Strategy?

I've spent a lot of time in the past month thinking about my game, and THE game in general. Basically, I've read a lot of books, have subscriptions to Card Player and Bluff, read lots of blogs, and play a fair amount online and live. Despite all of this knowledge (or maybe because of it), I'm going through one of the roughest stretches I've ever experienced in my 5 years or so of playing cards. For the first time I'm experiencing failure after having had an incredible run. Between July and November last year I ran my online bankroll (OBR) from about $200 to about $2000, playing a combination of cash games and tournaments. Since January, I've run my OBR almost completely in the opposite direction and experienced some trouble in live games as well. In particular, I haven't had a winning casino trip yet this year, including a trip north of the border to Niagara Falls. It seems that the big hands just don't go my way (I can remember several particularly brutal runner-runner suckouts and 5 outers that hit to take away $400+ pots). Sure I have $360 of equity from those pots, but equity doesn't fill the bankroll.

So, that's a long introduction to this post, where I'm starting to think about rebuilding my game from the ground up. As with anything else, you need a foundation when rebuilding, so I'm looking for a foundation. An overarching theme to my play. A principle that will guide my decisions and keep me from being too big of a donkey. As I've thought about this, it seems so simple. In poker you make money in one of the following ways:

1. You put money into the pot when you have the best hand AND a hand worse than yours calls.

Even if you offer them great odds to call, you still make money in the long run. If you are an 80-20 favorite, you have 80% equity in any additional dollar that you put in the pot, plus the 80% equity in the pot itself, right? Obviously if you are playing optimally, you will offer the villain the wrong odds to draw to his 20%. But even if you offer the right odds for him to draw, you still retain that 80% equity because you're going to win 80% of the time. Thus, putting money in the pot when a hand worse than yours will call is one way to make money playing poker.

2. You call when you have the right odds to do so.

If you have an 80% chance of winning a hand and the pot is $100, but you only bet $10, and I only have to call $10, then I make money. It's not that you are losing money, you still have 80% equity in any money that goes in to the pot. But I make money by calling because I will win $100 one out of 5 times and it only costs me $10 to take that shot. Over the long term, I'll win enough to offset all the times that I lose and then some. So I make money over the long run by calling when the odds are appropriate to do so.

3. Getting a better hand to fold.

This is where bluffing comes in. By getting a hand better than yours to fold, you win money because your opponent is forfeiting their equity in the pot. This is probably the most profitable move in poker because you are essentially winning when you aren't supposed to. Of course, it is also the most dangerous move, because if you get caught, you are usually in really bad shape.

4. Folding when you get the wrong odds to continue and you can't make someone with a better hand fold.

Basically, any time you are in a negative expected value situation, you should fold. Whenever you can't bluff your opponent AND they have a better hand than you, you should fold. You win money in this way by limiting your losses. Instead of losing $100 on a hand, you might lose $10. That $90 that you could have lost, but didn't, is chips that are still in your stack that you don't have to replace. That's as good as a win.

So what does all of this mean for my strategy. Well, it boils down to the actions available to you at the table.

Bet or raise - I should be doing this if I am either ahead and think that a worse hand will call or behind and think that a better hand will fold.

Check - I should be doing this if the reasons for betting or raising don't exist, but nobody has forced me to call or fold yet.

Call - I should be doing this if I am behind, but getting the right odds to draw.

Fold - I should be doing this if I am behind and getting the wrong odds to draw with no prospect of making a better hand fold to a raise.

It's all pretty simple, right? Well, one of my leaks right now is that I make bets with hands where it is unlikely that a better hand will fold or a weaker hand will call. For example, on a limped K44 rainbow flop, if I have K6, I frequently bet (right now). But what weaker hands to I expect to call? K5, K3 and K2 and some middle pocket pairs are the only weaker hands that might call. Larger pocket pairs probably raised pre-flop and aren't out there. So basically, my bet allows everyone to play optimally against me. The better hands most likely call because in a limped pot someone flopping top pair is probably not giving up that easily, meaning KQ through K7 are calling. But the weaker hands, are probably folding. It's not a perfect example, but it's a situation where checking is probably superior to betting.

So the foundation of my cash game has been laid out. These are the guiding principles that will hopefully find me on my way to cash game glory online, and when I hit up Vegas in about a month.