Playing speculative hands
Mar 18, 2008By: Aaron Hendrix We see Daniel Negreanu raising with 10-7 suited on television and hear all the time of the value of suited connectors and speculative hands. Unfortunately, most people don't understand how to play these hands correctly and it results in a huge chip leak.
Too often what players will do with hands like these is make one of two mistakes. The first mistake is that they will check/call, call or fold. They will play the hand passively. They will hit a draw and call a bet on the flop and turn and end up folding on the river. If they do hit their hand, their opponent knows they were drawing and they don't receive any value for their hand other than the money that was already in the pot. If you are going to play speculative hands passively, you are better off folding the hand pre-flop.
The second mistake players make playing these hands is to overvalue hands that they were not even playing the hand for in the first place. We do not play 9-8 suited hoping to flop a pair of 8's. We play it for trips, straights, and flushes... not a weak top pair. Time and time again, though, you will see someone going broke with this exact type of hand because they overvalued it.
If you are going to play a speculative hand you MUST know what kind of flops you are looking for prior to playing it. If you get any of these flops you must be willing to play the hand aggressively. Let's look at a hand where a player limps in with A♠-3♠ in position. What kind of hands is he looking for here? A flush draw. Trips. Two pair. The miracle straight (5-4-2). That's it. Not much to choose from is there?
So the flop comes 9-4-3 with two of his suit. He has a pair and a flush draw. This looks like the kind of flop you play this hand for, right? Correct. If you are going to play this type of hand, this is exactly the type of flop you are looking for. One of your opponent's fires out a pot sized bet. What should you do?
The first thing you need to do is think about what hands have you in bad shape. There are two. 9-9 and 4-4. You can probably eliminate 9-9 as it likely would have been raised first to act. This leaves you with one hand that has you in terrible shape. You can't go in thinking each time that “oh he must have the ONLY hand that has me crushed.” It isn't probable, so quit thinking like that. Even if he does have a set of 4's, you are only a 2.3:1 dog so it is not like you are drawing dead.
What are their more likely holdings? Probably a pair like 7's or something like A-9. All of those hands you are a race against. But wait... if you push all in you might win it right there. Your opponent might fold a hand like A-9 or 7's. The only hand that will for sure call you is the aforementioned set or an over pair and you're a favorite against every over pair except for aces.
Let's look at two more examples of hands I personally played.
In this first hand, I am in seat 3 and have been dealt J♦-10♦. The blinds are 500/1,000 with a 200 ante and the average stack is 40K. I have exactly that much (40K) and limp in UTG+1. A middle position player with 24K in front of them makes it 6K to go and everyone folds to me. I make a loose call, the reasons for we won't get into here. The flop comes A♦-Q♦-8♣. I've flopped a flush draw and a double belly buster straight draw. A monster flop for my hand. I check and my opponent bets 5,100. Rather than just call to see if I can hit my draw, I check raise all in. This gives me two ways of winning. My opponent folds what he says is A-J and I take down the pot through my aggressive play. If I had just called and the turn missed me, I very likely would have been faced with a tough decision if my opponent moved all in.
In the second hand, I limp in from the button with 7♥-4♥ from the button after four people have limped in. The blinds are 50/100 and the average stack has 4,500 in chips. I have 5,075 at the start of the hand. The flop comes J♥-7♦-
. A strong flop for my hand as I have a flush draw and middle pair. One of the limpers bets 200 and another calls the bet. I move all in looking to take it down right there. The initial bettor calls with 3's for a flopped set. Oops. That's about the worst hand I could have seen. Fortunately for me, a heart comes and I win a huge pot. The one advantage of making this play is that if I had just played the hand passively, I would have likely won a little but not his entire stack. By being so aggressive with it, I guaranteed that if I did win the hand that I would get paid off. This is how to build a big stack early in a tournament. Is it risky? Absolutely. But if you're going to win poker tournaments it is the kind of risk you need to be taking.The next time you are thinking of playing a speculative hand pre-flop think about what flops you want. If you get one of these flops be willing to play it very aggressively. If you aren't willing to, do yourself a favor... fold the hand pre-flop. Proper play of these types of hands can not only save you chips... but it can get you chips as well... chips that can help you win the tournament.
