7 Easy Steps to No-Limit Hold’em Success — Step 3: Don’t Overcommit in Small Pots
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The Mission: Get you winning in your local $1-$2 no-limit game with 7 easy steps. Check out Step 1: Play Tight and Step 2: Don’t Play Out of Position if you haven’t already.
Big Pots Versus Small Pots
No-limit decisions revolve around pot size. More to the point, they revolve around the balance of risk versus reward. How much risk you should take depends on what the reward is. For instance, you’d probably never run across a major highway to pick up a dollar bill lying on the other side. But you just might decide to chance it if it was a brick of hundreds. You’re naturally willing to take bigger risks for bigger rewards.
No-limit is the same way. What’s in the pot and your opponents’ stacks is your potential reward, and what’s in your stack is what’s at risk. When the pot is tiny compared to what’s in the remaining stacks, like on the flop after two or three layers limp in, that’s a small pot. When the pot is relatively large compared to what’s in the remaining stacks, like on the river after there’s already been a lot of betting, that’s a big pot.
Big Hands Deserve Big Pots and Small Hands Deserve Small Pots
Every pot starts small. Most of them stay that way. Every once in a while, a hand escalates into a huge all-in affair between two or more players. The point in a hand where small pots become big ones (or don’t become big ones) is a critical one in no-limit. Playing well at these critical moments will put you well on your way to being a solid winner.
There’s one guiding principle: Big hands deserve big pots, and small hands deserve small ones. If you have a super-strong hand like a set, then you want to get all the money in. If you have a weak or vulnerable hand, then you want to avoid a big confrontation. It sounds simple, but many no-limit players go wrong here again and again. Step 3 is about avoiding one of the most common problems, overcommitting in small pots.
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Tags: 1-2-no-limit, big-pots, cash-games, no-limit-holdem, playing-in-position, pocket-pairs, poker, Poker Made Simple, pot-control, risk-versus-reward, small-pots, top-pair
Ed,
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Daniel.