Small ball to the next level

If you’ve decided that you want to be a small ball poker player then the two key concepts that you’ll have to embrace are making smaller raises pre-flop and opening the range of hands that you’re prepared to play in position.

The pre-flop 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 1/2 pot bet would need to be successful 5 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