Q&A #55: Aggression in Shorthanded and Heads-Up Pots (aka Oops, I Folded Again)
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One of the first things we learn to do as we get better at poker is to fold. “If you don’t have a good hand, fold.” “You can’t be a winner if you don’t know how to fold a winner.” All true. The first thing you should learn is how to fold.
But when you start playing shorthanded and heads-up limit hold ‘em, especially against aggressive players, that folding training can come back to bite you. Most players I know of go through a stage where they fold too much. For many (I include me), that stage never really ends. When you have a hand you’re not sure about, the instinct is to find where to fold.
The problem, of course, is that a bad fold in a big pot is a lot more expensive than a bad call. Beating someone who folds significantly too much is almost trivial. So you have to learn to walk a line. You don’t want to be a calling station, but you really don’t want to be a folder either. If you have been successful in loose full ring games, and you are now looking to conquer aggressive shorthanded games, you probably need to learn how to call again. It can be a little weird.
Wouter asks,
I am playing on WPEX and get the feeling people are taking shots at me by 3betting/putting more bets in preflop and c/ring the turn, I am talking about limit 6max.
I am not a type of person who will bluff 3bet the turn or tries to many funcy stuff. Mostly when I get 3betted and totally miss the flop I release my hand same goes for the turn c/r. Surely I can read boards good and know when to call down Ahigh in a blind battle or headsup when there was preflop one raise, but I found it harder when multiple bets went in before the flop. Also when lets say the button raises you reraise in the SB with a ok hand like KQ/QJ/Ax etc and he caps behind now on the flop I have no idea what to do when I hit TP or anything else because I immetiatly assume villian has a great hand. But after a sessions of folding allot of flops/turns I have the feeling that this isn’t right, and am not confertable never having a showdown that brings me to the next topic as because I hardly b/f any river.
These are some serious leaks in my game and I hope you have some suggestions for them.
While you don’t have to “try too much fancy stuff,” it does sound like you might be getting pushed around a bit.
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Tags: Adjusting Your Play, aggression, limit-holdem, shorthanded
on a jack-high flop with two hearts. Your A outs, your T outs, and your backdoor heart outs might be good… or you might have the best hand with ace-high.
very nice sumup of these games.
the other advice I would give would be to drop down a few levels and try to become competent at headsup play.
headsup play mimics many of the blind steal situations that you’ll see in the aggressive wpex shorthanded limit games, and will do a good job of illustrating which hands can showdown in which situations. It’ll also teach handreading and movemaking vs people with wide ranges and low showdown standards.