The Poker Snowball Effect - Avoid This
The "snowball effect" in poker is a term I use to refer to bad decisions made before the flop which get exacerbated later on in the hand.
Most people have no idea how much these little mistakes at the top of the hill (preflop) can snowball out of control after the flop and literally wipe out all of their winnings completely. This is why it is so incredibly important that you have some sort of "system" in place so that you know exactly which hands you are going to play from each position.
For example, whether you play 6-max. or full ring, you should know by memory exactly which hands you will play from early position, middle position, late position and the blinds. This also includes being ready for all scenarios that might occur before you have a chance to act such as limpers, a raise, or even a three-bet.
Most people don't to this work, and just sort of "wing it" instead. The problem with this approach is that you end up getting yourself into all sorts of ugly situations after the flop. This is especially the case if you decide to play a bunch of speculative hands from the early position seats.
The video below illustrates this point perfectly. I review a hand played at the micros that a viewer sent to me in which he decided to limp a small suited ace from early position. And as the hand plays out, you can really see why this was a poor decision:
As you see, he ends up getting into some ugly spots where he sort of hit the board a little bit, but he has to play the entire hand out of position with no idea where he is at. This leads to spewy calls and eventually a fold when the action gets too heavy.
This is the kind of stuff that absolutely destroys your winnings in poker. You might not think it is a big deal to get "fancy" and throw in with a small suited ace from early position once in a while. But poker is a game of inches these days, and you cannot afford to be throwing away a few big blinds here and there with loose undisciplined calls and expect to win big over the long haul.
The smart money instead was in recognizing we can't expect to win by limping a hand like this in early position. Therefore, the most "profitable" play in this hand would have been to simply fold before the flop.
Make sure that you are making the correct preflop decisions in your poker games so that you don't create this snowball effect leading you to ugly spots and spewy calls. Many bad situations in poker can be avoided entirely by simply making better decisions at the top of the mountain.
Links mentioned in the video:
Nathan "BlackRain79" Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes, Modern Small Stakes, and The Microstakes Playbook. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at blackrain79.
