Coaching From Chris Moneymaker
As part of the Arlie Shaban Challenge, Arlie had to cash in a HORSE tournament. HORSE is an acronym for the mixed games (H)old’em, (O)maha/8 or better, (R)azz, (S)tud high, and stud (E)ight or better, all played with fixed limit betting. It’s a nice change of pace from the traditional No Limit Hold’em, requiring different skill sets and some measure of proficiency with different games in order to succeed. To that end, Arlie received some coaching recently from Team Pro Chris Moneymaker to help improve his HORSE game. Let’s take a look at a few of the hands below.
In the first hand at 5:17 in the video, from the Stud high round, Chris does a nice job explaining how opponents up cards and our own cards correlate to each other to both enhance our understanding of our prospects in the hand, as well as aid in our read of our opponent’s hand strength.
At 12:13 in the video Chris and Arlie start discussing a stud/8 hand where Arlie makes a tight fold with (76)A, where Chris advocates he would raise or reraise in this spot, and discusses nicely how the opponents up cards and actions relate to their probable holdings, and how that impacts the strength of our own hand.
At 15:50 begins another Stud hi/low hand were we have a king in the door (our first up card) and A4 in the hole, and there are 2 opponents with aces in their doors. Chris explains why this hand for him is a raise or fold situation from the deal, and discusses nicely how our and strength relates to our opponents up cards towards the high end of the pot, while our hidden A4 provides some disguised low potential as well.
20:10 sees a limit hold’em hand that provides a great opportunity for Chris to talk about the perils of slow playing on coordinated boards and the reasons we simply want to value bet our good hands for value in fixed limit games.
Chris touches on razz next at 28:22 in the video with a very nice explanation about up how the up cards impact this game and how to proceed based on opponent actions, even though we have a bad card hidden in the hole.
At the 42:36 mark, we see the results of a hand Arlie overplayed, and Chris takes the opportunity to point out a very important concept in Stud games… when our strength is face up on the board and not hidden in our hole cards, and our opponents still want to fire at us despite seeing our strength in all its glory, that should be a big warning sign to us.
At 1:02:13 We see a very strong starting hand in Omaha/8 that Chris feels people often misplay, and he briefly explains why with some great food for thought.
Finally we close at 1:06:39 with another spot in razz, where we have high card behind us and a potentially wide opener in front, and although we only have 2 cards to a low, Chris explains why this is a great opportunity to start with a re-raise after the bring in is completed.
All in all, a very nice coaching session on HORSE, with many nuggets and pearls of wisdom from Team Pro Chris Moneymaker that all players will find helpful.