Playing High Connecting
Cards
In poker, we wish to maximize
our opportunity by building big pots with big
hands. We normally start out doing so by way of
being selective in our starting hands. When we
are selective in our starting hands, we
generally have the best hands and play them
aggressively.
While we condone playing
quality hands in a tight aggressive fashion,
there are times in which superior hand
selection, as well as aggression is not the best
way to extract money from our opposition when
playing Texas Holdem cash games. When playing
tight aggressive poker, we play manipulatively,
using our aggression to cause players to fold
incorrectly or to pay us off. A change of pace
to playing hands passively is sometimes in order
to add deception to our game.
When we hold hands such as
higher connecting cards, we are often correct
playing these hands passively. Hands such as
Queen Jack are not usually appropriate for early
position play; however, this hand can be a
monster after the flop when playing from late
position, especially against an aggressive
player. Moreover, we sometimes want to play high
connecting cards less aggressively than normal
when we have successfully isolated a new or bad
player, as he will continue betting into us when
we have made our hand.
Finally, we may wish to play
a hand passively when we are drawing and wish to
see the next card cheaply. However, it should be
noted that playing aggressively, passively,
tightly or loosely are simply postures or
playing styles. These styles can and should
change often - sometimes even mid-hand.
Passive Play of High
Connecting Cards
Situation:
$1-2 NL Texas
Holdem. The players are aggressive in nature,
often raising before the flop from position in a
bullying manner. The players in the blinds love
to come out firing in defense of their blinds.
In fact, the small blind seems to overplay his
hands out of position virtually nonstop. He was
just stacked on the hand prior, having his
pocket aces cracked by a greasy two pair.
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Preflop Action:
Action
folds around to us, we limp holding Jack-Ten of
hearts in the cutoff position. The button limps
behind us. The small blind puts in a raise to
$8, which we call. The button folds and we are
heads up with the tilting small blind. The small
blind has $155 in chips, while we hold $220.
The flop comes Jack of
Spades, Ten of Spades, Two of Hearts.
The small blind leads out,
over betting the pot with a $22 bet. This player
is likely on tilt, as we had noted. We do not
wish to give him reason to think we are too
strong and risk scaring him away, so we call
with our two-paired hand.
The turn brings a three of
hearts, giving us top two pair and a flush draw.
Again, showing tilt, the opposition bets out
$52, leaving $71 behind. While we could raise
here, we believe the opposing player is simply
blowing off steam, trying to knock us off the
hand - especially considering $71 is not enough
to knock us off on the river.
The board is quite
draw-heavy. We are on the flush draw, and have
two pair, so it is unlikely he is drawing to
hearts. History suggests he does not have
spades, as he would have played a bit more
passively. Our guess is that the opposing player
is either totally bluffing while on tilt or has
an over pair, such as queens or kings, maybe
even aces back to back. Additionally, Ace-Queen
through Ace Jack are possible holdings for this
player.
While we could build a case
to flat call, the possibility that the player is
scared of a made flush is too great. Instead, we
break from the original plan of letting him bet
out and we raise all-in. The player calls. The
river falls - delivering an eight of clubs. The
small blind shows pocket Queens, which falls
victim to our two pair. We rake in the pot
valued at $310 and change.
When playing this hand
through, we allowed the tilting player to bet
into us until it no longer made sense to do so.
Once the board and chip counts justified, we
raised all-in, as deviating from our passive
posture gave us the best chance of getting all
his money in the center of the pot. Clearly, we
did not have the best hand before the flop, but
with a player on tilt, they are often ready,
willing and able to hand over money willingly
post-flop.
