Smallball Poker

October 25 2008, Smallball Poker

You might have come across this term before: smallball poker. But what exactly is smallball poker and what are its advantages?

If you've just started playing poker you quickly adopt the habit of playing your marginal hands very aggressively. This increases the size of the pots you play and often results in an all-in with just one pair. Compare this to baseball; your strategy is to hit as many homeruns as possible. Hit one 'out of the park' and you can comfortably walk to home base. You don't even have to run, your win is secured.

Smallball is exactly the opposite: you gently touch the ball and place it between the catcher and the pitcher, giving you enough time to get to first base. As you can imagine, smallball poker requires a lot more skill than longball.

When playing smallball poker, you raise many hands, but you only raise a small amount, something like 2,5 big blinds. Often 3 smallball raises fit into 2 longball raises. You use position to your advantage and raise a wide range of hands when in position.

You're hoping to see your opponents fold, but even if that doesn't happen and you get a call from one of the blinds, you don't see a reason to get concerned. You still have two ways to win the hand: you hit the flop or you exploit your position.

Imagine you're sitting in the big blind and to your right you have an obvious smallball player who raises almost every hand in late position. You know he can't always be holding , but your isn't exactly a monster either. You still decide to call and the flop shows . You missed the flop completely and decide to check. The smallball player makes a moderate continuation bet and you fold. He might not have anything, but why would you run the risk.

That's how the smallball player wins his chips. He's often not interested in seeing a showdown. As far as he is concerned, a hand ends pre-flop or after the flop, but seldom on the turn or river. These small pots assure that his stack keeps increasing while taking minimal risks. Folding post-flop is simply a tool in his arsenal. If you fight back, he will let his hand go and wait for a better spot (or a better opponent).

In cashgames you can smallball forever, but in tournaments there comes a time when it is no longer an option. You can only use this strategy in the early stages of a tournament when the blinds are low. The time will come when the blinds are relatively high compared to the average stack, with the result that you are now playing a longball game, whether you like it or not. Many big pots and even more all-ins.

The smallball strategy is not necessarily meant for every player. Seeing as you will be playing a wide range of starting hands, you need to be an experienced post-flop player to keep out of trouble. The decisions are often a lot harder compared to hitting top pair with . Often enough you will have to figure out whether your is good on a flop. This is also the reason why smallball poker is mainly played in position.

Of course a smallball player will go all-in every now and then, but if that is the case, the hand was already decided before it started. The smallball player will pretty much always show you the nuts if it comes to a showdown.

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