JC Alvarado

Team PokerStars Pro JC Alvarado was born in Mexico, but as a child moved to Texas with his mother. Eventually deciding to head to California for college, Alvarado majored in cinematography – and minored in poker. Initially just playing with friends, Alvarado slowly began to take more of an interest in the game, began studying and eventually moved to Las Vegas to play poker professionally.

His tournament results are rather impressive, with multiple big finishes at World Poker Tour events, including a second at the $5,000 World Poker Challenge main event for $366,798. He also has five cashes in WSOP events, including a fifth-place finish at the $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em event in 2009. Last spring Alvarado also showed he was a force online when he took down the $1,000 Spring Championship of Online Poker for $502,086. He answers readers’ questions this month.  

How do you know when it is worth it to take the risk bubbling in tournaments? How important is it to cash? I just don’t know how to adjust my play on the bubble.– Edward, Pennsylvania
 

Well, online it doesn’t really matter because the bubble lasts one hand, but live you can really take advantage of people. It’s not hard to tell who wants to make the money and who doesn’t care, so if you have the stack to bully people around, you should. Once the bubble approaches you can start to hear conversations around the table where people start joking about how much they’re going to fold and all that, so I usually reraise those guys every time from then till the bubble bursts.    

In low-limit live cash games it seems like people raise way more than three to five times the big blind. Is this what I should be doing as well? What is a good amount?– Mark, Maryland
 

Raising to 4x and 5x is good. The reason people raise more is because it’s deeper stacked and there are more players per flop usually. 

In tournaments, when late position players raise and I have hands like A-Q or K-Q suited, A-J, etc., I’m not sure whether to call, raise or fold. How do you play these different hands and what factors determine what you do? I know this is situation specific, but just a general idea would help.        – James from Spotlight 29

 If I have fewer than 40 big blinds, these are hands that I’ll be making a small three-bet with and will call an all-in shove. If I have fewer than 25 big blinds, I just shove. 

Well, it depends…you have to know when you can get away with a float, but generally I think you should be able to steal float pots 25 percent of the time. You can get away with floating two but definitely not three or more players, and usually I just float the passive players. Floating can give you a really good image at the table, too. My whole game is: “JC Alvarado never has nothing, he’s floating every pot,” so when I get a hand I can take advantage of that.

I understand that I probably should have specific examples here, but I think that you CAN generalize this concept, which is, how many big blinds before you get to the point of having to shove with any two cards. I have had advice that ranges from “shove with 12 big blinds” to “wait till five big blinds.” Assuming it has been folded to me in middle position, at what point should I be shoving? Twelve big blinds seems to be unnecessary, five big blinds seems to be too low and at the point where a double-up really doesn’t matter anymore. So what should the amount be?– Soboba Sam, California
 

The only difference between shoving 12 big blinds and five big blinds is that you can be a tiny bit more selective because you can survive the blinds with 12 big blinds but not with five. I don’t think you should ever be limping or raise/folding with 12 big blinds.

What factors should affect the amount that I am raising preflop? Hands? Position? Number of limpers? What factors should I be considering and what amount should my raise change by due to said factors?– Nitty in Nevada 

I think just limpers and stack sizes. In a tourney if you have 100 big blinds, you can raise to however much you like, min-raising or 3x (three times the big blind) doesn’t make much of a difference, but with 30 big blinds you should raise a little less. In cash games, limpers get me to raise five times so I can isolate them and play a big pot in position.  

No, I think you should never really be limping behind unless you’re in a really awkward spot, such as when the under-the-gun player limps with 40 big blinds and you have 50 big blinds in the UTG+1 seat – then you can be pretty sure no one will raise behind and you can get more people to limp in and try to hit your set. Usually though, I just raise or fold. 
 

When playing cash games, is it OK to play short-stacked? How do you determine the amount you buy in for?– Happy in Boynton Beach, Florida

A lot of people make a lot of money buying in for 20 big blinds in cash games. I know nothing about how to play a short stack, though.
 

When playing short-handed, how should your strategy change? Should you loosen up a lot? What if the table is playing pretty loose? Please, some advice on playing six-handed.   – Short Shrift, Commerce Casino
 

You have to be much more aggressive: three-bet lighter (with a wider range of hands), four-bet bluff, and play your hands really well post-flop. It’s best to play your big pots in position and play tighter from the blinds.