A
while ago I wrote about a hand in the WSOP Europe where Ram Vaswani and I both
played cleverly, and a parallel hand in which a mysterious German and I played
like morons. I introduced the story by saying, "Ideally, you play well and your
opponent plays badly."
This may have sounded like a meaningless
space-filler of a sentence, but I want to return to the idea because it's more
than a simple given. You shouldn't just sit there hoping your opponent will
play badly - you should actively try to induce it. I'm going to spend the next
couple of weeks talking about various mistakes you can help your poor opponents
to make.
The first example involves making a
noticeably small raise in early position. Immediately, this invites the big
blind to cock up. "Ooh, it's only a bit more," he can tell himself. "I might
hit the flop!" And already you have brought about a situation where someone is
playing a hand, out of position and on the back foot, just because he has a
sentimental attachment to the big blind he has already lost.
If someone
else on the table is holding a pair, other errors may spring from your
early-position small raise. Let's say you've done it with suited 4-5 or 8-10:
they may fear strength and flat call (if not, you can escape cheaply). Let's
say you've done it with AA or KK: someone may smell weakness and reraise. Then
it's Christmas.
If you are short-stacked, you can't afford this play;
better to pass marginal hands and move in with decent ones. But in a cash game
or deep-stacked tournament, if you want to play a hand in early position,
doubling the blind is a nice way to help those poor suckers misplay their own
cards.
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