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Texas Holdem small ball play

The idea of small ball first came to pass some years ago but the concept of keeping pots small has always been with us to a certain extent, it is just that the terminology is different these days. Terms like “floating”… “donk bet”….. “three betting” and “small ball” are just a few new phrases that have hit the poker world of late. The term small ball refers to keeping the pot small. However there are certain situations when small ball can be ruthlessly exploited and this was the basis of the book by Blair Rodman and Lee Nelson a few years ago called “Kill Phil”.

This book was basically an exploitative strategy of small ball tactics. So if small ball can be exploited then what is the purpose of it? Firstly if you have superior skill to your opponent post flop then you ideally want to play flops with them. The well known tournament pro and 2010 World Championship finalist Michael Mizrachi is a big believer in using smaller raises pre-flop because he simply wants to play pots with weaker players rather than drive them away.

Now obviously this only applies in deep stacked situations and short stack merchants are big exponents of what is known as “long ball”. A few years ago players like Prahlad Freidman were some of the first online players to initiate super LAG type play and be very successful with it. However this has extreme variance attached to it and so is certainly not suitable for most players who play the game. I have tried this style a few times with very good success but the problem is that it simply does not suit my risk profile.

I very much like to play as many tables as I can these days at levels like NL50 and NL100 but my normal style these days is in no relation to my style last year for example. I play far more small ball now simply because my opponents are far more likely to make post flop errors. So I feel that I don’t need to press anywhere near as often when I play at these levels. However I found that whenever I played more than six tables that I would sooner or later get myself into post flop trouble by big pots converging at key points where I wasn’t concentrating as well as I should have.

I then found that when I switched to small ball that I wasn’t getting myself into trouble anywhere near as often and I was also finding that I was getting value from getting into more situations where my opponents were making errors and not me. This is not the best way to play poker because in my opinion there is no best way. In my experience the best way to play holdem poker is a style that suits you personally in your own individual situation. So small ball can be effective but it can also be exploited as well and so I feel that the style works better against players who do not try to actively exploit it.