looking for? I'm assuming that discipline is an ongoing challenge for you. Let yourself screw around with little pairs and soon you'll go back to screwing around with 8-7 suited, and once you make that hand playable, can 8-5 suited be far behind? Be strong. Just say no to littles - even to little pairs.

Which leaves only the combination of ace-little for our contemplation. Is an ace an antidote to little poison? How about a suited ace? Again... maybe. If you're among a herd of promiscuous callers in the sort of game where any flopped ace will hold up, then... maybe. But quality players will kill you with kickers. Why invite that punishment? Just say no to ace-little too.

I know you're in love with A-4 suited. Back in 2003, you held A-4 suited and flopped a straight flush, and you've loved that hand ever since. But that was then. This is now. Be honest with yourself. If discipline is a problem, it's up to you to find a solution. Consider the absolut deck to be your remedial retraining.

You know, overweight people frequently go hunting for the perfect diet. They try low fat, then low carbs. They limit sugars. Then they limit starch. They eat strange, over-priced "nutrition" bars and drink milkshakes that taste like nothing so much as blended chalk. Nothing seems to work. Why? Because they already know what not to eat - they just can't follow through.

So think of this as your absolut hold 'em diet. It's one you may find you can stick to. Like any diet, of course, there are times you can go off it and not pay too high a price. Often, though, the point of the diet is not to lose weight, but to demonstrate to yourself your strength of will and self-control. Same with the absolute deck. It's not intended to be the cure-all to your hold 'em woes. But maybe it will plug some holes in your game.

Some little ones at least.

(John Vorhaus is author of the KILLER POKER series and News Ambassador for UltimateBet.com.)