Before providing you with a sample, I would like to give you a brief history of career as a poker writer. I have been writing on over 5 poker strategy websites for the past year. I have a poker CV that can be forwarded. I am assuming you require at least 20 articles, I have therefore bid $100 for the project. I am willing to do each article of 500+ words for $3-$10. I currently have about 20 strategy articles, that are fully original and have never been posted online. The following is a sample of an article on raising and playing big pairs:
Article:
Two essential aspects of playing big pairs, that will drastically affect your bottom line at years end, are knowing the expected value pre-flop against your opponents range and developing the ability to read the texture of the flop. Let's first look at our expected value pre-flop against our opponents range.
This ability requires us to be able to observe each opponent throughout the game; studying what each player calls with in and out of position, what each player is willing to re-raise with, what hands each player is willing to call or move all-in with, as well as the overall styles of our opponent, aggressive or conservative. Once we know what type of opponent we are up against, we can narrow his range of hands down. For instance, if you are facing a player such as Chris Ferguson, who is very conservative, and he has just re-raised your 4xBB bet pre-flop we can put him on a range of probably AK,TT+. Now, assuming we have JJ, our expected value pre-flop against this is 43%. This means if we played hundreds of hands all-in pre-flop against this range we would win 43% of the time. Knowing this, we can factor in pot odds to determine how to proceed in the hand. In this particular case, against our tight opponent, if we are getting the right price to call pre-flop, we should call and then re-evaluate depending on the texture of the flop.
So now that we know how to put our opponents on a specific range of hands that helps to determine our long term expected value with big pairs in certain situations, let's look at how to evaluate on the flop. The ability to read the texture of the flop is something that separates the world's best players from the amateurs. Going back to our example, we know we are a slight underdog in the long term with the JJ in this spot, but let's reevaluate our situations on two different flops.
First Flop: 6 2 9 rainbow. To the untrained eye this might seem like a perfect flop for pocket jacks and if this hand wasn't re-raised pre-flop by a tight player it probably would have been. However, going back to our range, this flop gives us an equity of 47%. Meaning just under half the time we will lose the hand. This statistic, is slightly skewed however, as if we were to move all-in on this flop, we are most likely only getting called by TT-AA. This means we are going to be beaten 60% of the time we get called. The ideal play here, depending on position is to bet about 3/4 to the full pot size. This amount should force our tight opponent to fold AK and most likely only call with TT, fearing you may have a bigger pair. If we are raised big in this situation it is very likely that we are beaten and unless you have a read should fold.
Second Flop: A 2 7 rainbow. Most players that are in our position immediately shut down when the A hits, but let's look at the hand in a bit more detail. The A obviously gives AK and AA and dominant position against us, however, it's not such a bad card if our opponent holds TT-KK. Unless our opponent has shown the ability to slowplay and get tricky in these situations, we should almost always assume that a bet means he has hit and a check is an underpair. This gives us a great opportunity to take down the pot. If your opponent checks to you on this flop, you should bet 3/4 to the full pot. An opponent with TT-QQ will certainly fold, if you opponent is stubborn, he may call with KK, but if he's as tight as our read he will fold. The texture of this flop allows us to take down a decent sized pot, without risking our stack.
It is essential that you develop the ability to read your opponent, as well as the texture of the board in order to determine the correct play. Against two very different opponents we may play the exact same board completely differently, based on our opponents range of possible hands. Learning to develop this range of opponents and combine this to make the correct play will give you a significant increase in your profit at years end.
