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 he Guardian Poker Column |
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| Victoria
Coren |
| Friday December 9, 2005
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How to play poker
(How to play has been running from issue 16) |
Last week, we paused briefly to note the onset of
Christmas and acknowledge the spirit of giving. Let's forget that nonsense now,
and get straight back to the important business of taking other people's
money.
Before we were so festively interrupted, we discussed how to play
a pair of kings, and what to do when an ace appears on the flop. An ace, in
this situation, would be called "an overcard": a card that is higher than the
pair in your hand. The same complication arises when you have any pair and an
"overcard" appears on the flop. If another player has one similar card in his
hand, he has overtaken you. (And when a player has "hit the flop" to improve
his holding, he is usually reluctant to fold.) So the first simple motto is:
when you have a pair, beware overcards. Don't be so dazzled by your own hand
that you forget to consider what other people might have. |
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The lower your pair, of course, the greater
the risk of overcards appearing. With a pair of queens, there are eight bigger
cards you do not want to see on the flop. With a pair of jacks there are 12,
and so on. The second simple lesson is: from jacks downwards, it is more likely
that there will be an overcard on the flop than that there will not be one.
Your opponents may not actually have hit the overcard, but your hand becomes
more difficult to play.
So here is a basic guide to pairs that are not
aces or kings. With QQ, JJ or TT, you are hoping for a flop with no overcards.
With all other pairs, especially against more than one opponent, you really
want (or need) to hit three of a kind. If you raise with a pair and see
overcards on the flop, you can still bet out - but to all intents and purposes,
even though your hand is reasonable, you are now bluffing. You are pretending
you like the flop, or that you began with a stronger hand than you've actually
got. There is nothing wrong with bluffing, of course - as long as you know
you're doing it.
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