So in addition to deciding to watch some training videos, I also decided to re-read one of the premier books in the game, Harrington on Hold ‘em, Vol. 1
As I go through it, I thought I’d make some notes for each chapter, so I can remind myself of the fundamentals, and try to fix some of my leaks. I figured if the notes were good enough for me, maybe others would enjoy them, and they could make for some interesting discussion points. So as I read through, please enjoy my notes.
In the first chapter Harrington covers a little bit about what information is important in the game of no-limit hold ‘em. It sounds trivial, and a lot of experienced players might gloss over this section, but the information is not trivial and is often forgotten by experienced players.
To summarize, Harrington states that factors that all players should consider during a hand include:
1) The likelihood that your hand can improve. Harrington states that this is purely a math exercise, and in my opinion, most experienced players have a pretty good grasp on this situation on most hands. For instance, if you flop an open-ended straight flush draw, most players can tell you that there are 9 cards to complete your flush, and 6 more cards to complete your straight, making 15 outs. With 5 cards seen out of a 52-card deck, your odds of missing both draws are (32/47 X 31/46) or 46%, which means you have a chance to make a straight or a flush 54% of the time.
2) An estimate of what your opponent holds. Players talk all the time about making reads on opponents. There are a lot of factors involved, but familiarity with your opponent is key. If you know what cards he has in his range of hands in a particular situation, you can better guesstimate what he holds. I.e. if your opponent called a big raise cold in mid-position and the last three times he went to show-down under the same circumstances, he showed AA, KK, and JJ, you have to consider that he is holding Jacks or better in the pocket this time too.
3) The likelihood that your opponent will improve his hand. Most people focus on their own draws, and do not consider that their opponent can improve their hand too. To take the example we are using further, imagine that we are looking at a flop of Ac, 9s, Ts and we are holding QJs, and have put our opponent on AA, based on his narrow range. Sure, we have to figure that we are ahead of him if we catch the 3s, or Kc on the turn to fill our straight or flush, but keep in mind that he can still catch a card to beat our hand on the river (that is if the card we catch doesn’t improve his hand as well). If we put him on AA, we have to consider that one is likely the Ace of spades, since he holds two aces, and we know one isn’t a club. That means we now have to duck any spade on the river, and any card that pairs the board. To illustrate how our opponents holdings change our odds, consider that if he holds AsAd, we are only around 40% to win the pot, where if he holds 7h7c, we are better than 70% to win the pot, since most of his draws to beat our hands if we improve include runner-runner, and now even if we hit a pair, it will beat him (adding 6 more outs).
4) The money being offered by the pot. If there is already $100k in the pot, and its only $2k more to call, it doesn’t matter if our opponent is the favorite. It only matters that he is not better than a 98% favorite. That means if we are on the turn, and positive that 45 of 46 cards we haven’t seen will not improve our hand, that a call is still technically correct with our one-outter.
Harrington also talks about dominating factors in a hand, which make hands much easier to play, such as flopping such a big hand, that we don’t give our opponents much credit to catch us. (i.e.
1) Flopping AKK with AK in our hands. If our opponent has AA, we are all but dead, but for the most part, we are just thinking about how to extract value)
2) Holding a hand so weak that you are sure it will lose in a showdown. I.e. if you get 7d2d in the blind, and the flop comes QsJsTs, you are probably looking to abandon the hand at the first demonstration of strength from your opponent, since the likelihood of making a strong hand is so small for you. (Even though 7 high might be technically the strongest hand at this point, without knowing what our opponent holds for sure).
3) Pot odds so big that a hand can hold anything. A good example of this, is being in the Big Blind for $100, when our opponent pushes all in for $105, and we are facing him heads up. Even 7d2c is getting proper pot-odds against AdAc in this situation, since there is an 11 percent chance of winning at showdown. (I’m amazed how many times I have seen people make this laydown).
Harrington discusses how important it is based on the factors above to control the pot-odds to make sure that our decisions are mathematically correct if we are drawing, or that they are mathematically incorrect if we are offering our opponents the opportunity to draw out if we figure we are ahead. He notes that even though we may make money with a play that is mathematically incorrect, that over time, this leak will hurt our results.
Harrington then gleans on how even a game of limited information such as no-limit hold ‘em offers clues as to our opponents’ holdings. Most people try to derive our opponents holdings based on their bets, calls and raises, in correlation to what they have shown us in the past with similar behavior, as well as mannerisms of their play (speed of action, and other visual and verbal tells if you are playing in a live game, as opposed to online).
That is about half of chapter one, which is all I had time to read today. More to come
Tags: Dan Harrington, Harrington on Hold Em, individual hand play, online poker, Pot odds, World Series, WSOP