Low starters

There is no such thing as absolutely low starters since in some situations they can form high combination. Many players do not pay attention to positions when they have low starters during the pre-flop and they raise regardless of their position. This common mistake is done because:

•    Most of the flops give the strongest low starters nuts low or nuts low draw.
•    In most of the cases this starter is going to take half of the pot.
•    This starter can take the whole pot if together with nuts low forms nuts high. These players think that they have to raise no matter what is their position and how their opponents act. This conclusion is very wrong since they do not consider the following:

1.    If you have the strongest possible low starter and form during the flop nuts-low draw, that does not mean you are going to have nuts low during the turn. The turn can be a high card or can form a pair.  This way your nuts-low draw is going to stay nuts-low draw and you have to decide is it worth to keep it till turn. But in order to do that, you have to consider the actions of your opponents and positions.
2.    Part of the low pot is going to be split with somebody from your opponents who has the same nuts low. The information that  this half of the pot you want to win actually is going to be one quarter of it, with a bad position, costs you so much money that this quarter you are going to win cannot compensate.

So, what to do with these low starters? In early positions you have to play aggressively since we have no info about our opponents’ cards and their future actions. In middle positions we have the opportunity to consider our opponents actions. If somebody in early position  before us plays aggressively, it is better to call. When we have a low starter in late position, we have to consider not only the level of aggression but limpers too. The less aggression and less limpers, the more aggressive pre-flop you have to play.

September 5th, 2009

Comments are closed.