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Calling with Queen High – Part A

“The Edge . . . there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.” – Hunter S. Thompson

‘The Edge,’ a theoretical advantage a player has or doesn’t have when he/she plays poker. Ivory-tower-gambling-theorist David Sklansky said good players refuse to play without one. They can be small, big, or nonexistent. Some are like the rising sun, so compelling we’d rather enjoy it than sleep. At times they’re an oasis, we think we see it but it’s not really there. We can have it, lose it and not even know it.

Particularly in Hold’em, there’s a fine line between genius and donk play and most players can’t differentiate until it’s too late. Let me digress a second and say that it’s not often we’re going to run into ‘genius’ poker play. By that I simply mean one guy is thinking above the competitions’ skill level. He might as well be a genius, he’s got the best shot to make the most money.

But it’s genius play, on any level, to recognize an Edge and maximize it AND leave the game when the Edge is no longer there.

I believe when someone plays poker at a higher level than his opponents, when he has a substantial Edge, his opponents see him as lucky, fearless or just plain stupid. In poker we’re always looking for edges and if you can dress up an Edge as donk-luck, well that’s a huge Edge.

But there’s just one problem, one itty bitty secret about the Edges – you can fall off them. What the hell does it mean to fall off an Edge? One way is to overestimate your ability or think you have the same Edge against every player. It’s easy not to notice when players make adjustments to you and you lose your advantage.

Example: on the river you’re up against a player whose bluff you’ve picked off six of the last seven times. Now he’s pushed a large bet at you on a scary board, AGAIN! and you have a decent, not great holding, like bottom two-pair. But this bet is significantly larger – he’s bought up to you each time you’ve picked him off. You think you own him, normally you fold to such a large bet in a really marginal situation, but you’re on that Edge. You make the call but he’s holding the nuts. You got him six out of eight times and go home broke.

When a player falls off the Edge he lands at the bottom where there’s nothing but kicks in the ass, piles of shit and ego-bruising doubt. Humpty Dumpty got off easy. He fell off an Edge and simply cracked. Poker players fall off and go broke.

Here’s a duh sentence that needs to be written: the decision to call, to raise or to fold comes from how a player puts the hand together in their mind, their ability to read hidden cards and their experience. Some players think little and trust their feelings, also known as their gut, ignoring experts like Sklansky. Some players rely on advice from books (or columns like this one) and try to play ‘by the book’ as often as possible, thinking more than feeling. Some players just play texas hold’em poker games for fun and don’t care to put effort in to it. Because we all think differently and play for different reasons, what is the ‘right play’ and the ‘wrong play’ most often can be very subjective. What’s that have to do with getting an Edge? Just read on.

Here’s an example from a 1-2 NL game in the Midwest. All the action is preflop.

Joey raised in early position with AQ suited to $12. There was one caller between him and Greg, who reraised Joey’s bet to $60. Everyone folds to Joey, who reraises Greg, making it $135 to go. The $12 caller between them gets out of the way and Greg goes all in for $400. Joey calls $265 more and Greg shows him KK and it holds up. At the end of the hand, Greg begins to berate Joey’s play saying “What the hell did you think I had? I’m not putting $400 in without AA or KK. Man that was a dumb call.” And Greg gloated as he raked in a massive pot for that table.

Maybe it was a dumb call, maybe it wasn’t. Well in hindsight, yeah, Joey was in bad shape. He didn’t answer Greg’s question, but I bet something made Joey think that he wasn’t THAT far behind, OR maybe he just didn’t care. We’ll never know. What we do know is that Greg had a HUGE edge against Joey before the hand was over and now that edge is most likely gone. Greg’s thought process appeared to be his Edge, at least against Joey. But after Greg insulted him, Joey’s not going to make that same mistake again. That’ll cost Greg money the next time he has Joey dominated. Greg fell off his Edge and he’s the only one to blame for it.

But for the sake of talking math-poker, let’s consider Joey’s possible thought processes. Mind you, I’m not saying this play was correct. Remember, this IS low-stakes poker.

If Joey thinks that Greg makes that initial preflop reraise (to $60) with any pocket pair, AK and AQ both suited and non, then Joey is AT BEST a 5% favorite to win (only when he’s facing AQ off, a very unlikely situation) and is AT WORST a 11% dog to win against AA. Against the rest of the hands, he’s not in TOO bad shape – 31% dog against KK and 33% dog against QQ, and about a coin flip against the rest of the pairs. Folding IS the best option but Joey reraised. Why?

At this moment perhaps he was thinking Greg would fold AK, AQ, and all pairs deuces to tens. Ah, the dreaded fold equity. That’s another article. In that moment, Joey jumped on his Edge – Greg would fold a better hand most of the time. Now when Greg came over top, who knows what Joey was thinking when he decided to call, but certainly the Edge he thought he was on disappeared. But, here’s some possibilities to what Joey was thinking – “Greg’s bluffing; I’m caught up in the moment; let’s gamble; I haven’t seen two suited broadway cards in four hours and I ain’t folding; AQ is an all-in hand for me; I’ve already put in $135, I’m pot stuck; I wanted to go home anyway; If I suck out, I can run over the table . . .”

One thing is for sure, Greg had a huge Edge (he got his money in with the best of it against an opponent most likely to repeat faulty decisions) but lost it when he bad-mouthed his opponent’s play.

I recently called a decent sized bet on the river with queen high during the WSOP Circuit event at Caesars Indiana in October of 2006. Was I right or wrong? I’m going to tell you it doesn’t matter, what’s important is how I came to that conclusion. I jumped on an Edge and luckily didn’t fall off, at least not until a few hours later.

But right now, I’m out of time. Next week check out parttimepoker.com for Calling with Queen High Part Deux.

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