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Server Time: 11/23/2008 5:07:54 AM PACIFIC |
 Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Caldazar, 6. Nov 2003 20:34 | ||
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| Hi all, If this topic has been done before, my apologies. (a link to the thread would be appreciated). I play primarily low-limit holdem and the games are your typical slightly-loose and way-too-passive fare. So tight, aggressive play, while perhaps not necessarily optimal for squeezing out every last penny, should be a decent winning strategy. Tight, I have no problems with; betting up your pocket aces is likely to win you a bit of money in the long run as long as you pay attention and 72o is likely a long-term loser. However, just from the tables I've been playing at, aggressive strategies seem to do poorly against loose, passive tables. Time and time again, the aggressive players experience bad flops, bad beats, and all manner of losses from players whose mantras seem to be "any two cards can win." Bad beats are okay in theory since if people continually take long-shot draws against your good hands, they're going to lose money in the long run. However, when you have three or four players consistently taking long-shot draws against you, your variance shoots through the roof as you get beat time and time again. Again, not so bad as long as you're playing with the proper bankroll. But the thing that strikes me is that when you aggressively bet (and the thing I'm suspecting may be the cause of some of the problems with aggressive play at my tables) is that when you bet aggressively, for instance, you give away a lot of information. You're announcing that you have a hand. Opponents know you're not likely to be bluffing at a loose, passive table; there's likely going to be someone around to call you. So you raise pre-flop because you have something decent, and a couple people get knocked out, but the three or four players that call you now have an advantage in information over you; they know you have something whereas you have no clue what they have (they'll call any old long shot or better hand, after all). Further raising doesn't get you any useful information; they'll call that too. It's what loose, passive players do, check and call to the river. It gets worse because now if they see the flop and nothing even remotely decent pops up, they're going to fold because they automatically assume you have a good hand and you only pick up a small pot. But if they have anything (or if they had something pre-flop but weren't betting it up), your opponents won't raise back into you; they'll just check and call. So what are you to do? You can't check and call to the river too, you have a good hand and need to make some money off of it. But you have no idea what you're up against since them calling your bet doesn't mean a thing except a bigger pot, making some former long-shot draws now reasonable plays due to the better pot odds. So you bet and everyone calls all the way to the river when you finally get check-raised by the guy that was check-calling his set of twos since the flop. I've been trying out a slightly different strategy of late at loose, passive tables; I'm playing follow-the-limper. No matter what I have pre-flop, I check and call if I want to play; I never raise (of course I still fold my junk). Same deal on the flop unless I think I can win the pot then and there; usually someone will call, though, so I don't bother unless I feel there's a serious threat that someone will draw out on me. Then I go for a check-raise on the turn or river because by then someone else will have decided that everyone's weak and make a bet. Essentially, I slow-play everything on the basis that my hands, on average, are likely to be better than those of my looser opponents. Even if I check on the flop and call on the turn, no one usually suspects a thing; that's how people generally play at a loose, passive table and I'm just another player. True, by making my move later, I give up some money; now my pocket aces are going to be beat sometimes by the yahoo that called pre-flop and made two pair sevens and twos on the flop; someone's going to get lucky on the turn by seeing a cheap or even totally free card. But in exchange for this lost income, no one knows what I'm holding and I can try to make it back through betting on the turn and river when the betting increments are larger anyway. Add to this that eventually people notice my check-raises and understand that I'm a bit tight, and even when my opponents land a potentially second best hand, they'll be much less likely to want to bet out, buying me some cheap or free cards when I'm on draws. Thoughts? Is this a losing strategy? Is more standard aggressive play still preferable? I seriously feel that playing aggressively pre-flop and on the flop (but especially pre-flop) is a recipe for disaster since it gives away too much information to loose, passive opponents without obtaining any useful information in return. Let someone else reveal the strength of their hand by acting first, and then I'll decide what I want to do; that's what I'm thinking. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Mark Gregorich, 6. Nov 2003 22:25 | ||
