Monsters are Your Friends

By: Nick Laurrell

Poker doesn't have to be a heart attack game. You wouldn't know it from watching most of the new crop of ultra-aggressive Internet players, but you can make money playing poker by never playing anything less than 2 pair after the flop. It takes a lot of patience, but here's how you become a monster farmer.

Forget About Who is at your Table: It really pains me to say this, but if you're in the monster farming game, you don't have to pay too much attention to who is at your table. I mean yes, the more you know about your opponent, the better it will be for your game. But the presupposition behind mining for monsters is that you are having a tough time reading your opponents or just don't feel like paying attention. Mining for monsters is a lot like fishing - you get yourself a spot, throw out your line every once in a while and wait.

Calling the Last Bet: When you are monster hunting you want to do a good bit of calling pre-flop, especially when you are a blind or in late position. You want to call from those positions because there are less players to act after you who could raise. Basically, you're looking to build a big pot and then get lucky. So the trick is to minimize your risk while you build up the pot. One easy way to eliminate risk is to wait for spots when you are the last one to call because there is no risk of a re-raise.

The Right Hands: Farming for monsters necessitates a different sort of hand selection than you might be used to. First of all, all pairs are good from deuces to Aces - all pairs are good pre-flop. After the flop, you are only playing over-pairs and sets, but we'll get to that in a moment. All suited Aces or Kings are good, from Ace-deuce to Big Slick to King-trey - high flush farming is encouraged. Of course you want to be really careful getting involved from early position with those K-7 types and generally should shy away. All connectors are good, from 2-4 to Q-J. They do not have to be suited. Again, don't go calling a bet with 5-7 under the gun, but if you can get involved by calling a reasonable bet from the big blind then do it.

The Family Pot: Nothing warms the heart of the monster farmer like a family pot. Why? Because the pot odds are astronomical. I'm not going to get into pot odds right now because they are way too in depth (put link here) but the short and long of it is that by getting involved in pots with a lot of people, there is more money in the pot. More money in the pot means more money for you to win. The blossoming family pot is an exception to the position rule - if you are in middle position and the first three people have all called, then you can call too (provided that you have a good monster hunting hand.)

Identifying Monsters: So you've made it to the flop with 8-9 and it came 10-J-Q, have you flopped a monster? No, you have flopped a sucker straight and should be willing to fold your hand with relative ease. Monsters are hands that are either the Nuts, likely to become the Nuts or very strong on boards without draws. An example of a very strong hand on a board without a draw would be holding pocket fours on a board that read 4H 9S AD. There are no real flush draws, no real straight draws, nothing but single cards to play off of. When playing monster pot poker, you rarely want to bet out even if you've flopped something strong like a flush draw. You really want to minimize all risk so you only want to bet on things that you already have. If you want to play especially cautious monster pot poker, no flush draw below a Queen should be followed. If the board pairs, you should be out unless you have an over-pair to make two pair or something stronger.

The Trap: Once you have made your monster, sit on it. By the time you have successfully made a monster, you have probably done so much folding that everyone at the table expects to push you around. So let them try and push, then take all of their money.

Patience: You have to see a whole lot of cards before you flop something really powerful. When looking for the right table to farm for monsters, you want to find a pot limit table. Pot limit is perfect for monster farming because its structure creates a slow build in pots but at the same time allows for a high ceiling. If you can't find pot limit, then look for a game where you can buy in for at least 70 times the big blind - you need to have a deep stack to be a monster farmer. You also should not go monster farming in a tournament, this is a cash game strategy. If you find that you like monster farming then you might want to check out Omaha. Omaha is really the arena of the monster farmer. Just remember above all else that if patience is a virtue, then it takes a saint to be a monster farmer.

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