Hey guys, I'm an Aussie cash player, mainly played online up until last week due to being an ex-dealer at the only casino in my city. It's been long enough since I worked there so I started going back last week and I have not been doing well at all.

I'm really struggling to adjust to live low stakes, in fairness I have been running really bad but I'm also just leaking so many chips and missing value so there's definitely stuff I need to work on.

The thing I'm struggling with the most is how to adjust to tables where people just don't fold pre-flop. I've experimented with sizes to where I get 1-3 callers instead of 5-6 but it's so expensive. I have to open to 12-15 and I'll still get 2 callers most of the time so the pots going to be bloated and c-betting when I miss is expensive. I think this is where I'm leaking most of my chips and need help fixing it. Do I tighten up to the point where it's just TT+AK to open and just limp everything else or what? Because I never seem to isolate anyone by opening to either reasonable or large sized opens.

Another leak in my game is missing out on so much value, is it better to give draws the right price to call if you know they'll fold to a bigger bet? At these 1/2 tables it seems no one is ever thinking about the pot size, they just see the dollar amount. Like I said I have to open to around 12 dollars to stop 5 people calling and when I flop decently they just fold to my flop bet because they say it's too much. Ie; I open to 12 UTG+1 with AcKs and get 2 callers in late position. Flop comes AdTd7c. The pots now 39 and I'll cbet 20-25 and they just fold. In my opinion the board is too wet and a lot of these players are likely to have draws or a ten but they fold every time. Is it better to bet something like 10-15 like everyone else at the table does even if it gives them the correct odds to draw?

Any tips to adjusting to a live 1/2 setting with limp/call happy tables is much appreciated.

Edit: Forgot to mention this is a $100 max sit down so $12 is a lot more expensive than it would be in a 100-200bb max game. People still call 10% of their stack with K9s though.

This sounds like a mix of run bad and needing to adjust for table dynamics. A table that will call wide pre and fit or fold flops can be very profitable by widening your open range especially when in late position. There are worse things than winning a lot of $30-40 pots with little to no resistance.

It's okay to check fold as the pfr

Stop playing the 1/2 game at crown the rakes ****ed, play 1/3 instead

if it takes a 7x sizing to get around the 1-3 callers range, then that's really fine. probably want to tighten up your range a little bit. as someone mentioned already, you dont always have to c-bet. i would be much more selective with my c-betting in this case. try to c-bet good flops for your perceived range, or flops where you have good equity. other than that, it's fine to x/f IMO.

if you open a good, tight range, you and these guys are calling 7x-8x bb opens, then in the long run you will be making plenty of money off of them.

I did a little bit on c-betting and check back flop textures and I realised where I was messing up now. C-betting the wrong boards into multiple opponents is a recipe for disaster.

How tight would you suggest? TT+AQ+? And does this mean I should start limping more often with suited connectors and small pocket pairs instead of opening?

Here are 7 factors to consider when deciding to c-bet, courtesy of Bart Hanson:



1) number of players
2) board texture
3) stack sizes
4) equity within your own hand
5) position
6) opponent's range preflop
7) skill level of opponents

sheesh, $100 max buyin is super lame. Anyway, $12 is still too small at 1/2. Id say raise to $12+$2/limper at least.

Woth the short stacks, you kinda gotta tighten up, prolly 77+ AQ+, and then you just bet flop ship turn. Also, Find a game with $300 buyin...

Pretty much this.

The small buyin size has you in a straightjacket, so if you play this game properly you'll be bored to death. It'll involve sticking to relatively premium hands (like 77+ AJ+ ish) and playing a super straightforward game.

Whats the rake?

If you're talking about 1/2 at Crown, I'd typically size my preflop raises as 5x + x per limper. Then I'll cbet 50% pot on dry boards and 80% pot on wet boards. If the flop is 4+ways then don't Cbet without TPGK+.

From late position, you should look to open a range like {88+, KT+, QJ+}. From early position, look to open {TT+, AQ+}. And from all positions, try to limp in with low pocket pairs, suited connectors, suited one-gappers and suited Aces. These hands play excellently multiway.

Yeah I am, thanks for the actionable advice I'll try this out soon. From what I've seen so far it sounds like it will work well.

Sure King, no problem,.. here again I come with a strategy for loose tables. I don't remember where I post this but anyway,.. here it's what you do and it will work like magic. I promise you this because this stuff has got the acid test here in Vegas where numerous tourists come every week by tens of thousands to try their luck at poker.

(make sure to copy and paste this text in your poker library on your hard drive for future reference and memorization, I seriously mean MEMORIZATION..!)

Playing against at loose table where people are 3-4 to the flop

As you move up in ranks in poker games, people will play differently, they gonna play more conservative pre-flop and it’s gonna be less players to the flop. So, what this means is when you play post flop your continuation bets and your aggression in general will give you better chance to win the pot. So, the less players are in the hand and the better those players are and the more respect they give the money and the stakes, the more the aggression is a good strategy, the more your continuation bets will work and the more you can power drive your way to the $$-bank, so to speak.

