Hey all,

I was watching some live streams of the Limit events at the WSOP (the $1,500 and $10,000 events) and as always they talked about how you should raise or fold pre-flop only in Limit; never call (Matt Matros for example). I play a lot of 4-8 right now at my local brick and mortar and was wondering if anyone thinks this should be done at the lower levels. I usually do pretty well in that game and while I do raise a lot more than others do pre, is it something I should always be doing? I realize at the higher levels it's probably not a bad idea but what about when you're playing against the donks? Just curious what you all think, thanks a lot.

Cali in AZ

It depends what your long term goals are for poker. A strategy looking to make as much money as possible playing only 4-8 for instance will likely involve limping and cold calling. That being said, if you plan to move up to say 8-16 and later 20-40, I think it's essential to experiment develop a raise/fold strategy that will help you transition and beat higher games.

I've posted on this topic before and many people disagree with me . Basically yes, I think a raise/fold strategy at 4/8 is correct, no I don't think a raise/fold strategy will bet the highest hourly playing 4/8.


FWIW when I played 4/8, I used a raise/fold strategy and absolutely crushed it (but it was favorable conditions with a favorable rake).

I think you should try it out. One mistake a lot of us make (myself included) is not experimenting enough; experimentation can help by getting us into difficult situations, expanding thinking, and understanding others.
Playing a session with raise/fold will build discipline. Suppose tight player limps utg and you're next with 22 or some marginal suited hand. You've ruled out limping and want to play the hand. Can you justify a raise? Can you bring yourself to fold?
And yeah, you might get away with raising marginal hands at 4/8, so maybe this teaches the wrong lesson, but hopefully you find the "edge" of aggression.

I'm not sure anyone disagrees with you strategically.

If 5 people limp in front of you, you should have an overlimping range. At higher limits, rarely will 5 people limp in front of you, so the range is moot.

I think everyone agrees that first in you raise or fold at any level. The disagreement is whether, at the limited time you spend at 4/8, you spend the time to optimize your overlimping and coldcalling ranges, or just expect you'll move up quickly.

Take a look at the higher limit games and see what they're like. California 20/40 still plays with a lot of open limping and 4-/5-way pots (but not often 6-way+). I think CAZ is tougher.

I don't think the whole come in raising or 3-bet or fold strategy is a "rule". Perhaps just a baseline. Take and argument for example, there is always 10% on either side.

If I am UTG in a loose and passive game with 4-6 people to see the flop and I have 78 suited, I'm certainly not raising my hand. If anything I'm Limping in and then going for a 3 bet once it raised preflop. Say 4-5 players call which is typical in 4-8 at local casinos especially on a drunken Friday night. I have now created a much bigger pot with a hand that generally plays great against multiple players. If you would have raised UTG with the hand there is a fair chance you won't have a field as big and there will be less money in the pot.

Just my take on it.

I would focus on number of players in the pot rather than stakes.

Are pots consistently contested 5way+? Ok to limp/overcall. Regardless of stakes, if there's a bet and 2 coldcalls, you're fine to coldcall. If you have a small PP here, playing raise or fold is bad.

Jon_locke's point is that if you aspire to play in actual tough games, it is a rule in those games. You're never limping playing 5/T+ online. The situation will never be right in some 10/20 game (unless, you find the greatest game of the year). I don't know live, because I've never seen a 30/60 or 40/80 game that tough. I've seen 40/80 "pro" players limp dominated Ax hands in EP. However once you get in games largely populated by pros, you're not seeing the winning players open limp. You may see them open and 3 bet wide, but their whole mindset doesn't allow playing dominated hands with a capped range OOP.

I'm in the "correctly adjust for the game you're in" camp, but I don't have a compelling argument to Jon's idea that you just ingrain bad habits. I think that you should be able to correctly realize that limping is never correct in the current game. He's telling you to just play a better strategy as practice, as you are still winning plenty in your soft game skipping the few marginal limping hands. He's really good at poker, so ignore him at your own peril. Also, most beginning players naturally tend to loose/passive, so going nuts to play tight/aggressive will help you correct accidental mistakes you are making while not realizing it.

I've played a lot of hands across a lot of limits. I've played in games with 4 full time pros, me, and one losing player. I've played in games so soft that folding half your hands preflop would guarantee a win. I might choose to ignore his advice about never limping because I think I can recognize correct spots, but it does concern me that he's so strong in his opinion.

Doug make very good points. Basically i think if people if people frequently limp 22-44 utg for example, flop a decent amount of sets, run good and move up in limits, they are not capable of magically folding 44 UTG in a tighter 20-40 game and by the time they realize they should its to late.

Almost every limit holdem player thinks this at some time, this strategy works for me, or this play best fits my overall strategy. 99% of the time they are either wrong or their overall strategy is just flawed.

When there are less players in the pot, you are correct there is less money in the pot, but you also win more pots when there are less players, and this is an important point when you move up. People also generally fold post flop when they miss to the pre-flop aggressor. So if you decide to open 7-8s UTG 2 people call with JQ and KT and the flop comes A22 you win the pot.

You nailed me with this one. I was lucky for years with small PP. Of course, the early games it was fine/good. Early on playing 20/40, run a little hot hitting sets. Like limp pocket 5's and the set over set on a 9853 board is me over 3's. It took a bit of online play to learn that the correct limping situation is rare once you hit the midstakes. It was in the "small stakes leaks to be fixed" category. It did take some time to learn/fix.

