Exploring different “go” strategies in Texas Hold’em

Bob
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Posted on: June 22, 2020 5:30 pm EDT

Understanding how to make different moves is important to increasing the poker success rate

Considering that Sit-and-Gos and MTTs of Texas Hold’em rely so much on push/fold strategy, fold equity becomes extremely important for a successful play. That’s not the case during preflop where you won’t have any fold equity, so going all-in is not the best of options. Another strategy that can be used while playing preflop is the “go” play. These interventions can maximize the little fold equity you might have by shoving all it postflop instead of preflop.

There are different go strategies to try out that serve as tips when facing a tournament. First is the stop and go play, which is probably the most common and well-known. This strategy is used when you have everything in your favor – a good hand to open shove with, fold equity – but someone opens the pot before you and now you have to act. This means that, if you were to re-shove, you wouldn’t have any fold equity left. So, this stop and go means that you will just call the during preflop and then you shove it all in when the flop is dealt.

Another strategy is limp and go, which is recommended when you are the first one to act and you have no fold equity.
In this case, you still want to shove it all in during preflop. You can do this when you have around five big blinds or less; the only thing you need to do is open limp preflop and then on the flop, you open shove.

The third strategy is Go and Go, which can be used when having over ten big blinds. In this case, the hand you have is not worth shoving; however, some value can be extracted. These are combinations like AK and KQ suited or medium poker pairs. The strategy is to raise preflop and, when the flop comes, you go all-in.