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| You are assuming that loose, passive, low limit players are actually paying attention to the game and realize that you are a tight, aggressive player. True in some cases I'm sure, but lots of these players are probably only paying attention to their own cards. I still like playing aggressively, but you must use discretion. If you know that 7 people will see the flop, then raise with hands that don't mind this many opponents. I would still raise with your big pairs, but hands such as AQ offsuit are probably only worth a limp, as they don't play well against this many opponents. Big suited cards, however, increase in value in this type of game, so these types of hands may be worth raising preflop. After the flop, you can stay aggressive when you feel you have the best hand, but you sometimes must play more creatively in an attempt to protect your hand. For example, you may need to checkraise to force your opponents to call 2 bets cold to stay in. Or, you might need to just call a bet on the flop, so you can raise the turn and force your opponents to call 2 big bets cold. If you miss the flop, don't throw more bets in the pot. You don't have to take one off with AK suited when the flop is 67T rainbow and there are 6 players in - its likely that even if you do spike an ace or king your hand won't be any good. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't raise with it before the flop - you'll win enough big pots in these games with this hand to show a nice profit. Yes, you will get drawn out on more, but the pots you win will be bigger. Mark | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Caldazar, 7. Nov 2003 01:27 | ||
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| Thanks for the input. > After the flop, you can stay aggressive when you feel you have the best hand, but > you sometimes must play more creatively in an attempt to protect your hand. For > example, you may need to checkraise to force your opponents to call 2 bets cold to > stay in. Or, you might need to just call a bet on the flop, so you can raise the > turn and force your opponents to call 2 big bets cold. Right. This is usually my philosophy on knocking people out, no one will be scared off by a single bet so I need to check-raise. But even in this situation, two small bets will not usually scare anyone off either unless the initial bettor is immediately to my right because by the time I can put in a raise, a couple of people will have already called the initial bet and so will call my raise too. The people who have yet to call any bets understand this and so they're justified in calling two bets on the flop too because of the decent implied odds. (Okay, so maybe they only understand that they have any old draw sitting in front of them, but that doesn't necessarily make their play any less correct if there are that many callers). It usually takes two big bets on the turn to do it. That's an awful lot of free and cheap cards I'm allowing if I'm just checking and calling on the flop. This in turn makes me question the usefulness of raising big pairs pre-flop when I know 4-6 players will always still see the flop and probably at least the turn as well even in the face of a pre-flop raise. > If you miss the flop, don't throw more bets in the pot. You don't have to take one > off with AK suited when the flop is 67T rainbow and there are 6 players in - its > likely that even if you do spike an ace or king your hand won't be any good. But > that doesn't mean you shouldn't raise with it before the flop - you'll win enough big > pots in these games with this hand to show a nice profit. Yes, you will get drawn > out on more, but the pots you win will be bigger. I'm not necessarily sure that the pots will be that much bigger. Yes, many players don't see past the two cards in front of them, but at loose, passive tables, raises are few and far between, something out of the ordinary. Even the most dense player will notice a pre-flop raise and take note to be careful of you on that hand; they'll call the raise tossed in front of them, but then they do tighten up (a little) later in the hand. When the flop comes, they'll make the assumption that I have big cards, and now we're back to the situation where I'm staring at 4-6 opponents who pretty much know what I'm holding and I have absolutely no clue what they have (because they call everything and raise almost nothing). So how am I supposed to figure out whether or not I have a decent hand? I've tried mixing it up by raising medium pairs and medium suited connectors once in awhile, but people don't seem to be that observant. Every time I raise, they assume I have what other people at the table would raise on, big pairs, big connectors, big suited cards, Axs, Kxs, and big offsuit cards. Which is great for me when I finally flop a set of 8s, but I can't exactly count on that all the time. Basically what I do not want to do is make other people pay attention and take notice of me. I want people to stay loose and passive because that makes them very predictable and easy to play against. I want to blend in, be just another loose, passive player tossing in his chips until I check-raise on the turn with a good hand and it's too late for people to get out. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Rich P., 7. Nov 2003 00:30 | ||
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| Just tonight I learned something new, or got a better understanding of what some poker writers have mentioned, which I think will help you. Take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses. In a loose passive game, players tend to call too much and not bet enough. Take advantage of this, but don't start making the same mistakes they do. In a loose passive game, play a lot more hands out of position. In other words, loosen up; but still raise preflop with your premium hands, especially those that play well mutli-way. I would still raise with AQ as it is likely to be the best hand on the table and you want to take advantage of the fact that they are call too often with substandard hands. That one extra bet pre-flop won't cost you alot in the long run. It will cause at least a few players to fold. If you hit the flop, checkraise to knock players out or just make them pay. If you don't hit, get out. The main point is that their weakness is that they don't raise enough and call too often. Take advantage of that by playing a lot more hands and raising with your good hands. With a little luck, you will hit some flops big. Then you can slow play, but never slowplay pre-flop, especially if you expect callers. There's no reason to slowplay when they will call anyway. I think you are right that a tight-aggressive style isn't optimal for this type of game, but it's not the aggressiveness that you have to tame so must as it is the tightness. Loosen up! Hopefully you will hit some flops big, then you can slow play. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Caldazar, 7. Nov 2003 01:45 | ||
