I am resuming lessons on a somewhat curtailed schedule (no more than one hour per lesson, right now only two per week), though I hope to ramp that up a bit. I am starting with people I had scheduled and cancelled previously, so I doubt if I will get to new students for about 3-4 weeks.

Let’s talk a bit about second best hands. Poker authors like to talk about best hands, but second best hands are of great interest to poker players. Here are some thoughts on the subject:

In No Limit, second best hands are absolutely critical. In fact, you can say that NL is a game of second best hands. If you accept the premise that the most important hands in NL are the ones in which all of the money of two players get into the center, then most of your time at the NL table will be spent a) waiting for a best hand in which someone will have a second best hand they wish to bet or call all of their chips on, b) developing your image such that people will be willing to believe their second best hand may be best, and c) avoiding being a victim of “a.”

In short-stack NL, this premise is incorrect, since you are simply waiting for a good hand and trying to shove your chips in because you rate to have the best of it. In deep stack NL, avoiding making second best hands is critical, and keeping the pot small with potential second best hands like top-pair-top-kicker and overpairs is so important. It is OK to lose money with these hands when you must, but not OK to lose your (deep) stack.

Even in limit, to make real money on a hand, you have to find someone who will pay you off. Obviously because of the pot odds, this is more likely than in NL. One of the reasons to raise preflop with a hand like A-K is when aces and kings flop, nobody has overcards and therefore will fold rather than chase. While it may feel good to flop A-2-2 when you have A-A, it is a tough sell to make much money in most games. 9-2-2 would be a much better flop, even though you will now lose to a deuce if someone has it. Players with hands like K-Q will chase drawing nearly dead, and have decent chances to make second best hands.

One of the reasons I bring this up was brief comment regarding pokerstove. Knowing how often your hand will be good is very important, but determining how much money you will makeif your hand is good compared to how much you will lose when it is second best is an even more important calculation that no porgram will do for you as far as I know.