Hi guys, there is sometimes a 75/150 limit game going on at my casino and I thought i'd give it a whirl since there were no other high stakes going on at the time.

I play very tight from the SB in NLHE and even tighter in PLO, but I was wondering if we can open up our range a little from the SB in limit HE since it's much cheaper to draw OOP

blinds are 50 and 75 and it's 5 handed

UTG raises, 1 call, I have 89o in the SB, usually would fold in NLHE, can we call in limit?

Sorry if this is a stupid question. I'm not a winning player in limit

I'd call 2/3 chip fold 1/2 chip blinds unless the bb was a big 3 better

You can do some calling in a 2 chip/3 chip blind structure like 75/150, but this particular hand wouldn't be a good call. In a 1/2 structure you are generally 3-betting or folding.

You do get to draw cheaper in limit but with much less implied odds as well, so speculative hands don't have much of a payoff in shorthanded pots.

I'd still toss 98o in this spot, not closing the action with a hand that can leave you stuck OOP with a mediocre hand/draw a lot. It's certainly much more defensible to flat versus an open and a caller in a 2/3 structure than a 1-2 though.

One of the beauties of limit is that you can punch in your hand in an equity calculator and see how well (or not) you are doing with the nut 6 high against an UTG range.

This hand, fold. You're going to get abused after the flop unless you make gin IMO.

Ninja edit: I said a bunch of stuff assuming this happened Monday, but it must have been last Friday, making everything I said irrelevant.

nope, it was indeed Monday. we switched to 75/150 from 50/100 when the game got 5 handed. were you at the game?

Edit again! Prolly shouldn't post while driving . More in a few

Ok, so you were in the 1 hole, right? I was in the 4 until late, nice playing with you.

The general advice I originally posted was this. There were a bunch of hands where I think you missed a ton of value. In most limit games, and definitely this one specifically, one wants to be value betting a lot thinner than in NL.

That said, I think your general strategy of playing tight is def correct, especially I. This game.


Just something to consider if you keep playing, which I hope you do. Limit can be a lot of fun and we're always looking for new players to expand the player pool.

be careful what you wish for

yes I was seat 1 in the main game

funny that you mention v-betting thin because I went home thinking that exact same thing and was going to post 2 hands where I believe I should have v-bet the river

totally different concept than in NLHE I now realize because you are so priced in on the river, I was kind of shocked how thin the table was v-betting rivers

was thinking about combatting that with a river c/r in a spot or two (both as a bluff and for value) but I never got the chance

was a really good game with a good mix of fish/experts and definitely more fun than no limit, maybe not as fun as PLO tho

I'd def call with more hands in this spot in a 2/3 structure, but I don't 8-9o should be one of them.

Also generally, I think you should probably play more hands here in Nl than in limit, not the other way around.

Disagree with this pretty strongly for players who are new to limit poker.

My intuition tells me everyone should play tighter in limit than in no limit but I could obv be wrong

On to the hand:

Looks like its a close fold from the SB by consensus, but I wanted to play this pot because the cold caller in the hand is a loose cannon and the openers range includes a lot of raggedy aces which my hand plays well vs.

V1: Large gap between his calling range and raising range, in fact I don't think he cold called a single bet pre flop all night and never limped. He would 3bet in position a lot (never cold call) but fold to a single bet on the flop even when he was the 3bettor so I figured if I hit a hand worth betting I wouldn't get a whole lot of resistance from him if I led

V2: the reason I wanted to call with this hand. loose cannon who will check raise with anything from air to semi bluff to stone nuts, very loose pre

v3 on BB: calling station, will not 3 bet light in this spot since he's hit a rough patch and lost 10K in the last 2 hours (he thinks it's because he ran bad but it's really because he called down in spots he should have folded and folded in spots he should have called, even though his technique was good, his hand reading was atrocious)

hero calls, BB calls

Flop

K J 8

check, check, v1 bets, v2 calls, I call, bb folds

turn 8

check?, v1 bets, v2 raises, hero?

You should prolly add how the players in the hand view you, which is pretty important to the play you make I think.

IMO, v1 views you as super tight and not sure when to value bet.

V2 doesn't have any idea how you play, and even if he did, it prolly wouldn't make any difference in his play.

I think you could posit some game dynamnics where you'd play a lot of hands in deep NL that could make you looser than LHE. However, there is so much less chance in LHE of getting deeply punished by dominated hands. Look at online 6m stats from good players, I believe LHE players are far more LAG than NL ones. Same for full ring.

Specifically as a NL expert and someone learning LHE, probably is a good idea to not push the envelope in the game where you aren't as strong post flop.
This is the reason not to play. A middle connector like this is going to flop draws and weak made hands more than the nuts. The fact that he's kind of balanced in his really aggressive range puts you to a bunch of hard decisions while OOP. If he played backwards (checked the nuts, raised air), it would be better for you. Straightforward is good. Aggressive with everything means you're getting pretty good odds with all your gutshots and strange "perfect 3 str8 draw with 2 OC to 2nd pair" hands. That actually sucks. Think about playing 77 in this spot where either you missed or you have the joint -- him spewing with everything is great.

You have an UTG range vs. a guy who "will check raise with anything" when you just hit your dream card. I assume UTG isn't folding top 2 or better to you and in the range of "anything" you beat a lot of V2's hands. Maybe he's bluffing so much you let him barrel off, but if you can't raise this for value why call the flop? You're OOP and live players like the FSDR for some reason.

My typos may have been unclear. You should play more hands in NL than in limit (actually there were no typos)

Misread due to context and thought "here" was a typo.

Sorry for derail, we agree.

anyone ever put together any default ranges for cold calling sb in 2-3? i've never played this structure before and woudn't know what to do with hands like suited connectors to the additional added offsuit connectors vs a late pos open. like if the opener is good, i don't wanna turn my ranges face up, but at the same time would like to be able to defend more hands without bloating the pot hu. just seems like a structure that splitting your ranges is a necessity, but i wouldn't know what would be the best way to.

is it a fold pre and not close? I've been calling in this spot. I don't play much 2/3 chip these days tho..so lucky for me if it's bad I haven't been getting punished.

Depends on how good the other players are compared to you imo. But I'm callingbhere of a lot

ok so this is a very close fold readless, whereas in NL it's generally a snap fold, so we play tighter in general in limit but slightly looser from the SB

check

funny thing about this hand is that the value bet lighter advice kinds of explains my mistake in this hand

I flat called because I was worried about v1, his c-bet% was not very high and his double barrel was always a strong hand, I got fooled here because I thought that this was a standard check in his spot with Kx for a bunch of reasons, but in limit it seems like he should bet all his kx hands with good kickers?

another way to say this is i thought a lot of villain's range here is boats, was it a mistake for him to bet any two pair hands?

He should definitely be betting any Kx hand there, and a lot of weaker ones as well (at least in the smaller games I play).

He's always (correctly) value betting any K here, and prolly all J+ hands. Once v2 pops it, he's likely calling down with his whole range if unimproved HU.

Once you take 2 cold on the big street, he hates his hand and it's possible he folds all non 2-pair+/weird sf draw hands for one bet coming back to him.

This should be a very easy 3! To extract the most from v2 imo.

It might also be interesting for you to think about what you'd do if v1 and v2 were in opposite positions on the turn. For the sake of argument, let's assume you get to the turn and action goes.

V2 check, v1 bet.

What are you doing now?

No I think we would play tighter from the sb in limit vs and EP raise. And I don't think it's close but would call if the guy is drooling over himself and not looking at his cards.

It's not like we can stack the guy if we flop trios. We cr the floo and he calls down.