So here’s the situation: I’m on the button (last-to-act post-flop). Everyone folds around to the player sitting two seats to my right, who has seen almost every flop at this table. As usual, he calls, and the player between us folds. Sophomore Justin Davidson, my sports editor and newest poker student, stares blankly with his mouth half open as he watches me raise with king-two off-suit (denoted as K2O) from late position. He has studied the starting hand list I gave him dutifully, and he is quick to point out that not only is K2O a hand that shouldn’t be raised with, it is a hand that should never be called with.
Justin grimaces as the big blind, the player we were trying to knock out, calls my bet, and the initial caller does the same. His expression only darkens when the flop comes with two aces and a queen. The big blind checks, the pre-flop caller bets and Justin begins to pout as (he thinks) my chances of winning this particular hand have decreased to nil.
Without hesitation, I raise the pre-flop caller. The big blind finally folds, and the initial bettor calls my reraise. The turn is a two, giving me a dubious two-pair, and my opponent checks. I bet; he calls.
The river is a jack, a card that makes my pair of twos shrink up pretty substantially. Justin is not happy. We are playing on his Party Poker account with his money, and I just put a relatively substantial dollar amount in the middle with a very mediocre hand. The only real way I can win this pot is by betting, so when I get checked to, I fire another bullet. Sure enough, my opponent lays down his hand and we rake in the pot.
Justin did not understand how I played that hand because he was missing a very important concept in his understanding of poker: position. As any successful player will tell you, position is the key to a lucrative strategy. Acting first with K2O, it is a very easy fold, but when given the opportunity to isolate a weak player, it becomes a more desirable hand.
When you are playing poker competitively (and poker should not be played any other way), you need to quickly recognize the weaker players at the table and do absolutely everything in your power to play as many hands as you can with them and only them. Your hand still has to be reasonable-you shouldn’t be making plays with the dreadful 2-7 off-suit-but in the same breath, you have to vastly widen your starting-hand selection, specifically your pre-flop raising standards, in order to capitalize on opponents’ non-optimal play.
There is no single starting-hand guide that is going to be correct in every situation. There are guidelines available which you should definitely follow, but the idea that every time you get K2O you should fold is completely ridiculous. Each hand is a different battle, and with each hand you need to make a separate and profitable decision. If you have any aspiration of becoming a winning player, you must adopt a policy of flexibility. That is one of the many keys to a poker player’s success.