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Poker Strategy - Folding Cards and Big Hands

Copyright © 2008, RealPokerLessons.com

Folding cards is a part of poker that you need to be able to do, especially when it comes to big hands. I see poker players all the time falling in love with hands, even when they believe they're beat, saying something like "I know you have that king, but I can't lay this down." Well if you "know" the person has the king, then LAY IT DOWN.

We've all been there, but disciplining yourself to lay down big hands is a critical part of your success. I can honestly say that I can lay down KK's now without question when I believe I'm beat. Is it easy? Heck no. Does it suck? Yes it does. But the thing to remember is there's always more hands to come and you can get those chips back. But when you fall in love with a hand and "give up," you're putting yourself out of the game. You're actually throwing your chips in "hoping" for a miracle. Poker isn't about preying for a card to come; its about giving yourself the best chance or percentage to win. You put your money in when you have the best chance of winning. You fold when you believe you're beat.

Here's another way you could look at it, or at least how I look at it. My general rule (and this is not concrete) is if I see two over cards (a card higher then yours) on the board, then there's a safe chance you're beat. I will not always fold a lower pair because when this happens, I have to reach into my memory and think about how the player I'm playing against plays. What hands does he/she like? Are they a chaser? Are they a bluffer? Did they call my raises? How many chips do they have. The point is, there are several factors; but the general rule is, the more over cards out there, the more chances you're beat, and the more often you should be folding cards. Lay it down, if you can.  And the "if you can" brings us to another point. Being pot committed. If you have over half of your chips in the pot, then you're pot committed "unless" you still have plenty of chips left in proportion to the blinds. For instance, if I believe that my opponent made his hand on the river, and I have 20,000 chips in the pot and only 18,000 left, and he/she raises me either all in, or say another $9,000 for instance, I will analyze how many players are left, how much the blinds are, etc. If say the blinds are at $200/$400, then I can easily fold and still have a chance to win the game. But if the blinds are say $4000/$8000, I can't fold. I have to hope that I'm wrong, that they "didn't" make their hand and are simply bluffing.

Of course nothing here is concrete when it comes to folding cards. But in poker, you must be able to fold big hands, period.