No Limit Hold ’em - The Hit and Go Strategy - Some Refinements
In an earlier article we looked at what I call the ‘hit and go’ strategy for no limit hold em, which is, in my opinion, the optimal strategy for either new or struggling players to employ at the no limit tables. While the strategy we laid out in the first article will often be enough for you to get the money, there are some refinements you can make that will make it even more effective.
- Just call with pocket aces or pocket kings before the flop if you are in early position.
- Be careful about pushing all in from the big blind after multiple players have called the opening bet.
- It’s OK just to call when you have a strong hand against just one player.
This will happen when you hit the flop out of the blinds, or when you limp in from early position with a big pocket pair. The argument for just calling along, and not raising, is that all your money is going to go into the middle anyway, but by raising you eliminate your chances of picking off a bluff. If you just check and call you may be able to double up just by inducing a bluff from your opponent. When you bet, however, you’ll only double up if you catch your opponent with some kind of a hand. Since your opponent is far more likely to have nothing than to have a decent hand you might as well check and see if you can get him to try and ‘buy the pot’.
This has two advantages. First, someone may raise behind you, in which case you can come ‘over the top’ for all your money when the action gets back to you. And second, even if the pot is not raised behind you almost everyone will badly misread your hand, which means you’ll have a great chance of doubling up on the flop. Say, for instance, that you’re dealt pocket kings, and just call in early position. Now the button calls, the small blind completes, and the big blind checks. The flop comes T95.
At this point you can either raise all in (if someone has bet in front of you), or bet all in if the action is checked to you. If you bet all in you will be amazed at some of the hands that will call you. When your opponents see your puny stack pushed into the middle they will call with all kinds of terrible hands—like K9, pocket 7’s, and so forth—since it isn’t going to cost them very much to see the hand through. You relish these calls, of course, because you’re often going to be at least a 4:1 favorite against most of these hands.
One well known tactic in ‘big stack’ no limit is to occasionally make a sizeable bluff bet, i.e. something in the range of 6 times the big blind or so - from the big blind when nobody else has raised. The rationale is that nobody else has much of a hand (otherwise they themselves would have raised), and so your chances of taking the pot down immediately are fairly good. When you have a short stack, however, the picture changes. Players will be much more suspicious about your raise, and they will be more likely to call since it isn’t going to cost them very much if they have the situation misread. That doesn’t mean it isn’t ever prudent to push from the blinds on a ‘semi bluff’ - hands like AQ, 88 and such are still good candidates for an all in raise here - but with your weaker hands you should probably just check and hope to hit the flop.
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