Beating The Spread: Developing Winning Spread-Limit Strategies
Limit and no-limit hold'em are extensively studied, but far less effort has been devoted to spread-limit hold'em, wherein a player can bet or raise any amount from the big blind to a defined maximum. There are two primary reasons for this: spread-limit hold'em is far rarer than either limit or no-limit hold'em, and many players think that effective spread-limit play is simply a no-limit strategy with maximum bets substituted for any bets that size or larger.
This misconception leads to constant mistakes. In my career at the Casino Arizona 5-150 spread limit game (with $2-$5 blinds and a $150 maximum bet) I have seen many dozens of players who obviously use these kinds of strategies. Many of them win, but that is only because their opponents play even far worse than they do. Thinking carefully about the nature of spread-limit poker and developing your strategies accordingly will enable you to make stronger, more profitable decisions.
Spread-limit poker shares characteristics with both limit and no-limit poker. When the pot is small compared to the maximum bet, implied-odds considerations dominate those of immediate odds; conversely, when the pot is large compared to the maximum bet, the game strongly resembles straight-limit poker (free-card raises, crying calls, and all). There is no single point at which the game tips from one to the other -- as long as the effective stack is larger than the maximum bet, the spread-limit rule affects the strategy. Whereas in no-limit you should tailor your decisions to the effective stack, in spread-limit you work in terms of the maximum bet.
Good no-limit players adapt in order to capture big bets. They inflate pots in position; they take risks to inflate pots in favorable situations when the stacks are deep; they play extra hands when they figure to outplay their opponents on the big streets. These habits, translated into a spread-limit game, are all leaks. Too much money gets in preflop compared to postflop, and losing money (or winning less money) before the flop is therefore a bigger penalty.
Since the game plays qualitatively differently depending on the pot size, different hands will prefer different-sized pots in spread- and no-limit poker, and a proper pot-manipulation strategy will incorporate these differences. Suppose your hand has a hot-and-cold edge but generally suffers from reverse implied odds. You'd rather play limit poker than big-bet poker with it, so try to get the pot big. Suppose that (as in the Casino Arizona game) the big bet is 30 blinds and a loose player opens for 4 blinds from late middle position. The cutoff and the button, both unremarkable players, call. You have AQo in the big blind, and the stacks range from 100 to 200 blinds. Reraise the maximum! Your hand rates well against this field, and while in no-limit poker you would often wince at the thought of playing a big pot, you won't have to face any pot-sized bets after the flop. (Let me offer the same disclaimer that Ed Miller and David Sklansky do in No-Limit Hold'Em: Theory and Practice. This article is not about what to do with a given hand; it is about how to adjust to a maximum bet. There might be a more profitable way to play AQo in this spot. The key is that what is often a bad no-limit play will usually be a profitable spread-limit play.)
Conversely, suppose four players limp to you on the button with JTs. In no-limit a raise is often advisable, but as long as the maximum bet is not very large you are better off limping. Why shift the weight of the betting away from the big streets, where JTs thrives? Sweetening the pot might be correct, but if you make it 6 or 8 blinds preflop you will, if you make a monster, find yourself unable to bet more than a fraction of the pot on the river, or even the turn. If the maximum bet is large relative to the big blind, or if the pot is shorthanded, then a pot-sweetening raise can be larger. But when four players limp to you and the spread is 30 blinds, any such raise should be very small, no more than 3 blinds. (It should be noted that many of these games play short relative to the maximum bet, and you will find yourself in some pots against opponents with no more than two maximum bets. In these cases, your stack-winning strategies will closely approximate those in a no-limit game.)
Similar adjustments apply to the flop. In no-limit, you often inflate the pot on the flop with a good draw such as the nut flush draw, willing to take the pot down but unworried about a call because of the possibility of winning a large pot. Playing such hands aggressively is often correct in spread-limit, but be careful: the bonus possibility of winning a monster is usually absent, and immediate equity losses you face are larger compared to what you can make up later.
Many other standard no-limit plays need to be rethought or back-burnered. Briefly: whereas a checkraise in no-limit can be several times as profitable as a simple bet and call, it is only twice as profitable in spread limit. Blocking bets have their place but are less effective -- why block a big bet your opponent can't make? "Bluff-calling" (or "floating") is often less effective, because the bluff you plan to make (and the future bets looming over your opponent) aren't as threatening.
Recently I played a 5-150 hand wherein my decisionmaking would have been completely different had I been playing no-limit. A gambling, losing player with money and energy to burn had just reloaded to $350 and made it $25 in middle position. His raise meant at least a reasonable hand -- usually he just limped and called -- but certainly not necessarily a big one. A semi-tight thinking regular called, and a new player called. I held AKo in the big blind. The two callers had approximately $400 and $200, and I covered all my opponents. I raised the maximum, making it $180. I would have often made a big raise in no-limit, but the play is even better here. A big multiway pot with one pair is no disaster in a spread-limit game; even if the stacks were deeper, the pot would have been so large that we would have effectively been playing limit poker.
As it happened, only the original raiser called and we saw a JT5 rainbow flop. In no-limit poker, my flop decision would have pivoted on the effective stack size. An all-in bet would often have been appropriate, and the stack sizes would have affected the size of the preflop raise. Here, though, I couldn't bet more than $150, and there were only two maximum bets left in the effective stacks anyhow. So I made the clear play of betting $150. He called after a pause but without any apparent internal conflict, which meant, I thought, that he had a pocket pair (he would have done this even with many pairs smaller than tens), a piece of the board, AK, or AQ. (His preflop range was significantly wider than this.)
The turn paired the jack. In no-limit with deeper stacks this is a tricky spot, playable in many different ways, and often best avoided by modifying earlier decisions. Here the decision was less complicated. There was $175, barely more than a full bet, left. My opponent's range beat mine and he wasn't folding anything, but he played late streets weakly and would have checked behind with most of his hands. So I was able to simply check and hope for a free card, planning to call (getting approximately 6-1) if he bet. The turn went check-check.
The river paired the ten. In no-limit this is a spot to think about inducing bluffs, blocking a bluff you can't call, and pushing a chopping ace out of the pot. In spread-limit, though, this spot is much simpler. My opponent was not folding an ace, and was capable of a desperation bluff, so I checked to give him some rope. He checked behind with 99 and I took the pot.
This hand epitomized the spread-limit experience. I thought about immediate equity instead of the possibility of capturing a big bet later; I valued my marginal hand more highly than I would have if getting to showdown were trickier; and I threw my big-bet capabilities out the window preflop and didn't try to make a $150 bet do more work than it could bear later. And my opponent helped me by playing badly.
So if you find yourself playing spread-limit, have fun. You will be playing an under-studied, misunderstood game, and you will have many opportunities to make creative plays that will win you money and look strange to your opponents who can't overcome their limit or no-limit backgrounds. Seize these opportunities and get the money.
