Making adjustments for weird games, II
by TylerDurden on 03/11/08
I live in the backwoods of the public poker world; Florida. Here, there's a maximum $5 bet in limit poker, and a lot of folks who want to play ultra-low (for years, there was a $10 maximum on pots, so it's still a scary thing, playing where you can lose $10 a hand for some of these old folks).At any rate, on a recent trip, I played $1-$2 limit at the Seminole Hard Rock, in Hollywood (see my trip report and room review for more info -- the upshot, nice room, a bit noisy, and the dealers are mediocre). At that game, there is no big blind, only a single $1 blind in front of the button (eg, if the button is at seat 1, seat 2 posts $1, and seat 3 is UTG, as opposed to the more "standard" play where seat 2 would post 50ยข, seat 3 posts $1, and seat 4 is UTG).
How does one adjust to such an arrangement (aside from noting that it's frikkin' $1-$2, so it's an uber low-limit game anyhow, so the major mistake made is players calling when they should fold, and sometimes calling when they should raise or checking when they should bet, that is)? Having a single blind should change the texture of the game, right?
It does.
First off, there's less money in the pot preflop, as normally there's between 1 1/3 and 1 2/3 small bets in the pot (depending on the game -- for $3-$6, it's generally $1 and $3 blinds, for 1 1/3 small bets, for $9-$18 I've seen blinds of $6 and $9, for 1 2/3 small bets). Here, there's only 1 small bet. So, your preflop steal equity goes down; you risk $2 to win $1, so you must be at least a 67% favorite to win if you're called, where in the other situation, you need only be a favorite ~57% of the time (actually, it's between 54% and 60%, depending on the size of the small blind). Additionally, defending your big blind is riskier -- you'll put 1 SB into a 3 SB pot to defend in this case, rather than
So, steal less, and defend less.
This opens the door to the other major strategy change. Tighten up, compared to a game with the same number of players seeing the flop and "normal" blinds. You are only spending 1 small bet per orbit, so you can afford to wait for premium hands more. Admittedly, with generally between 5 and 9 players seeing the flop (on a 9-handed game, this describes the $1-$2 games here accurately), "tighter" is a pretty shaky term; you mainly only have to be tighter than your opponents to win. However, don't let yourself be tempted by mediocre hands like 9
T
; you're facing long odds, because of the number of players (remind yourself in early position, "there's gonna be a crowd behind me,"), and can afford to wait for something that plays well against a crowd.That being said, I can see some players making the argument (and it's reasonable, IMO) that in such a game, taking an extra hand every 2 orbits might make sense (after all, it means you're effectively paying your small blind as "normal"), but I'd caution you to do so in position only. Don't let yourself be swayed into calling UTG with crap like, oh, K
T (a joke; I won a big pot in that position with that hand last night) unless you really know what you're doing (in that case, I had good reads on 4 players behind me; they were all calling, so I knew I was OK odds-wise).So, perhaps a better way of saying it is "tighten up in early position, loosen up a little in late position."
Next time: dealing with games with comparitively big preflop blinds (like, the Seminole Casino Hollywood's $1-$1 blind $1-$2 limit game).
