The Joys of Small Ball

There are many different ways to play poker. One concept that has gotten significant attention and is becoming the way many winning players operate is small ball poker. The success of players like Daniel Negreanu and Gus Hansen, notorious small ball players, forced a lot of traditional tight-aggressive players to question their own strategies. Why has this approach been so successful in deep stack tournaments and is it for every one?

It works well for two main reasons. First, it gives players more opportunity to accumulate chips because they are seeing more flops. A typical small baller will see many more flops than your average tight, aggressive player. The second thing it does is it minimizes losses. While most players are firing out close to pot-sized bets and looking to play large pots, the small baller is making smaller third- to half-pot bets and checking behind more frequently. By doing this, their losses are often much less than a typical player. Here's an example to show you the small ball way.

Our hero, the small baller, has raised to 2.5 times the big blind pre-flop with K-Q suited and gets two callers. Three players see the flop and there is 1500 in the pot. The flop comes Q-10-5. Our hero makes a bet of 500 into the 1,500 pot. It is called and reraised by another player. Deciding to get out of the way, our hero folds, having lost a total of 1,000 in the hand. Now let's look at how this hand would play out with a conventional tight aggressive player (TAG). The TAG opens the action for 3.5 times the big blind pre-flop. The pot is 2,250. They make a bet of 1,500 and fold to the reraise. Their loss on the hand was a total of 2,250. The small ball player saved 1,250 in chips on comparison to the TAG and the result was the same – both players folded. This is why small ball poker can be a very effective method of playing.

The drawback of small ball

The one problem, however, with small ball is that it is an extremely volatile style of poker. It requires the player to see a lot of flops and be faced with a lot of tough decisions. While you might save money in a particular hand in comparison to a TAG player, you'll also be playing many more hands and risking chips more often. If your post-flop skills are average or sub-par, you should work on those skill sets before moving into small ball poker. Don’t use small ball as an excuse to play weak poker!