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| Interesting... I am probably slightly too tight; I tend to get bumped out of pots for single bets more often than I'd care for, and I don't play many hands in general. Yes, slow-playing everything pre-flop is a bad idea in itself but it also has the side benefits of limiting the amount of money in the pot and not revealing what cards I'm holding. I can't read what other people are holding anyway unless they raise. They call everything if they see any possibility of a draw or if they hold anything decent at all so their calls mean nothing by themselves, and I figure I might as well level the playing field. The idea is to either make a move by reraising on the flop or make people call bets on the turn when there's a smaller pot so that at least the long-shots aren't justified in calling. Maybe that's the flaw in my reasoning, though; some of these loose, passive players will call based only their cards whether there is $1 in the pot or $50, so whether they are making an awful play or truly horrendous one is of no concern to me; it's the same long-shot draw against me. Still, I can hope some of these players notice and drop out due to the awful odds they're getting. In any case, I'll try loosening slightly, maybe by playing more suited hands, connectors, and suited connectors while retaining a somewhat more aggressive approach. I was getting tired of limping in pre-flop with pocket kings anyway. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Rich P., 7. Nov 2003 09:59 | ||
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| I understand your point, because I've been there. I've tried your strategy. What I learned yesterday is that when they don't raise enough and call too much, you need to be seeing more flops and taking advantage of the opportunity to get lucky. Depending upon how passive they are, play almost any playable hand in any position, and even a few hand that aren't generally playable such as 75o. For example, if you are on the button with a lot of callers, or if you or in the big blind facing a raise but with many callers, go ahead and call with 75o. I realize that you might think this goes against everything the books taught you, but it doesn't. There are a lot of subtlies in the books that we don't pick up on right away. I'm glad you decided to loosen up a bit in a loose passive game. Stay aggressive with those big hands. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Snorbolus, 7. Nov 2003 14:06 | ||
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| Rich P, I must admit that I raised an eyebrow when I got to the part about playing 75o. Although, I do agree with you that, in a game that is very passive before and on the flop, then limping with drawing hands is a good idea. Especially if there are plenty of players who will pay you off when you hit. But what I really want to ask is what happened yesterday to teach you this? As an alternative point of view: one might argue that the more willing to call your bets and raises other players are, the tighter you can afford to play. Why chase those break even EV hands if you can just wait for the really good ones and they will pay you off anyway? One thing that I see a lot of in really loose games is several players spending all night swapping big pots back and forward between each other while the house rakes of 10% each time and every now and again a tight aggressive player takes one down before going back to folding marginal hands and watching all the fun from the sidelines. Snorbolus on 7. Nov 2003 09:59 Rich P. wrote: > I understand your point, because I've been there. I've tried your strategy. What I learned > yesterday is that when they don't raise enough and call too much, you need to be seeing more > flops and taking advantage of the opportunity to get lucky. > > Depending upon how passive they are, play almost any playable hand in any position, and even a > few hand that aren't generally playable such as 75o. For example, if you are on the button > with a lot of callers, or if you or in the big blind facing a raise but with many callers, go > ahead and call with 75o. > > I realize that you might think this goes against everything the books taught you, but it > doesn't. There are a lot of subtlies in the books that we don't pick up on right away. I'm > glad you decided to loosen up a bit in a loose passive game. Stay aggressive with those big > hands. > > | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Rich P., 7. Nov 2003 16:24 | ||
