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At TwoRags.com, we're committed to providing accurate information to the
poker community. If you see entries or information that you believe to be in
error, please email us.
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| Making adjustments for weird games |
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Here in Florida, the law limits bet sizes to a maximum of $5 (and allows no-limit games with buyins of $100 or less, but in this article, I'll be discussing limit games). Due to this, there are a number of "strange" limit games in the state, for example:
$2 straight limit ($1-$2 blinds) almost everywhere.
$3-$5 fixed limit ($2-$3 blinds) at Sarasota.
$5 straight limit ($3-$5 blinds) at Naples/Ft Myers.
Now, admittedly, the competition at these games is fairly weak, but there are adjustments to be made to optimize your play in them.
First, preflop. In the SB, for example, in the Sarasota game, you're OK to call limpers with almost any two cards, even if it's folded around to you! Consider the case of 2 3 in the SB against K K in the BB: you're getting 5:1 odds from the pot (completing your $2 blind costs $1, the blinds total $5), and your hand is a winner 15% of the time. Yes, it's slightly -EV, but the KK would likely NEVER fear a board of 2 3 7, so your implied odds are greater. It's fit-or-fold on the flop; if the flop hits your hand hard (not bottom-pair-weak-kicker, not middle pair, I mean at least a pair and a draw, or two pair), you can play it out and make some money from implied odds, and if not you can get away cheap.
Your hand selection in the straight limit games should be different; your high card values go up, while your suited and connected values go down. Why? When do most straights and flushes hit in a "normal" limit game? On the turn or river, when the bets double and the straight or flush gets paid big. In the straight limit games, however, since there is no higher betting limit, the straight or flush doesn't get paid well, and is therefore less valueable. Therefore, hands like 6 7, that are playable in late position in a normal limit game, aren't so good here, while hands like K Q become more playable in early position (as the players who DO play small-card drawing hands in late position are giving up equity to your higher cards).
In the Sarasota game, your hand selection should be relatively standard; since there is a higher betting limit, straights and flushes get paid off reasonably. However, since the higher limit is $1 less than in a "normal" limit game, you can more easily fold your weak straight/flush draw hands preflop; you'll need more callers to give you odds than you would in a "normal" game.
Postflop, as indicated above, in the $2 and $5 games, you can draw more inexpensively, but you don't get paid off as well. Because of this, it's almost never a good idea to slowplay a good hand; you want to make it expensive for the draws to happen (and, when they arrive, it won't be as costly to you as it'll be on a "cheap" round). You don't want to be playing draws as much; free card plays negated in value, and your implied odds are lower. Strong draws are still playable (eg, A Q on a flop of T J 3), but weak ones can be safely mucked, even though your pot odds on the turn are better!
In the Sarasota game, postflop adjustments can be more limited; basically only the weakest draws should disappear. You can safely slowplay huge flops, and free card plays just become cheaper-card-plays (a raise from the button in our above situation with A Q on a flop of T J 3 costs you $3 to save you from the $5 turn bet, so you save $2 instead of the normal $3). Semi-bluff opportunities are OK for such plays, but don't do it if you only have the straight or flush outs to beat top pair.
Interestingly, in all these games, many players seem to take a sort of binary logic on whether or not they'll play their hand; they look at the cards, decide to play or not, and then see the flop or fold. Note that at no time is there a "re-evaluate the strength of my hand based on the preflop raise from the UTG player" stage in that logic. Additionally, players in these games almost never let go of a hand when they've limped and are raised preflop! Therefore, your preflop raises should be more based on value than on wanting to narrow the field. All of a sudden, hands that are perfectly callable in other games become raising hands in late position, and your field-limiting raises in early position should be severely reconsidered.
Low limit games like these have a ton of weak players; they offer a skilled player a nearly ATM-like opportunity to take money off the table. With minor adjustments to your play, you can raise your expectation in these fishponds.
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| One Eyed Jack's a Winner |
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While driving down 75 (I had some business to take care of in North Carolina, so I was returning home. Alas, I'd spent the previous night in Jacksonville, but the St Johns Greyhound track -- which has a poker room -- was about 30 miles from my hotel, and I didn't feel like taking an extra 60 miles onto my trip, and the much-nearer Jacksonville Kennel Club has not yet opened their poker room.), at about noon, I was in Sarasota and decided to stop at the dog track there to have some lunch and play some cards. The track is relatively easy to find, about 6 miles west of of exit 213 (it's the big building with a mural of a greyhound, kind of hard to miss). It turns out that I picked a good day to go there, as it was "50¢ Friday," with admission, as well as hot dogs, soda, and draft beer all costing 50¢.
The poker room is upstairs, under the grandstands.
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| UltimateBet jackpots |
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So, UltimateBet offers a jackpot now. On jackpot tables (shown red in the client, and labeled as "jackpot") they take an extra 50¢ from the pot when it's raked to add to the jackpot, which currently stands at $61,000 and growing (up from $57,000 when I sat down this evening). Now, at upper limits (say, $5-$10, which has jackpot tables), an extra .50 from each pot seems negligable, but at .50-$1 and $1-$2, that's pretty steep.
It's a bad deal for the players, and I'll tell you why. One, most jackpots tend to take money out of circulation as effectively as a rake. If I were to win either share of the jackpot, the likelihood is that I'd take most of it out of my bankroll to do something like put down a down payment on a house, or buy a car, or expand my wardrobe, or travel. You probably wouldn't see me taking a shot at $30-$60 with it (well, most of it). Effectively, that money would be removed from the poker economy.
