Hi there. I might be an idiot for asking this question, but I have been playing a fair bit of live poker in the United States at 2/5 in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and I have come across a strategy problem I had never even considered before. Basically, I have always believed that if you play in a super loose game you just wait for hands and then bet, bet, bet. The games I was playing in were ones were literally you would literally not play a hand for 3 hours or so and then raise and get 6 callers. They would call you down with anything, it was actually insane.

However, this got me thinking. In such a game, is simply waiting for a hand the best approach? If you do that arent you just playing into their hands by playing tight and virtually becoming anonymous at the table? Isn't the point of poker to go out and fight for the chips?

In that context I would like to ask people in the forums what the right approach in such games should be? Calling down bets with marginal hands? Running uber big bluffs? What is the right approach?

On a similar note I also find that I get frozen up and tend to play ABC against calling stations, even really basic ones. When I feel they are just going to call no matter what I feel that bluffing is just too minus EV. Against such players, again do you have to wait for a hand or should you just be sticking them all in, apply max pressure. Sometimes I find that all in is the only language some players understand.

Look forward to your replies, a very interesting topic I think.

I think we're on Exhibit #4,505 for "Why Nits Win". (Seriously, the answer is no, it isn't.)

Balance in all things.

I'll leave this open for a bit, but the answer is, yes, you wait big hands and bet. And think about why you don't want to bluff at people who will call no matter what.

Vernon's absolutely right that poker is not about fighting for chips. It is about having people willingly hand you their chips.

I'll throw out the overused but incredibly important phrase of " get better to fold, get worse to call". In this case your not going to get stations to fold better hands. You have to attack the other point....value bet the living hell out of them. Make a decent hand in respect to the board and bet. Establish calling ranges for these guys as you see some showdowns or they fold and show. Will villain call 2 streets with worse than TP? Will he call 3 streets? On what boards? Are your implied odds awesome with suited aces and connectors because they don't care about board run outs? Do they raise with ANY of their range( I see guys call rivers with top set on safe boards, etc). Control your desire to continuation bet on flops where you have no equity. I'm rambling a little, but you get my point. Make a hand and club baby seals.

Welcome to the forum, OP. I'm not going to countermand Venice's decision, but if I'd come across this first, I'd probably have locked it. As interesting as this discussion is,
1) we've had it many times before, and
2) You already found the answer

yes
fixed, and yes
No. The point of poker is to win the most chips possible. You do this by adjusting to game conditions. Trying to do anything other than bet-size correctly with big hands, take advantage of the poor bet-sizing to draw cheaply to big hands, and folding all marginal hands is just suicide in these games.

It's raining free money, turn your umbrella upside down and catch it. Don't stubbornly keep using your umbrella as a walking cane, because "that's what cool people use their umbrellas for."

You can play a wider range, but you still need to make a hand. For example, if they stack off with any top pair and are playing 50% of hands pre, then you might be able to start opening KQ/AT/QJ UTG (in that order of preference).
Basically you can play a wider range because you know you can value bet more thinly. You want to stay away from hands like 85s because they never make a decent top pair. Hands like the trouble hands, any two broadway, Q9s are the hands you can start playing. Of course, you would still play way wider IP than OOP. AT might be too loose UTG, start opening up slowly and see what works.

In general in these games, an ABC Nit/TAG style is conventionally the most profitable, with only solid starting hands being opened/raised by us.

However, stack sizes and bet-sizing can allow us to massively increase our profitability in these games. If the Vs are deep enough, and raise to sufficiently small amounts, we can play a LOT of speculative hands, since our implied odds are so high. These hands are mostly AXs, small pairs, suited connectors, and if stacks are deep enough we can also play suited broad-ways and off-suit connectors against a raise; although all connectors should generally only be played in position, since they often flop weak draws.

It's important to notice how each and every player at the table responds to bet sizes and aggression.

Do they limp-call, or limp-fold? This determines how wide we're able to raise over limpers.

Do they always call a PFR if it's below a certain monetary threshold, or only with stronger holdings? This will affect our PFR sizing, and we should look at effective stacks in terms of this size in pots we enter for a raise.

Are they always stationey with TP+ type hands, or only before a certain bet size threshold (often $100)? This affects our implied odds, since if our opponents actually begin to fold TP+ after the bets get too big in absolute terms, then our stack odds may not be sufficient to call raises with speculative hands.

