Why Your Post-Flop Play Sucks - Adam Stemple

I am a musician.  At one time, a classically trained musician.  There is a common problem among musicians when they try to learn a piece, and it comes from the very laudable desire to play the piece perfectly.  I had this problem for many years.  Once I learned a piece a little, I would immediately set myself the task of playing it all the way through without mistakes.  If I screwed up even a little, I'd go back to the top of the piece and start over.  When I finally played it without even a single minimal error, I would drop my bow in exhaustion (I was a cellist) with a tremendous sense of accomplishment.

The problem was I could now play the beginning of the piece with my eyes closed, the middle if I squinted, and the end?  Well, the end I could play okay if I was looking at the sheet music carefully.  And got lucky. 

If you are playing Holdem correctly, in a full ring you're only playing 15-18% of your hands.  And of those, how many do you take to the turn and river?  Whereas you exercise your preflop muscles every time you look at your cards.  Think of these areas like the beginning, middle, and end of the piece of music I was describing.

Your post-flop play sucks simply because you don't practice it as often as you do your preflop play.

"How do I fix this?" you cry, wringing your hands in frustration.

Easy.  By playing more hands.

"But won't playing too many hands ruin my EV?  Won't I be a…[gulp]…fish?

In a full ring, sure you'd be mighty fishy playing 90% of your hands.  But in a heads up game you should literally at least call with any two cards when you're on the button.  That's right, in a heads up game, with the SB on the button, you have position and pot odds to call with any two cards. And when you're not on the button, you're on the big blind and are going to play anyway.  Unless your opponent is doing a whole lot of raising, you're going to be seeing a whole lot of flops.  And that means practice, practice, practice.

Now, playing heads up does not translate directly into full ring play; what it does do is accustom you to seeing and playing a lot of flops, turns, and rivers.  Because you must to survive heads up.  And survival is a mighty good teacher.  Like a friend of mine who joined the Navy with no skills and no prospects told me when he got out trained and ready for good paying work: "It's amazing what you can learn when you have to do twenty push-ups every time you screw it up."

If you have no experience in heads up play, certainly don't play at your normal limits when you first try it.  You're here to learn, and you may pay for your education, but you shouldn't have to pay too much.  Play low, but play seriously.

After you put in some time at the heads up tables, you should be more comfortable playing further into hands and making the right moves late with confidence. 

Suggested Reading:

Harrington on Holdem Vol II---Harrington's chapter on heads up play is the best I've seen on the subject.