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| What happened yesterday was that it sort of just hit me after I got beat two pots in a row playing aggressively against players who just limped even with big hands. At first I thought they missed bets even though I bet their hand all the way. Then I realized that had they raised me I would have folded, so perhaps they didn't miss any bets and even got an extra bet or two out of me by just calling. Then it hit me. I need to take advantage of their weakness. I think Roy Cooke writes about this occasionally. If players call too much, encourage them to continue to call. I don't think I exactly did that, but I recognized their weakness and sought to take advantage of it. Admittedly, I did get lucky on some flops, but I think my epiphany holds true. Previously, I had been playing 6-12 when suddenly the games seemed to change. I found myself at a table were everyone slowplayed before the flop, possibly because a raise tended to knock everyone out often leaving just the blinds. But if a player called your raise, he almost always had a better hand or could read your hand better as Caldazar was pointing out. You end up winning very small pots and losing the big ones. I started to lose at 6-12 so I kicked myself back down to 3-6 and began to retool my game, again. I started trying to play poker rather than just cards. It worked ok, but then I ran into the passive table last night. I lost two pots and realized that I was doing something wrong. I began to think about how to take advantage of my opponents mistakes, and it just hit be to start playing more hands out of position, hands that I hardly would ever consider playing, and then I started to hit. Well, I made back my sixty back plus an extra 200. I had often sat in a game, playing tighter than anyone else at the table, playing my good hands aggressively, then getting beat. The strategy I'm suggesting applies to tight passive players even more then loose passive players. But it also applies to loose passive players as well. You just have to get out when you are beat. With loose passive players you can play more creatively and aggressively. I hope that answers your question. Thanks for asking. Rich | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, shorn, 7. Nov 2003 07:09 | ||
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| Add two types of hands to your arsenal in loose passive (my favorite type) games: any small pair and middle suited connectors like 87s. These hands can turn into monsters in these games and even better, they are really easy to dump when you miss. I call them "no decison" hands. With a small pair, you will almost always get the 7.5 to 1 you need to call preflop and if you don't hit a set, then muck. Same thing with 87s...no str8 or flush draw or no 2 pair, into the muck they go. You generally never have to make a marginal decision with them on the flop. On the predicament with higher cards and big pairs, I agree with Mark G. on this one. Stay aggressive preflop and checkraise when you think someone will bet for you. Checking and calling is very very rarely a correct strategy in holdem and will turn you into a fish/loser long run. Good luck. Steve | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Caldazar, 7. Nov 2003 14:22 | ||
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| Thanks for all the feedback; it's been really useful. Getting beat by playing big pairs aggressively is what initially sparked this line of thinking as my opponents were basically beating me using this limp-limp-checkraise idea. For example, I hold AA on the button, 4 people limp in, I raise, BB calls, the other 4 limpers call for a 6-handed flop. Flop comes garbage, everyone checks to me, I bet, 2 fold, and 3 call. 4-handed on the turn, more garbage. Check to me, I bet, 2 fold, 1 calls. River is still junk, opponent checks, I bet, opponent raises, and I'm beat by a set of 2s or two pair of garbage. Stomaching getting drawn out on the river is no problem; my opponent made a bad play and got lucky, but he's still making a losing play in the long run. But when someone flops a set and takes me all the way to the river only to checkraise, I feel like a sucker. Maybe this is an unjustified feeling, maybe being caught out like this is just a cost of playing big pairs, and that in the long run playing big pairs is still a big money winner regardless. Or maybe I need to ease up on the turn and river betting a bit more than I currently do when I'm only holding a pair. Nevertheless, I've tried to find ways to get limp-limp-checkraisers to reveal the strength of their hand sooner when they flop big. I still want to raise pre-flop, but if it's all check to me, I've tried checking too since I don't want to be too predictable and allow someone to easily pull a checkraise on me. I lose a bit of equity but what I really want is to knock people out so that I'm not playing in a multiway pot with just a pair of aces, and one small bet on the flop isn't going to knock anyone out (somewhat the same reasoning as what Mark is suggesting). Also, this encourages people to bet on the turn since they might think I was raising pre-flop with big cards and simply missed the flop. Further, after seeing all-check, if someone does have a big hand, he is more likely to bet out on the turn for fear of another all-check. So after my flop-check, on the turn someone bets and I raise, knocking a number of people out. Maybe now I'm only playing against the initial bettor. If he then reraises, I'm happy because now I have information and can try to interpret his actions and either raise (if I think he just has an underpair or a draw and he's a very loose player) or fold (if I think he has two pair or a set). But maybe he just calls and we go to the river. Now I'm thinking that I just want to get to the showdown cheaply since AA could easily be beat by any old two pair. If he checks, I'll check. But if he bets, do I call or fold? I'm almost certainly beat if he's betting here, and calling this bet strikes me as being just a "keeping him honest" type of play, a money loser I'd really like to avoid. Thoughts on this problem (or thoughts that this isn't even a problem) are appreciated. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Rich P., 7. Nov 2003 16:40 | ||