Do they over-call for 'value', or simply for their own hand strength? This will also significantly affect our raising range over limpers, since very often, once our raise gets one or two callers, the rest of the limpers often feel 'priced in', and as such we end up in multi-way pots more often if the limpers are the type who feel priced in. This also applies to players in the blinds, since they have no concept of position, but feel they are already 'committed' to the pot with their blind.


EDIT: Regarding opening KQ/AT/QJ type hands from EP, I'd only do it either with the suited variants, or if I see enough players ahead of me telegraphing a fold such that I'm effectively in MP. Otherwise when we make TP type hands, we will be dominated far too often. I'd probably also put AJ in the same category as those 3 hands from EP, but if most players are playing any Ax down to A2o, then it's a profitable open from any position. If we're widening our range, Q9s and off-suit broadways are hands I'd typically avoid, since they fare pretty poorly in multi-way pots, since typically TPMK is not sufficient in larger pots, and those hands rarely make the nuts. Hands which make nut straights, nut flushes, and sets are the only ones I really like to play multi-way, although suited broad-ways are also playable (but ideally for a raise), since we still over-flush our opponents, make a limited number of nut straights, and also can win a decent number of small pots with TPGK or 2P.

Yes Sensei.

I play in a 1/2 game here locally that is often incedibly loose depending on who shows up. When I say incredibly loose I mean that usually 4-6 players seeing the flop in a raised pot and often a full family pot when limped.

Many of these players do not have a fold button and will call you down with god knows what depending on their mood.

I am currently averaging $33/hour in this game with a bit over 300 hours playing very tight, very aggressive. I will open my range up in late positions to weaker suited Aces, suited connectors and so forth, but for the most part I stick to a very basic range of opening hands similar to how I used to play micro stakes online.

While my opening range in late positions can be wider, my UTG / EP opening range and my raise calling range is limited to AQs or better.

This can often get boring when you run into lengthy sessions being card dead, but very profitable when you pick up hands. Good news is though, you can open your cutoff and button limping ranges very wide assuming you're above average at hand reading. These players are terrible hand readers for the most part and will play for stacks with top pair very often.

Wow, you guys work fast. I'm new to the forum so sorry if I am going over old ground here. Sounds like I'm playing it the right way pretty much then, but like the last post said it is incredibly frustrating when you are card dead. It's also frustrating against calling stations because I feel there is no PLAN B (except when they are very reluctant to call all ins). I'm also trying to work a lot on the maths side of the game, which part of the forum is best to post in for questions relating to that?

Thanks for the feedback.

Take that time that you are card dead to look for preflop fold tells and any other habits you can find. These same players are riddled with very reliable tells, especially preflop tells.

I can often widen my range in middle positions when I see that the players behind me have already looked at their cards and shown me they're planning to fold. Alternatively true if they're planning to play or really like their cards.

Preflop tells are incredibly reliable once you spot them. I see players of this caliber look at their cards as soon as they get them like a kid who can't wait to get their xmas gift. Immediately they'll tell you if they like them and how much.

The newbie is getting some great responses here .. all are worth a look.

In those casinos you are running into folks who are there to 'gamble' not play poker. There is a big difference IMO. Don't feed the beast by showing down 67s a high percentage of the time.

Keep your stack in tact .. don't get whittled away by PF raise/folds and not knowing what to do with bottom pair no kicker.

You have to be the judge as to how much poker you can play every time you sit down .. and 'in theroy' you need to play the opposite of the 'table' or be very careful when picking your spots.

Sitting on hands is no fun for sure, but variance tends not to be very friendly in spurts when you are constantly putting your money 'just' around pot odds or worse. GL

Thanks again. The bit about tells is super interesting. I'm a newbie in the forum but have played poker for many years now, live and online. But I've only been getting into strategy and trying to get super intellectual about poker for around a year or so. When I play live I still get so frustrated that I can't seem to pick up reliable tells, using my hand reading skills are normally enough to dominate games.

I recently was told a story of a woman who has mediated for around 30 years and still only sees black in front of her eyes when she closes them rather than going into a transcedental state. That's how I feel vis a vis tells. Is there anything in particular you are looking for in terms of physical tells or is it just a general gut feeling?

Here is one of the best compilations of live "tells" to date by Mike Caro.

Here is the series broken down into 9 segments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Neyg...563EB9393C4E37

Here is the series all compiled at once



yes, it's old. Yes it's dated.

But it still applies.

I've seen the short version of that I will watch the long version too. I guess it will just take time and practice to apply it properly.