Dear reader, if you expect me to tell you how to play premium cards, then your expectations have been wrongly misplaced. For starters, nobody can, in a generic way, tell you how to do that because every scenario is different. In poker, there’s an infinity of factors that influence the outcome of the game, therefore every hand is played  differently. Secondly, I’m the least appropriate person to reveal the secret.

Then, you may ask, what is the point of this article. Allow me to enlighten you: it serves the same purpose as all the other articles I publish; to generate topics for discussion, to set our brain into motion, and to create scenarios where we can apply the proposed topic in a given situation.

It is no secret that, in the past (let’s say ten years ago, which, in terms of poker, is like referring to the Paleolithic Age), most players would have a tight style of playing the game and wait for big hands (and to have a position) to get in the game (something like this:  o +, o    in suit o +). The idea behind that was to leverage as much as possible the odds for success with thos combinations and to get as much value as possible.

Never the less, time, the teachings of great players and study, led to understanding that in the early stages of a tournament, the significant amount of implicit odds make it convenient to play speculative hands, whenever the value of the bets is to our advantage. Obviously, this is verified by the size in stacks  bis a bis forced bets. Some, even, go into the game with any barely decent hand, and we can’t tag them as insane.

This trend (not a fashion but a mathematical and strategic truth) is becoming more and more usual, and we might say that it’s even necessary or essential to get better results. If flopping doesn’t help, then we fold and the premium hands will take few chips; however, is we connect a flopped game, or a really good draw or a double pair, is very likely we might end up keeping some ace or king loving player’s  whole stack.

Hands like J J or higher, come along, all  together, less than 4% of the times; and those who only go in when they do, knowing they won’t come along very often, try to win as much as possible and are willing to go all in.

In the early stages of a MTT, it is common to see those in love with premium or super premium cards end up with a terrible bad beat, just to go tell their friends who are tired of listening to same stories over and over again. Actually, most times it’s not about a bad beat; it’s about a poor strategic action, especially when you’re «playing your cards slow».

It’s also become more noticeable the number of players cut in the early stages of a tournament for this same reason. It’s not easy to slowplay A A   or K K  , as it can lead us to give away cards for free or «cheap», and in those cases, monster games materialize and end them. This is especially dangerous when stacks are big, as is the case in early stages. And as they say, «ambition is the undoing of men».

Sometimes, it may also be productive to overbet or to directly go all in preflop. Speculative hands won’t pay, but some other premium combinations will. And with all the more reason is you’re doing it before seeing the board, because it’s a type of blind play (and there are still some out there in love with danger and chance) and rivals are likely to think that nobody would risk it with the higher pair. Metagame, as they call it.

This is just further proof of experience connected to the predominant strategy in use as of late and developed by good players: even with speculative hands, it seems advisable to place small bets or raise, and not just call to make it hard for others to read the game.

Could this be the reason why we are amazed to see the hands that great players show all the while dragging a mountain of chips from the center of the table?

By José “el Profe” Litvak 

If you found this topic interesting and you want to keep learning about poker, we invite you to check out the Codigo Poker Online Store. You will find a wide variety of products, among them, educational texts. Click on the following banner and you’ll be one step closer to learning more about our beloved discipline.