How to decide in close spots at the poker table

Is a hand close between call and fold? Dara O'Kearney has a heuristic to make your decision much easier.

Last week I was talking to a student and shared a tip on how to decide when a decision is really close, between call or fold, or call or raise, or even raise or fold.

This came after a question from a member who made what he felt was a tight preflop fold with pocket jacks with a lot of action before him.

I ended up agreeing with his fold and shared the following advice for the future.

In these close spots, I ask myself how I would feel if I had the next strongest or weakest hand.

Using nearby hands to guide decisions

In this particular spot, pocket tens felt like a snap fold.

Crucially, though, pocket queens did not feel like a snap call. It was a "meh, call" at best.

For that reason, through this lens, pocket jacks suddenly felt like a much easier fold.

It could, of course, go the other way. If pocket tens seemed close too, and pocket queens felt like a "hell yeah" then maybe pocket jacks was too.

If you are a studied player, you'll usually have a strong instinct for the hand one pip below and one pip above your current holding. Let that be your guide in tricky spots like this.

You can get Dara's free book on effective poker study by joining his mailing list.