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 preflop 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 preflop. 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!
If you’ve decided you want to be a small ball poker player then the two key concepts that you’ll have to embrace are making smaller raises preflop and opening the range of hands you’re prepared to play in position.
The preflop raise or limp
You'll notice players like Gus Hansen and Daniel Negreanu limp into hands first to act more frequently than the average player. If they do raise, it's usually a very small raise like a minimum raise or 2.5 times the big blind raise. They’re willing to get involved post-flop with a wide variety of hands and from all positions. The reason they do this is it lets them see more flops, generates action on their bigger hands, and provides deceptive nature to the types of hands they play. It is not uncommon to see a small ball player limp in early position, face a raise from a later position player, and then put in a reraise. If you were the player facing the small ball limp reraise, what would you put them on? Probably a big hand right? Most often it will be, but this style of play allows you to make this move with a wide range of hands because you’re playing so many hands unpredictably.
The other thing limping or raising small does is encourages action. Poker players often can't resist themselves, if they see three people already in the hand, they are going to join the party. The most important thing, however, that limping or raising small does is it keeps the pot size small and helps them to control actions post-flop.
Play more hands in position
While it might seem that small ball players ignore position because of how often they will play from earlier positions, their bread and butter comes from playing hands close to the button and taking advantage of other people’s weak post-flop play. The small ball player believes that it is very profitable to make a bet of 300 into a 1,000 pot when it has been checked to them on the flop. Over 10 hands, the small ball player would only need this bet to be successful 3 times to make a profit. However, a traditional half-pot bet would need to be successful five times to not lose money. By playing hands in position, you give yourself the opportunity to pick up these easy pots more often because of the information you have available to you and seizing on the weakness of others.
Pot control
Small ball poker is all about controlling the size of the pot, and there are two main ways of going about this. The first is one we've already discussed: making smallish bets. Small bets, both preflop and on the flop, are the key. However, just because you are a small ball player it doesn’t mean you always make small bets and contest small pots. The turn and river are the streets where you can start firing out large bets, either because you have the best hand and want to get value for it, or because you are bluffing and want your opponent to fold. Because you’ve been playing a wide range of hands your opponents will be left reeling when you really put them to the test.
Another excellent way of controlling the pot size is to check. This might seem like passive play, but if you are unsure if your hand is ahead but think it has showdown value, this can be the best approach to reaching that showdown without risking a significant portion of your stack. The additional benefit of this approach is that it will often get value from some of your hands as your opponent continues to bluff into you. Here are two examples that illustrate this concept…
In the first, our hero is a tight-aggressive player. Holding A-Q, he raises preflop to three times the big blind and gets two callers. The pot size is now 1,800. The flop comes A-9-2, our hero bets 1,200 and is check-raised by a player to 3,000. Our hero calls. The turn is another Nine and our hero checks. The flop check-raiser bets 5,000 and is called. The river is a Four and our hero check-calls a 10,000 bet. The check raiser shows A-9 and collects 18,000 post-flop chips from our hero.
Minimising losses
The small-baller, however, decides to take a different approach. He understands that his A-Q is probably good on the A-9-2 flop, but because he has position he sees that everyone has checked to him. If his hand is the best, it's likely his opponents will fold. He thinks to himself that there is no harm in checking here, because if he does have the best hand he won't get any value by betting, but by checking he will minimise his losses for the times he is behind and maximise his profits for the times he is ahead. On the turn, a player bets 1,200 into the pot and the small-baller decides to just call since the board has paired and it's possible his opponent might have a Nine. On the river, the same player bets 3,000 and our small-baller calls and loses the hand. His loss, however, is only 4,200 as compared to the 18,000 from the TAG. That's a significant difference.