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| On being aware of game texture |
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Last night, while playing online, I sat down at a $1-$2 limit table (yeah, sue me. I like low limits.). The statistics were nothing special; 40% seeing the flop, $10 or so in each pot.
However, when I sat down, I noticed quickly that the texture of the game was quite different than what I'd expected. Most low-limit games are loose-passive affairs, with a lot of hands going to showdown, and not much preflop raising (call this "east-coast low limit," as most low limit games I've seen in the west coast tend to be loose-aggressive, with lots of preflop raises and more action). Most pots aren't won uncontested, and bluffs rarely work.
However, the game I sat down in played more like it was out of Hold'em For Advanced Players, with more than half the pots being raised preflop, semi-bluff checkraises on the turn driving out players, and river bets with unimproved hands winning pots.
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| Suckout, or odds draw? |
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So, after work yesterday, I went to go play some cards at my local dog track. Not feeling like buying in short to the various NL games (it seemed like everyone had a couple buyins in front of them, and I hate playing short), I sat down in the only limit game spread in the state, $2-$4 (yeah, yeah, I know, tiny. State law limits the bets to $5 in limit, so it's what they can spread. Deal.). The following hand came up when we were 9-handed:
I'm on the SB, dealt 4 5. Everyone limps, I complete, the BB checks. That's $15 in the pot after rake and jackpot.
The flop comes A 2 7.
I check, the BB, a fairly predictable rock, bets out, 4 callers (gotta love low limit, hopes and prayers are worth a call!), 3 folds, and it's a $2 bet into a $24 pot (after rake) to me. 12:1 for a gutshot, backdoor flush (albeit a bad one), and implied odds after that? Sure, $2 is good for 11:1 odds. The SB folds, and we see the turn 6-handed in a $26 pot. (Note:
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| Did I misplay here? |
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Sometimes, even when you win, you might have played wrong. Background: I'm a limit player, almost totally; I'm good at the math of limit, and not so good at the psychology and "touchy-feely" nature of NL. However, with the new poker laws in Florida, no-limit is the game (the law says that the maximum bet in limit can be $5, but no-limit with a max $100 buyin is fine, so $1-$2 NL is becoming common, and is supposedly fishy).
So, I sat down to get some cheap NL practice, playing 5¢-10¢ NL, with the basic strategy of "any 21 in blackjack, any connectors totaling 17 to 20 in blackjack, any pair, and suited connectors as low as 56 for a limp. Tighten up a lot to preflop raises -- AA, KK, QQ, AK and that's about it, unless it's a small raise and there's calling action already" (is this a viable basic strategy? I know it ignores position, but is it a workable baseline to start from?
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| The eight mistakes you can make in (limit) poker |
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Author's note: This short article is inspired by one I read in either Poker Digest or Card Player about 6 years ago. The content is all mine, but the idea of there being 8 fundamental errors is not.
Limit poker, at it's heart, is about making decision. You have basically 5 choices: check/bet if no-one has bet yet, and call/raise/fold if there is a bet (yes, you can fold to a check, but that's an obvious error, and won't be covered here). Now, anyone who's read The Theory of Poker is familiar with the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, "Any time you act differently than you would if the cards were dealt face-up, you've lost money." Given that, and the limited number of decisions allowed, there are eight fundamental errors that are possible in any given hand of poker (yes, there are more errors possible, such as game and limit selection problems, and where to sit, but here we'll concern ourselves with play of the hand only).
Bet instead of check
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| Four steps to overcoming a cold deck |
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So you're playing, and it doesn't matter what you get. KQ suited with 2 pair flopped, and someone draws to the river to make a straight. Flop a set, lose to a turned higher set.
Everyone who's played poker for any reasonable length of time has seen it. You've been hit with a cold deck. What to do?
Well, first of all, don't bitch and moan to your neighbor. All it does is kill your table image -- you begin to look like a loser, and your opponents will adjust accordingly. You'll get tons of calling action... but that means that you'll have to beat 4 or 5 other hands, instead of only 1 or 2. (as an aside, whenever my neighbor wants to tell me a bad-beat story, I tell them that it's a $1 listening fee for them to tell me. Quite honestly, half the time, they toss me a white chip and begin the story. Hey, it pays for cocktail tips....)
So, step one to beating a cold deck: Shut up. No whining. There's no crying in baseball, and there's no whining in winning poker.
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| Check your way to profits |
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The check is an often-overlooked tactical maneuver, and one that can be profitable for you if used in the correct manner. Most players look at a check as "that thing you do when you can't bet." Au contraire!
Consider the following hand. It's a low-limit game, and you've limped in with 5 other players, you're on the BB with 77, the flop comes K72 rainbow. You're holding the second nut, a likely winner with your set, and it's reasonable to think that someone's limped in with a K; you can count on a bet from someone behind you. In this position, many players would simply bet out the whole way though the hand, flop turn and river.
Wrong.
Check-call the flop (again, it's a low-limit game, someone's stayed with a king, even with a rag kicker, and they'll bet), check-raise the turn, then bet the river.
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| What a difference 4 years makes! |
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I went to the Naples-Ft Myers Greyhound Track poker room for the first time in 4 years last Saturday. My, how things have changed! The room was jumping, with easily 10 tables of live action going on one side and 6-8 tourneys running on the other. I made the 6th player on the $2-$4 hold'em list, so they called for the game to start; I bought chips from the cashier, as there appeared to be no chip runners to sell chips at the table (although the dealers obviously could, I prefer to not slow the game like that). Players did continually come into the game, eventually filling our table within roughly a half hour.
My table was comparatively weak, with one maniac, 2 calling stations, and the rest being what I would consider "average players.
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