Major Improvement in My Cash NL Game: "I’ll make you fold!"

I was rereading Small Stakes No Limit Holdem recently and I ran across a section in the book that had a major impact on my NL Holdem cash games. To many of you who are cash game experts this will seem like a silly revelation but for me it was like getting hit by a ton of bricks.

Being a SNG specialist there are very few deep NL situations where I used to feel comfortable. I recognized a while back that there was a flaw in my game regarding my play but was unable to really address it correctly. My non-showdown winnings were on a downward trajectory and I had no idea why. Let me clarify my strategy...

When I have a good hand I raise and try to make the best hand at showdown. When I think I am ahead I value bet and try to extract value. When I feel beat I fold. With implied odds type hands I would usually lose a lot of value from not making hands and folding.

So when I was reading the section in SSNLHE about equity I realized something very important. Implied odds type hands rely on position and fold equity to be profitable. You must take down the pot a large percentage of the time with speculative hands even when you don't hit big to be profitable. You must ask yourself with hands that are not likely to be best... "Can I make this guy fold?"

Suddenly all the pieces started to fall into place for me. In the last few days I have felt my game undergo a dramatic change. I do not have a large enough sample size to back it up yet but I am convinced I have elevated my game. Where my redline used to go sideways when I was running good and down at about a 45 degree angle when I was running bad, it immediately started to go up!!! I feel the difference too. My VPIP and PFR changed immediately from 17/16 type stats to 26/24. Whats more, I started immediately feeling like instead of having my chip stack slowly bleeding and every so often winning a pot to counter balance it, my chips started to magically just start floating upwards. I am actually winning a ton of chips even though I am running significantly below all in expectation!

One thing that changed with my stats is that I realized that when I want to play a hand, making sure I am the last preflop raiser is pretty crucial to taking the initiative postflop and maxing out my fold equity. However, this is also a great help when my hands hit and I am trying to build a pot.

So if you are reading this ask yourself if you are stuck in the rut that I was. SSNLHE mentions that a lot of beginner/TAG types get stuck there. If so start asking yourself at every step in the hand "Am I ahead or behind, and if behind can I make this guy fold a better hand?"

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