Off to the Races

Racing is one of the unique aspects of Texas Hold Em. Two overcards are almost as likely to win a hand as a pair is. On the World Series of Poker, and the WPT, the races are the most hyped up hands. ESPN's coverage is particularly favorable to showing all-in races.

Inexperienced players, however, don't seem to understand the concept of racing. They know it is a 50/50 chance to win or lose, but they don't get why they should or should not race, and when they should do it.

In tournaments, I'm a big supporter of racing. I'll throw all my chips into the middle at most points of a tournament in the hopes of doubling up. Granted, it is a coin flip, but winning tournaments is all about chip accumulation. Occasionally, if I have a medium sized stack, I'll avoid racing. But, if I'm short-stacked, I need to take the risk in order to increase my chances of winning the tournament or placing well. If I have a big stack, I can afford to take the risk of losing chips in order to potentially gain chips. You can't win a tournament without getting lucky, going to the races, and winning them. Just as Craig Raymer.

Cash games are different. Tournaments are short sprints of poker playing. Even a long tournament like the WSOP Main Event is a relatively short sampling of poker. About the most hands you one can play in the Main Event is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000. Just think about how many hands you play online or in a cash game over the course of a year and you'll see 5,000 is a small sampling to a player that plays regularly.

In cash games, it is all about the long haul. Why would you want to flip a coin for a few hundred dollars whenever there's a race? I always ask people how come they didn't just go to the roulette table and put $100 on black. The odds are about the same.

Some races are not exactly 50/50. Queens vs. AK suited, for example, can be close to 54/46. Over the long run, if you have the pair, you'll win 54 hands and lose 46. If all these hands are all-ins for say $100, and the situation occurs 100 times, you'll win $5400 and lose $4600. That's $800 over the course of 100 hands, or $8 per hand. Over time that adds up, but you need a large bankroll to endure the losses you'll receive 23 times out of 50.

At the same time, these races with hands like Big Slick or Big Bitch, will lose around 54 to 51% of the time. Over the long run, that means you're losing money. You're also taking big hits to your bankroll in order to lose money in the long run.

Not all races, of course, are all-in races. In these situations, it is typically better to have a pocket pair. With two non-paired cards, the odds of flopping at least a pair are 2.1 to 1, or 32.26%. This means if you're holding two overcards, you will miss on the flop 77.74%. After the flop, it is no longer a race. Without a draw, AK is about a 25% likely winner against a pocket pair that hasn't hit a set. Of course, if the pocket pair does hit a set, AK is drawing completely dead unless there is at least a backdoor draw.

What matters more than the cards in these non all-in races, is aggression and the ability to read players. You might have 99 heads up against AQ, and the flop might come KJ7. That isn't a good flop for 99, but if you can read your opponent, you'll know you have the best hand. You'll also know when and if the AQ hits one of its 10 outs on the turn or river.

Aggression plays a big part in winning races, even without cards. I was once in a hand with AK against 77. The player had limped with 77, and I raised with AK. He called. The problem for him was that he NEEDED to hit one of two outs on the flop in order to win the hand. Why? Because if he didn't, I was going to bet. Because he was playing the hand passively, and I was being the aggressor, my hand turned from Ace-King into anything I wanted to represent. There were 24 overcards in the deck that could come out that I could represent. I could also represent an overpair, or a straight, or a flush. Even though he was a 53% favorite preflop, because of my aggression, he was really only about 12%. The pot was about $25, 88% of the time I take that down, profiting $13, and 12% of the time I lose $12. On average, I'm profiting $10 per hand.

By the same token, if I raise with 77, and a player calls me with AK, the pressure is now on him to hit the flop. As mentioned above, he'll only do this about 1 time out of 3. If I don't think he's hit the flop, or if he hasn't hit the flop that hard with a hand like Ace-Jack and say he hits 2nd pair, then I can take down the pot by betting it.

So what should you do if it is a race. Well, avoid it if possible, unless you're in a gambling state of mind. Try to be the aggressor in the race. Also try to get into racing situations with players you've got a bead on.

A side note: I see a lot of bad poker at the $100 NL tables at Turning Stone. Sometimes I'm the one playing bad poker. However, I saw a great hand of poker played by a kid at the Stone on Monday night. He had QQ under the gun, and raised. He got 3 callers. The flop was 2-3-4, with 2 diamonds. It was checked to him. He bet out $15. He was raised by the player who checked to him. He though hard, then folded his Queens, showing the table. The player who check-raised him flipped over Ace-5 of diamonds. The player with A5 shouldn't have been in the hand, but the player with Queens played his hand aggressively until he found out he was beat.