To be fair, the biggest leak was assuming that anyone more LAG than me was terrible and expensive. Switching to 6m and thinking that I was as LAG as it was possible to be and still be profitable yielded a huge downer. Bumhunted one of the biggest winners on FTP for a while. Oddly, we're now friends. I handed him a lot of money to learn that 24/19 wasn't the end-boss 6m stats.

I think this is where your experience will differ from others.

First, you play a lot. Specifically, the ratio of play time to 2+2 posts is much higher than a recreational player whose game is capable of changing drastically in 20 hours (which may be 2 days of play for you but 4 months for a rec player).

Secondly, if I recall correctly, you made a big jump in stakes, like 4/8 to 40/80 or something. Most changes are more incremental - a 6/12 player moving up to 8/16 is going to make more minor adjustments than a 3/6 player moving up to 8/16.

I don't think "it is too late" is accurate. However, tons of my later leaks came from adapting to soft games. I can at least understand the argument that the minor profit from completely adapting to small games is more than made up for the huge expense of finding/fixing those as leaks in bigger games.

I've seen many players have tons of "fish optimized" plays that just do not work at higher stakes.

Like in a 4/8 game, maybe it's okay to limp in T7s UTG because every pot is going off 8 ways unraised, and everyone sucks and misses tons of value after the flop. But try that at 40, and you'll get isolated and double isolated in a hurry by two competent players looking to squeeze any preflop edge they can.

On the same note, maybe you take weak showdownables like AJ on T72tt and b3b the flop. Maybe this is the cheapest way to show down at fish stakes, because they won't 4 bet a flush draw, 98, or even a naked ten. But at higher stakes, your opponents will notice the number of times you b3b this texture, bet the 3 turn, check the Q River and can't beat T9, and will make life hell for you.

So really, you should worry about building a solid game, fundamentally speaking, that can translate to any stake. You won't always get to play games with 9 hopeless fish; you'll hit 20 and often bump into two pros and 2-4 not awful guys that break even or lose slightly. When you get to 40, having 2 Bona fide fish in a ten handed game can be a coup.

Learning to switch gears, when to go from overlimpin vs puckering up is a big part of ones game especially in the lower mid stakes. Where a game can go from taggy to passive over a few hours..

Jon_locke pls check your PM inbox

If i'm playing 4-8 at a limpy table, I'm limping 44 UTG because I want an 8 way pot.

If I have AJo, i'm raising, because I don't want an 8 way pot.

Also, after 5 limpers when I'm on the button I'm limping with:

22
44
75s
86s
K4s
etc

You should not raise these hands PF, but they are valuable in late position for a call.



You should learn this now, in poker, there are very few absolutes.

I play raise or fold first in no matter the game conditions, however, my ranges change depending on the game conditions:

online aggressive game: standard tag opening and 3 betting ranges

live small stakes game: much looser opening requirements, but much tighter 3 betting ranges.

Always raising first in is a mistake.

"I've posted on this topic before and many people disagree with me . Basically yes, I think a raise/fold strategy at 4/8 is correct, no I don't think a raise/fold strategy will bet the highest hourly playing 4/8."

Didn't even finish reading other post, had to comment on this lmao...the correct strategy is the one that's going to win the most money! INFACT! there is NO strategy that's always correct. I'm sure there are many 20/40, 48/80 etc. games where cold calling a raise at times might be the best option. Observe the villians, and make the correct play based off of them...not the level ur playing.

Always doing ANYTHING is a mistake.

Stakes are a rough indication of how people play, just like the classifications of TAG, etc.

You're right that the correct play is always the one that makes you the most money. However, you're wrong that you can magically divine the correct play ab initio every single time you face a decision.

Good decisions are good because they are correct most of the time, against most players and in most circumstances. Deviation from standard good play should be an exception, not the rule.

Good play varies by stake. You can spend a lot of time figuring out good play at 4/8, then more time figuring out a new strategy for 8/16, then some more for 20/40, then some more for 40/80 ... or, if you're the ambitious type and have the opportunity, learn what good 20/40 play is from free sites on the Internet and beeline for the highest stakes available to you, then spend all your time grinding 20/40 at $30/hr instead of eeking out the extra dollar from $5/hr to $6/hr at 4/8.

I'm assuming you're an LA player from your name; if so, you live in a premium LHE ecosystem, and instead of trying to be the apex predator, you're scavenging for half-eaten nuts on the ground.

I disagree.

Always ignoring you.
Doing the opposite of what you post as advice.

These are things that should always be done.

I think this is a good example from medium stakes thread:

i'm curious about your pre flop standards in these games. i ask because while i typically follow the raise/fold strategy at low limit holdem, there are certain hands that i think are totally correct for overcalling. sure sometimes you will raise w/ 78 UTG, but most of the time i'm calling looking to build a big pot.

when you were playing lower limits, are you saying that you look at 78 UTG and raise every time? or you muck? i can't imagine you fold that.

i would fold it. Thats an example of a hand i could probably have limped profitably, but I didn't. Any value that I lost I think I made up for by being able to snap fold 78s tug in tougher games as soon as I sat in them.


I could easily be wrong, there might be people that can limp 78s in ideal conditions in smaller games and then turbo muck them other times. But I've played a lot of hands at a lot of limits and those people are few and far between.