No Limit Hold ’em - The Hit and Go Strategy
What we’re going to look here is a strategy called ‘hit and go’, which many decent-but-not-great players employ in both online card rooms and in locales where there are plenty of live casino games (like Las Vegas). For reasons you will see shortly, this strategy is best applied when there is an abundance of poker rooms to choose from, and in games where the minimum buy-in is fairly low. It’s not the sexiest strategy out there, but what it lacks in subtlety it makes up for in effectiveness - especially for new players, or for players who, for whatever reason, have never grasped the nuances of playing the turn and river in no limit poker.
The strategy basically works like this. First, you pick a table - preferably one with plenty of loose action. Second, you buy in for an amount close to the minimum (a buy in size somewhere around 15 big blinds should be just about right). Now once you have your seat and your chips, you restrict yourself to making only one of two moves - either pushing all in, or folding (you can also simply call in the small blind or check in the big blind). If you get called and lose, you buy back in for the minimum again. If you win you simply pick up your winnings and head to another game.
When do you fold? Any time you have a hand that requires high implied odds to play. This includes small suited connectors, small pocket pairs, and other speculative holdings. When you do you push? Any time one of the three following conditions are met, when either
- you have a huge hand
- you have a hand where you think the combined probability of either taking the pot down right there or winning on the showdown makes pushing all in profitable, or
- someone else has raised, and you have a hand you want to play.
The first and third of these criteria don’t need any further elaboration. But what of the second?
Let me show you an example. Say you sit down in a $1-$2 game with $20. Three players limp in, and you’re on the button with AJ. Your play now is to push all your chips in the middle. Why? Because the pot contains $9 now, so if you can get everyone to fold about 75% of the time this play is immediately break-even (this assumes you haven’t ‘blinded off’ any of your stake. If your stack is under the 15 big bets this move needs to be successful even less than 75% of the time to break even). And if you do get called it’s very rare that your hand will be in terrible shape. Usually your opponent will show you something like pocket 8’s if they call you, in which case you’re in a virtual coin-flip. The combined chances of taking the pot down right now plus the chances that you’ll end up winning the hand anyway make this a winning play.
It won’t get you into the poker hall of fame, but it does get the money.
This isn’t the most profitable strategy a no limit player can employ, but it does take care of a couple nasty aspects of no limit. First, it allows you to bow out of actually having to play the later streets. Even in ‘zoo games’ with small stakes, the turn and river can be difficult to play, and new players may find themselves getting utterly lost on these rounds. And secondly, it guarantees that if you find yourself in a game with superior opponents they won’t have much of an opportunity to exploit that edge against you, since the ‘big edges’ that a better player has over an inferior player usually occur when the hand is being played on the flop and beyond.
So if you’re new to the game, or just want to try something different, you should give this strategy a shot. You’ll be amazed how effective it is. I know guys who’ve played this strategy and this strategy only during a long weekend in Las Vegas, and have booked wins for the trip that total over $1300 by playing nothing bigger than $2-$5. It’s not very graceful, and it won’t get you into the poker hall of fame, but if nothing else it does get the money.
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