Staying one step ahead.

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 28 July 2008 / Leave a Comment

I was recently watching a snooker tournament where a commentator asked the great player Ronnie O'Sullivan how many shots in advance he thought while break building.

Ronnie replied along the lines that it generally was about two or three, although specific situations could change it, making it more or less. This struck me as a great parallel with poker (and indeed might explain why some snooker players - notably Steve Davis and Jimmy White - have also achieved poker success), and what I want to look at here is how many streets ahead you should be thinking about in hold'em - and why it is important to do so.

The first key point about thinking ahead is the stack sizes of both yourself, and the other players in the hand. If you or your opponent only really have enough chips to see a flop and have about a pot size bet to play with, you only have to think as far ahead as the flop - it's as simple as that. Yet as the number of chips you and your opponents start to be playing with the more complicated life becomes.

Compare the example of one pot size bet being left for the flop with playing 200+ big blinds deep against someone. Here you will most likely have to make complex decisions on every street, as mostly the only time you will be able to get all in when playing this deep is by the river. Here how you play your hand becomes completely different than if you were a short stack.

As an example, imagine you are playing pocket queens in these two different spots. As a short stack, you can simply raise pre flop and basically get it in on any flop. Yet playing 200bbs deep against another player with a similar stack you will have to be much more careful about how you proceed.

Often playing deep stack hold'em requires a keen awareness of 'pot control', of keeping the pot smaller on later streets by making a different play on an earlier one. As you will usually not want to be playing a 400bb pot with just an over pair, playing it hard and fast will often not be quite the right play. In this spot it may be wise to check behind, or call a small bet from your opponent in order to slow the action down and disguise your hand subtly (the hand disguise element will often enable you to gain extra value on the river where your opponent may have folded in other spots).

Try and think about what the later impact of your moves will be when playing hold'em. The deeper you get the harder this gets - those aces you fell in love with pre flop don't look so good when your opponent puts you all in on a 5s6s8c9c9c board after you kept firing pot sized bets into your opponent. Try and think ahead of the other players to maximise your profit.

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