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| Caldazar, I want to add that my strategy works well against tight passive players as well as loose passive players. It seems that you may be up against both types. I had also posted earlier a suggestion that helped someone else. It is this: against tight-passive players, identify the players who will play big hands passively, then take advantage of them calling with hands that you will only continue with if you hit the flop. (Notice, you're reversing the strategy you think they are using against you.) With loose passive players, you want to bet your good hands (and they don't have to be that good, just hands better than your opponents that play well multi-way) pre-flop. Stay away from hands like KTo or Q9o. Play more suited cards and connectors, and play them out of position. Play your big hands strong preflop, but slow down if you don't hit at least top pair (don't be a slave to this, play creatively if you think your opponents are trying to read you.). Try to reraise or check raise with top pair when the better is too your right so as to put pressure on your opponents. When you think you are beat, slow down and get out if necessary. Finally, you are wrong to think that their poor play doesn't matter. Instead it is your bread and butter. Take advantage of their mistakes and you will do well, whether that means making them pay when you have the best of it, or laying in wait when they make the mistake of letting you in cheaply and you hit the flop big. Good luck, Rich I hope this helps. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Caldazar, 7. Nov 2003 18:30 | ||
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| I didn't mean to imply that my opponents' poor play was unimportant; naturally the way to make a profit is to exploit my opponents' mistakes. Rather, I was just pointing out how futile it might be to rely on manipulating pot odds as a weapon. From my perspective, I don't care whether someone is making a play that holds a -0.25BB/hand expectation for them or a -2.00BB/hand expectation for them; all I care about is that they're making a long shot draw against my good hand. I tend to see this argument come up in literature: limit the size of the pot so that the long-shots are not justified in calling you. But this assumes that your opponent will actually pay attention to pot odds/implied odds in the first place, which some players don't even notice. While I'm not necessarily convinced that limping in with 75o is a terribly great idea, I do get the overall gist and since I feel I'm pretty good at getting out on the flop, your idea might be viable for me as well (although to be quite honest, I'm very bad at getting out on the turn and river). It does take some getting used to in order to muck your pocket queens on the river and then pull in a pot with 32s a couple of hands later, that's for sure (just happened a couple hours ago online; I think I rolled my eyes at the injustice of it all). I have noticed I tend to play too many big offsuit starting hands and wind up getting burned quite often. AQo, AJo, KJo, KTo, and QTo are rather large money losers for me overall. At least I quit playing QTo awhile ago (hard thing to do when you know that, as unimpressive as the hand may be, it's still better than those guys who are playing 53o and 95o). As an aside, I'm curoius as to how long you've been implementing your strategy against passive tables. If it's just been a day or two, I'm wondering if what you're suggesting is a little too loose in the long run and you're just getting some really lucky flops. I mean, after a certain point, is there really a difference between, say, T8o and 53o? Any pairs you get aren't going to be too useful multiway, and you aren't going to flop a board pair to make a set very often. I'm thinking that for medium and small cards, it might just be better to play suited connectors and possibly suited gapped cards, along with the pairs, of course. With cards that small, I'd imagine you'd need both the straight and flush possibilities for plays like that to be correct, even if you are on the button with multiple limpers already in the pot. Being big on statistics, I'll probably just run some numbers through your 75o when I have some time to see what comes out; poker is about much more than the odds, but having some clue as to what the odds look like against a passive table couldn't hurt. | ||
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| Re: Strategic limping in loose, passive, low-limit holdem, Rich P., 8. Nov 2003 16:53 | ||
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| I've been thinking about one of my replies above, and it is a little confusing. To clarify: In loose passive games you should never slowplay. In a tight passive game or against a tight passive opponent, you need to slowplay some big hands before the flop. Of course, most games do not fit neatly into one category. Still, in passive games you can play a lot more hands than in agressive games, even loose agressive games. I have been playing for years and i'm usually the tightest player at the table. I've also had my bad runs. You're right that I've just began using this strategy, but only in passive games, especially loose passive games which is what you say you are having problems with. You absolutely must get away from a hand when you are beat. In loose passive games, it's not always easy to tell when you are beat. I recognize that 75o is an extreme example, but try it with more playable hands. Limit in early position with 75s, 56s, even 45s. If you don't get raised and get plenty of callers, your implied odds are good. Then you can , as one author said, "send the rocks to the bar." Anyway, good luck in whatever you decide to do. Rich | ||
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