I recently started playing a spread limit game at the El Cortez in downtown Las Vegas. There is only one blind of a dollar and you can bet/raise 1-3 preflop flop and turn and 1-6 on the river with maximum of 3 raises on every street. In a full handed game shouldn't I be playing much tighter than I would be if it was a double blind structure. Your not gonna be blinded away at a full table with only playing a dollar a round, would jacks + and AK AQ KQ be too tight? Most of the players are not very observant and seem to give action regardless of how loose or tight a player seems. Any thoughts.? Has anyone played this game before?

How many hands can you play for $1 preflop? If you can turn $1 PF calls with speculative hands into chances $6 bets on the turn/river once you have hit the nuts, you're going to be properly playing a lot of hands. You need to be thinking about return on investment, so if the preflop investment is often $1 or $2 and the final pot is $30 or $40...

The structure allows you to be extremely tight. This still may not be the most profitable strategy. If there are 5 limps to you and no one at the table ever raises preflop without KK+, folding a hand like 75s would literally be lighting money on fire.

You should be wiping the seat and the rail with an alcohol wipe before you sit down, that's how you should be playing.

But surely the promise of high rake needs to be taken into consideration. I agree what $1 pf with $30 pots is pretty good ROI, so long as you can get out cheaply (say, otf), when you don't have a lock on the hand. However, at the same time, when the rake is several preflop bets, I think that argues for a tighter style (if you like, instead consider paying $1 pf for a chance at $25 pots).

@Alan: shouldn't we give the same advice to Oaks players?

Uh, no. Downtown Las Vegas, the rake could be 5% up to $3. There could be $1 BBJ in the form of a HHJP, which you'll get back quickly so it is close to 0EV -- compare that to some quad 8's beaten monster where you'll rarely get any value back. If you're playing in CA with a $5 dead drop + $1 BBJ, house take should be hugely on your mind. Nevada tends to have much more reasonable structures. I've never played El Cortez, but I've played other places around town.

Let's say the rake were $3 higher, if you can put in your money very well in a big pot it doesn't matter. Limping for $1 to win $25-$75 is a NL style hand. How much do NL players care about rake? You're looking at implied odds pure and simple. Now if you get $6 dropped and look at $12 in the pot that is now $6, your argument is 100%. How often will the pot be near the rake cap? If you're playing here in Colorado in a 2-6 or 2-10 spread limit with $5 + $2 with a max rake taken at $50, if the pots are often ~$50, the rake is > 10% and you care a ton.

Since the big street bets are $6 in this game, you could see some $100+ pots if anyone at the table has some gamble. Pocket pair and Axs hands can win these pots. The question is how much this game resembles a 1-5 stud game ($12 max pot) and how much it resembles a juiced hold'em game post flop.

Ummm, no.

I've said this in other posts, the ability to play hands cheaply yet win big pots is a feature of these spread limit games that make them extremely profitable. In some ways, they seem like they might be more profitable than NL. You risk a tiny amount, and if you hit a hand you get paid off. However, if you're wrong, get a cooler. make expensive second best... you still don't lose your whole stack. As an expert in one of these games, you should just crush. I played for years in 2-5 spread limit here in CO, and only 2BB/HR would have been a terrible shame. You see flops for $2 and win $150 pots, that's a potentially profitable game.

Remember, Doug, this is old-school spread-limit, 1-3-6-6.

Why has spread limit not taken off or been more popular?

People put in spread limit for the lowest limit in the casino and to appease nitty players with smaller blinds. The lowest limit in Vegas on the strip used to be 1-4-4-8 played with 1 and 2 blinds, irrc. You might have been able to find a single $2 blind game. Until NL took off, this was the only variable bet sized games I ever played in. Still, mostly people aspired to play "real poker" -- the kind where the bet size was fixed. Spread limit games were something you grew out of.

Here in CO, in AZ, and in some CA venues, you now have very large spread limit games in places where true NL isn't allowed. People in those games probably just wish the game were actually NL.

So, no one really wants the spread limit games. I remember playing in the Monte Carlo version where people had trouble getting to pot up to the $20 requirement to claim their HHJP. Who wants a game that rewards nits? If the games are better, it gives skilled players an even bigger edge. No sane casino wants to make the game even better for a good player -- that means the losers lose faster.