Stacking off - How Comfortable is Too Comfortable?

Posted by Verstehen

January 4, 2008

A lot of what I think about deals with the marginal situations in poker. Lately I’ve been thinking about pre-flop all-ins, which can be the greatest second-guessing opportunities in poker.

When you first play no-limit, your greatest fear is getting stacked. The biggest mental hurdle in the switch from limit is dealing with the embarrassment of stacking off. Unless you’re willing to stack off, you can’t play an effective attacking game - I believe the phrase for this in tournaments is “in order to live, you must be willing to die.” Once you get over that fear of stacking off, you’re able to play more comfortably and aggressively, especially when you have an adequate bankroll of 20-25 buy ins.

The problem is, I think beginning NL players like myself can definitely get too comfortable stacking off with a big hand. I lost three buy-ins the other day at NL. Here they are, in order of acceptability:

I got all in with kings and someone had aces. It happens and you can’t lament that too much in a cash game.
A middle position player raised slightly more than standard, and the short-stacked fishy button raised all in for about 25 BB. I looked down at Q ? Q?. I thought the button was waiting for an ace to make this move, and I was probably way ahead. I over-shoved, and the initial raiser instantly called with kings. My hand reading was right on - the button did have ace-rag (I think it was A9o or in that neighborhood) - and unfortunately he flopped top two pair to take down the pot.
I limped behind a limper with Q ? 9 ?. The flop was two hearts, and I check-raised a multi-way pot with my draw when someone min-bet it. A player in the blinds flat-called the check-raise. The turn was a heart, I bet, he raised, I shoved. He thought and thought, and finally called with K-rag ? for a big blind special.

The first situation is an entirely acceptable stacking off situation. I was the first one all-in, and kings in a short-handed game is an absolute monster. The only place I would consider laying it down was in the blinds if the action went raise-reraise-reraise in front of me. Bad luck for me that someone had aces, I’d do it again.

The second one is a little more marginal, though probably still defensible. Unfortunately, I put myself in a situation where the open-raiser would only call with premium hands: with two shoves behind you, you’re pretty much only calling with aces and kings here. This is what Howard Lederer calls a “negative leverage situation” in the Full Tilt Strategy Guide (introductory chapter excerpt here). You’ve made the decision extremely easy for the first raiser: call with super-premium hands, fold everything else.

The third one I genuinely regret. What does he have? Of course, I was wishing he had J ? 9? or something in that neighborhood. But since he’s in the blinds, there’s no need for a coordinated hand here. A king or ace high flush are almost the only options here, and I should have considered folding since I was pretty clearly drawing dead (there were no straight flush possibilities). I was making it pretty clear I had a flush, and he was pushing back pretty hard. At that point, you just need to fold and curse the great poker gods for their cruelty to mortals.

In a tournament, stack size and blind structure would drive most of these decisions. In a cash games, folding is often a perfectly acceptable option on any street. I think I’ve lost too much stacking off pre-flop with big hands like queens when the action suggests there are bigger hands lurking.

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