Poker pearl #3

Playing in a tournament, you are in the big blind holding
♥A ♦K. An early position player calls (or makes a small raise), and everyone else folds around to you. You now raise to three times the big blind, right? Whoa, not so fast.

The current (November 2008) issue of Bluff magazine has a column by Eric "Rizen" Lynch titled: "The Art of Pre-flop Deception." Here's what he says:

  Another example of deception is when you have
  A-K off-suit out of the blinds. (This hand)
  plays  best heads up, but if there is a
  single raiser and no callers, I will often
  just smooth call. When you do this, your
  hand becomes massively underrepresented
  and you can win large pots when you flop
  a hand and your opponent is dominated.

  (If) you reraise here your hand becomes
  perfectly represented, and you are out
  of position. Generally, I dislike playing
  hands in such a way (when I'm) out of
  position where my hand is pretty much
  face up and there is still a lot of
  money behind.

Poker: there's so much to think about.