Why you must give up in order to win.

The Fold

In many games and sports, giving up is considered as a severe lack of sportsmanship and often frowned upon. “One must play the cards he is dealt, right?”. “Do you only play with a gigantic edge, and against much weaker opposition?”. So the thinking goes. It is also sometimes considered as a low way of depriving the opponent of the full victory; he won because his opponent scratched. And lastly, it is viewed as a lack of courage: there is still hope as long as you haven’t lost yet, right?

This partly explains why many players, especially beginners, are reluctant to fold. Unfortunately for them, this is also by far the biggest leak in their game.

Poker is different as far as the situations mentionned above are concerned. Indeed, you don’t get a free or cheap chance to try and win an uphill battle. This will usually be very costly. Why would you want to play these losing propositions, when there are many better ones to come?

This is plain common sense when you think of it from the right perspective. A poker player has a budget, and he must carefully pay attention to what he invests his money in. Buying stocks of every single quoted company is crazy. Yet, that’s what many players do.

In the same vein, some players try to win as many pots as possible, and they are happy when they succeed - even though they often end up with a negative balance. In war, the number of won battles doesn’t matter; it is what battles you won that is important.

Now you see why being selective about the situation you play is crucial. It is simply one of the biggest edge you can have over a weaker opponent.

Important: it is essential to fold when the situation doesn’t rate to be a good proposition.

Hand Selection

In every major poker variant, you are dealt some random cards at the beginning of the hand. You immediately gain some precious information about how the hand is likely to develop for you. The good player, based on the previous action (if he is not the first to act), on the information about his opponents’ style he gathered during the previous hands, and on his experience, can come up with a pretty good estimate of how profitable playing the hand could be, overall.

Example:

The starting hands you should play depends on the variants (obviously), the structure (Limit or Big bet), the number of opponents (you should loosen up your standards a bit on short-handed tables), the style of the table (passive, aggresive, lot of stealing, etc.), and the size of the stacks (calling raises early in the hand is not as dangerous since you only invest a tiny percentage of your stack, with possible much bigger gains at stake). Refer to the articles in the specific sections for further information.

Later in the hand, you still will have to fold pretty often. In Holdem, for instance, you are a favorite to miss the flop, whatever your hand. Of course, hands like two aces don’t need as much help as others. If you play hands that are often going to miss the flop and can’t stand pressure, you will have to fold a lot. As we saw in the example, hitting a bit of the flop doesn’t mean you should play whatever happens. Top pair with a decent kicker should often be folded against strong action. Even top pair with top kicker should often be folded at No Limit if a good opponent commit his stack to the pot. What hand can he have that you beat, if he is good and bet big? Calling every bet and raise when you hit a hand you like while failing to consider what your opponent(s) can have, is a big mistake, especially in Pot Limit and No Limit poker.

Conversely, you can sometimes figure out that you are probably behind, with no straight or flush draw, but still should call based on the huge pot odds. This often happens in Limit poker, when there has been one or several raises in the previous betting rounds. Calling costs only a small part of the pot, while the gain can be very big, even if you hit only once in a while. Again, know the typical odds for the variants you play.