Who needs a big hand?

My last three poker sessions--two at the Palms and one at the Rio--have been fairly remarkable for the absence of big hands. I did win one big pot with a full house (though the smallest full house possible: deuces full of treys), but other than that I haven't had so much as a stinkin' flush.

I have hit two straights, and in each case managed to stack an opponent. Last night I held the nuts: Q-9 with a board of 3-7-8-10-J, and a guy holding 8-9 moved all in on me. OK, well, I guess I'll call! Monday night at the Rio I made a wonderfully disguised straight holding a 5-7 and took all the chips of a guy who had flopped a set and slow-played it.

Last night I felted another guy when my A-A nicely matched the flop of A-10-8. I made a healthy bet at it and was surprised when somebody moved all in on me. OK, well, again, since I have the nuts, I guess I'll call! He had A-10 for top two pair. Ouch. (By the way, that's the only set I've hit in these three sessions.)

For the most part, it's been working about like this: The standard premuim hands win me small pots, mostly because the table recognizes that I'm playing tight and solid, and a continuation bet on the flop is usually enough to take it down. Those small pots don't add up to much profit, but they do compensate for the aborted hands--the ones in which I have position and call a pre-flop raise, but then have to abandon ship when I don't improve.

The big profit is coming from the small hands--and I mean that in two senses. First, as I've said, I have had a strange absence of big made hands: full houses, flushes, etc. Second, it's the sneaky, tricky, little cards that nobody at the table suspects I would be playing that have pulled in the big pots. 2-3 making a full house. 5-7 making a straight. Another 5-7 the same night making two pair to crack an opponent's big pocket pair. A 5-6 in that same session hitting trips (a 5 on the flop and another on the turn) to take down a player who couldn't get away from top pair/top kicker.

A little more profit has come my way from picking off two bluffs with a single pair.

Then there have been the two occasions that I raked in the chips in the most satisfying way: with the worst hand, an intimidating table image, and a well-timed big bet. The second of these was last night, against the guy who had earlier lost everything when I had the queen-high straight. This time I missed my straight draw, but hit him with an all-in check-raise on the river. Our earlier confrontation obviously did a Jedi mind trick on him, and he very reluctantly folded. On the first occasion, I wrongly thought I had the best hand. The loose-aggressive guy to my right made a continuation bet on an 8-high flop. I had 5-8 in my hand, and thought it was likely to be good, so made a big raise. He mucked Q-8 face up in a hurry. I showed him my own 8, but kept the other one hidden, and flashed him a grin. He confidently said to his buddy across the table, "I was beat. No way this guy calls a raise before the flop with anything worse than an A-8." Hee hee hee!

At a few points along the way, I have quietly bemoaned my relative inability to hit my flush draws and straight draws. (Let's face it: Two straights, zero flushes, one set, and one full house in nine hours of poker is a true drought of intrinsically strong hands.) But then I look at my spreadsheet and see that I've been averaging $85/hour this week (well above my norm), and realize that such complaints are being atrociously petty. In the end, the absolute strength of one's hand isn't what matters--it's the relative strength against whatever one's opponents are holding. Bottom two pair is pretty trashy, but it's pure gold against unimproved pocket aces.

Very early in trying to learn about poker, I heard the oft-repeated notion that what really separates good players from the not-so-good isn't how much they win when they have the best hand, but how little they lose when they have the second-best hand. I pooh-poohed that as being the sort of tired refrain that people comfort themselves with. But the more I play this game, the more fervently I believe it to be true.

We all get a little rush from seeing the board bring us a full house or the nut flush. They look so pretty. They make us feel like we deserve a big pot to go along with them. But the biggest money-making tool in the toolbox remains the ability to push the second-best cards back to the dealer.