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The Gap Concept was introduced by David Sklansky in his book Tournament Poker for Advanced Players. The basic idea is simply this: a pot is opened in front of you by a solid player who has a reliable opening hand. You have a hand which is a minimum opening hand for your position. Should you call? The Gap concept says no. In fact, you need a much stronger hand than a minimum opening hand to call as your opponent opened in an early position and he did not necessarily open with his minimum hand. He probably opened with a hand that, on average, was halfway between his best hand and his minimum hand. The distance between the hand you actually need and the minimum hand for his position is what Sklansky termed “the Gap”.

In the last email we discussed this Gap Concept. This week’s sample hand shows us that for hands which benefit from the massive implied odds present in deep stack poker, the Gap Concept does not apply.

Click here to go through the sample hand.

WPT

We will send players to the WPT North American Poker Championships in October. Packages are worth USD 12,000. That includes your Tournament buy-in (USD 10,300) and USD 1,700 cash for your accommodation and travel expenses.

Sunday Satellites are at 8pm ET, buy-in is USD 200+15. There are daily cash and gold card satellites and a Sunday WPT semifinal at 5:30 ET where the buy-in is USD 38+2.

Package dates are 10th October to 16th October 2008.

Situation: Medium stakes online game. Players A and C seem loose-aggressive. Player D is tight. Your hand is Ts, 9s.

Action to you: Player A raises to $20. Player B folds. Player C and D call. Players E and F fold. The pot is now $69.

Do you fold, call, or raise?

Answer: Medium suited connectors on the button are a nice hand to play in a multi-way pot, even if you have to call a raise. You have position throughout the hand and a better than normal chance of being paid if you can hit your hand. Calling a raise is more expensive than coming in after some limpers, but the extra action indicates your implied odds in the hand are better than normal. Implied odds simply mean the relationship between the amount in the pot and the amount that you expect to win from your opponent(s) should you hit your hand and the bets required to play the hand.

Action: You call $20. The small blind folds and the big blind calls $14. The pot is now $103, and there are four other players in the pot with you.

Flop: Qs, 8s, 7c

Action: The big blind checks. Player A bets $60. Player C folds. Player D calls $60. The pot is now $223.

What do you do?

You have an immense draw, with 15 outs: the last nine spades, plus three more jacks and three more sixes. If you raise, you will have some reasonable but hard to quantify fold equity, and if you are called you’ll be an actual favorite against some hands and only a slight underdog to others.

For instance, here’s how you would stand in a heads-up confrontation against some possible hands.

As, Ah – you’re a 52-to-48 favorite.
Qc, Qd – you’re a 42-to-58 underdog.
As, Ks – you’re a 38-to-62 underdog.

Two callers would spoil the odds considerably, although you can’t assume that would be the case from the betting so far. Against a combination of As, Ah and Qc, Qd, you’d be a 38% to win, with the other 62% divided 54-to-8 in favor of the set of queens. You should push all-in with a great semi-bluff ensuring that you’ll see the last two cards.

Action: You push all-in for $600. The big blind folds. Player A calls $540. Player D folds. The turn and river are Jc and 2d. Player A turns over the Ac, Ad, and your straight wins the pot.

To re-read the poker tips from previous emails click here

Source: Robertie, B. and Harrington D. (2008) Harrington on Cash Games Vol. 1, Nevada, Two Plus Two Publishing LLC.

Congratulations to Alexander H for winning last week's chips. Play poker in the next 24 hours and stand a chance to win a free entry to any Gold Chip Lover (10 chips) Sit 'n Go. All players that play cash games will be entered into a draw and the winner will receive the free entry. Shuffle up and deal!