But things change when you move down and play small stakes like 1/2, 1/3, 2/4 or even some 2/5 and there’s a lot of players in the pot pre-flop and 3-4 players to a flop. Generally post-flop they don’t fold as much because they are in there with trash hands, they’re calling with gut-shot straights, they’re not really playing the odds they are just there to gamble. So, when that happens, unfortunately, that gives you less options in terms what you can do to execute your plays properly. So what this means in general, you got to be much tighter. You want to play more solid high card value hands preflop. Beware of hands like middle suited connectors go down in value. The reason is that you going to showdown on the river so much often. So, when you have a hand like 78s, is much harder to win the pot on the river because you will be dominated even by a hand that’s not as good and playable like yours, say JTo, but this JTo plays better in terms of showdown value on the river unimproved. So, the problem when you can’t get people to fold, you can’t bluff people, you can’t outplay them and you are just forced to show them down a hand, you got to play what we call a linear range. It means you got to play hands in the top 12% of the deck.

So, the way to adjust is this: You want to play much stronger hands preflop and hands that’s going to win at showdown, basically you want to play an ABC game of poker. You want to c-bet less often, and you want applying pressure post-flop in spots when your hand is much stronger then the range of hands that your opponents could have. So, if you are betting or c-betting or whatever into 3-4 people you gonna be at a disadvantage, you can’t really do that with hands like gut-shot or two overs just because you raised preflop. So, that logic of c-bet goes out the window when your opponents are’n folding.

So, another adjustment I would make is just to be more aware of which players are going to adhere to this strategy. Sometimes even in small games not everybody is going to play absolutely crazy. There is going to be 2-3 players at the table that are actually trying to win or maybe they are conservative by nature and on those players you can apply more high level plays and little more aggression and still use that as a winning strategy. Don’t take everything at face value, you got to apply different strategy to different opponents. You want to customize this to the players at the table and depending on the game flow.

So, you definitely want to play stronger hands, you want to 3bet your hands when your hand is much more likely better than the other players, you want to raise bigger preflop and you generally want to build the pot a lot, I really mean it, when you have strong hands make big bets. I would be very selective and very very aggressive. Much more selective then you are in a normal cash game and much more aggressive normally you are. Maybe you play for 10% of hands but when you play them maybe you come in for 5bb, 7bb or even 10bb if there are limpers, and post-flop maybe you don’t c-bet that often but when you do you bet close to the size of the pot. Just because your c-bet frequency it’s going to be so much less it’s gonna be more obvious to your opponent that you have a strong hand, your opponents gonna fold. If it’s gonna be 2-3 players on the flop you really want to charge them alot and make them make big and expensive mistakes against you for chasing draws and stuff like that and if they chase and catch their draw at least you charge them the maximum amount.

10% capped at $20

Yes $20 10 ****in big blinds

Thanks a lot outdonked really solid advice.

Flat out not gonna beat that rake.

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This. 1/2 at Adelaide is capped at $15 which is also pretty bad, but the max buyin is $300. Think you'll really struggle to beat that with a $100 buyin.

I know that 50bb max buy in stinks and that 10% capped at 20 is insanely bad. But there's a reason they can have the rake so high and the sit down so low, because there's no where else to go. We don't have any other casinos or card rooms in Melbourne. There might be a few underground games that play on Saturday nights but they wouldn't have the amount of tables or fish that there is at crown. Unless someone comes down here soon and starts up their own card room then it's really my only option.


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lol outdonk...
if you actually all of the sudden wrote this eloquent piece of work yourself, you just revealed yourself as a troll.
either that or you copy and pasted someone else´s post, pardner...

Doesn't 1/3 run as well and have significantly better rake etc?

Still 10% capped at 20 but it's 100bb sit down. Also less bigs in rake I guess. I'll be going to 1/3 as soon as my bankroll allows me to


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Sure, sauhundl, So, you again come here to pick up a fight accusing me of being a troll or a thief. Is that what you are implying, Sauhundl? So, why don't write to David or Mason Malmuth and ask to ban me for life because you have proof. You got the FoS proof that I stole your material from your hard drive. Go ahead and claim that, sauhundl. I bet a new hat and a horse that you already copied and pasted my posts including this one and try to improve your little game that you pretend playing twice a year.

OK, I wrote this eloquent piece from my mind to reflect the way I play in those type of games and to help our King from OZ. That's why I wrote this troll. But if you insist I can troll you until you bend over, grab your ankles and get out of shape, ... wtf? (I just don't do it now in respect for DS & MM, the two giants of poker)

Now, let me get to you a little more: Who's the dude name or the book or whatever you have in your little head that was ever posted that piece of advice about how to play in games where 3-4 dudes come to the flop and beyond? - I never remember you ever posting something as comprehensible and detailed like I did in the post addressed to our friend King from OZ. You cannot find that piece of advice and detailed strategy of handling loose and crazy 3-4 players to the flop in any book on the planet. There is no book or article that describes how to handle tables full of fish. Not a single one. Not a single author. Not you or anybody. ..., only me here on 2+2. Got it?

More's the pity, sauhundl. More's the pity ...,.

That piece is from you.

no one is writing stuff like that in one post and is capable of articulating coherent points in another one.

or, to phrase it differently:
I don´t think the writing style of above post is in line with the overall writing style of the persona known as outdonked.

It's capped at $15

You're better off short stacking 1/3 then playing the 1/2 game

Your bankroll is not going to grow in the 1/2 game.