TWO ONLINE BET HOLES

TWO ONLINE BET HOLES
By John Vorhaus

I'd like to call your attention to two common holes in many online players' games. One has to do with betting too much, and the other with betting too little. They're both peculiar to online poker, as opposed to the realworld game, for reasons which may be made clear if you just read on...

A BIG BET HOLE. In realworld poker when you make a sizeable bet or raise, you have to count out the chips and push all those chips, maybe even stacks, into the pot. The visceral act of placing the bet makes you think -- and sometimes makes you think twice -- about whether you really want to be taking so big a risk. Online, though, the act of betting big is the same as that of betting small: You click the mouse. Oh sure, you could argue that big bets require a more vigorous push on the betting slider, but I think you'd be splitting hairs. No, the fact is that making a big bet takes no more effort than, and really feels no different from, making a small bet. This is true whether you're calling, raising or reraising, and it can lead to sudden and unexpected disaster if you don't stay alert to the risk.

Consider: You're holding A-T and you're up against one other opponent -- let's say it's someone you know to be frisky, tricky, capable of raising with anything or nothing at all. There's $20 in the pot and the two of you see a flop of A-6-3. When he checks, you figure you're golden, so you go ahead and click bet pot. Now there's $40 in the pot. Mr. Frisky suddenly wakes up and responds in kind, clicking bet pot right back at you. Oh yeah? you think. What kind of naked steal attempt is that? Thinks he can run me over, does he? Take that! And before you even know you've done it, you hit the bet pot button again, creating a huge pot, a session-changer, or one that will determine your tournament fate.

You won't be happy if it turns out that Mr. Frisky has a better ace than you. Perhaps it would have been best to pause, really pause, and consider whether his raise was a steal attempt or, you know, betting with the best hand. This is the problem with mouse-click betting: It's just too easy to make rash, rushed bets without thinking things through.

Want a piece of advice? Take your hand off the mouse after every bet you make. That way, it will be required of you at least to move your hand back to the mouse before you go madly clicking your money away. If that doesn't work, write yourself a little note that reads take a breath before you bet, and put it in your line of sight. Over time, you may not need such artificial aids, but if you think they're silly or unnecessary, just consider that if they save you from even one bad bet, they will have more than earned their keep. Big bets should be thoughtful bets. The faster you act, the greater your chance to act wrong.

A SMALL BET HOLE. We know how important it is in no limit hold'em to deny our foes proper odds for their draws. If there's $200 in the pot and you bet just $10, you're inviting every Tom, Dick and Susie with an open ended straight draw (or even an inside straight draw) to jump and swim in a pool of your cash. This is a ridiculous example, of course. Less ridiculous, though no less incorrect, examples abound in online poker, and the culprit for this ridiculousness has a name: the bet minimum button.

On virtually every internet poker site, bettors have the option of clicking bet minimum, and so make the smallest allowable bet, one equivalent to the size of the big blind. Some players do this because they're just cowering cowards and don't want to risk a lot of money. Others do it under the shaky reasoning that any bet, no matter how small, will drive out players who whiffed. Mostly, though, it's a matter of dumb convenience. The min bet button is there; let's hit it and move on.

Very occasionally there's a good reason to make a min bet. Sometimes, when you don't want to check and surrender all initiative, it can be used as a blocking bet, one that inspires your foe to just call instead of raise. It may also be a hoover bet, if you have your opponent drawing dead, but know that he'll call if, and only if, you make the price low enough. Generally, though, min bets are incorrect in no limit hold'em for the specific reason that they allow your foes a cheap opportunity to catch the card they need to kill you. Yet players do it all the time.

Not only that, they carry this habit over into realworld cardrooms. Any time you're playing in a live no limit game and you see someone making a lot of small bets into big pots, you can be sure that he was trained on internet poker -- and not too effectively trained at that. It's a tell of a certain sort, and certainly one you don't want to fall prey to. Police your betting practices. Make sure that every bet has a clear strategic purpose, and that the size of the bet is tuned to that purpose. If you're too lazy to move the bet slider or type in a number, you deserve to have your poker rights revoked.

The beauty of no limit poker, as opposed to limit, is you get to decide not just whether to bet, but how much to bet, and setting that number is "a powerful force that can only be used for good... or for evil." So take your time and make the bet you want to make, this time, next time, every time.