Risk Management for Online Poker
This was published 30-04-2008
Risk management and online poker seem like two worlds apart, but are they really? Every time you enter a hand you are taking risks and the key to being a successful player is minimizing that risk.
Daniel Negreanu always mentions that players should try and keep pots as small as possible until they have the nuts. Raising out of position and juicing up pots for no reason can have very negative effects.
Most of the time players raise pre-flop to protect their hand before the flop. If they don’t hit on the flop or get a somewhat weak hand, often players will continuation bet (bet again) to protect the pot even further. This posts a huge risk as you have now commited a large percentage of your stack to a pot with only a marginal hand.
This doesn’t mean that you should never raise, just pick your battles wiseley and know the other opponents at the table. If your table is very aggressive, you are better to just call strong hands out of position. Wait till your hand is very strong and let them bet into you. Once they have commited a large portion of their stack and you are pretty sure that you still hold the best hand, that is the time to make the move. The problem with reraising aggressive players pre-flop is they will call with a greater range of hands, and unless you hit they will be more likely to put the pressure back on you.
Another important aspect of risk management for online poker is position. When you are in later positions (ie. on the button) and you throw in a raise, your opponents will have to act first on the flop. Try to bet only if you have a hand, or to find out where you are in a hand using feeler bets (ie. if you raised $5 preflop and the pot was now up to $20 throw in a bet of $10 to see where you are. When you are in position you will be able to raise with weaker hands, and will control much more of the action in the game.
Playing weak hands out of position is dangerous. Sure a JTsuited might look like a good hand, but with a raise behind you are most likely behind in the pot. Try to only play hands like AK, AQsuited, AJsuited, AA, KK, QQ when you are in early position. Once you are in later position you will be able to open this up a lot more and play a wider variety of suited and connected cards.
By keeping pots small, only playing really strong hands, and playing your opponents and position, you will minimize your risk associated with getting involved with very large pots with aggressive players. You will be able to do more things like check-raising the best hand against opponents that have already commited to a pot with weaker hands.
