I'm a rec player, and only play perhaps once a month on average, usually 1-2. I tend to play pretty tight, and I don't usually make horrendous mistakes or spew chips. I would say I might be what some of you call pretty ABC - I don't get creative and other than some standard c-betting, I rarely bluff.

I'm interested in what people do when they're card dead for say more than 3 or 4 orbits, and I mean totally dead - no pairs, no aces, no decent SCs, no broadways.

Do you open up, play some gappers, run some bluffs, and try and use a conservative image (if people are paying attention)? Or do you just sit back soak it up, and don't change your game?

If you're at a table where people are perfectly willing to fold postflop, then you can run a lot of plays with a clean image. Now, as for what those plays might be, it'd be incredibly difficult to generalize.

Note that I don't think your image is that dependent on how recently you've played a hand; your one failed bluff that you ran 2 months ago will stand out more in your opponents' mind than the 30 straight folds you've made preflop.

Also note that if you're at a table where every pot is big and the same 2-3 players are making it to showdown repeatedly, then there's no room to run any plays other than the, "Hit top pair+ and value bet" play. At these sorts of tables, then, your image isn't super-relevant.

You fold a lot.

You use the down time to observe all of your Vs carefully and make a plan for stacking each of them.

I fold. In a 1-2 game when I'm constantly folding and only paying $3 a round, I can go card dead for a while, win a small pot and still be ahead for the night. Also, one difference between me and worse players is I'm more disciplined in these spots.

This question is sort of like asking if you should drastically tighten up when you're hot.

There isn't a simple do x and y strategy, which is what you're looking for.

If you want to do more than fit-or-fold, put in the effort.

Put yourself in each hand -- after you fold, pretend your hand was just improved enough to be playable, think of what action you'd then take, range the other players, think how you'd exploit that range. Think about all your options, even lines you wouldn't take -- why do I do this? Why don't I do that?

It's easier to get reads and think about strategy when you don't have cards since you're able to think about the action more objectively rather than what you "hope" happens because you're involved in the pot.

If you "open up" and "bluff" because you're constantly getting garbage, that's called spewing.

Attack weak players who play their hands faced up AND fold too much under pressure.
That's the one and only condition I play ATC.
Anything else is too high variance IMO.

If you think people have noticed that you're playing tight, then bluff. If it's the sort of table where they've noticed you're playing tight and still won't fold, then keep playing tight. If the table isn't good then get a table change into a better game.

Card dead for 3-4 orbits is card dead for an hour. That's nothing. Even being card dead for 3-4 hours and folding every hand is trivially easy for me.

I've found that simply having a tight image doesn't mean you can push around a table by making a move. A lot of players won't respect you unless you are tight and show down winning hands.

Are we talking specifically cash games or tournies?

This is a cash game forum.....

I usually just keep folding.

Many people wildly overestimate how frequently they should get a "big hand." Lets say you'll play any pocket pair to set mine. You'll get a set on the flop once every 15 orbits on average or about once every 5 hours.

In addition, people do not adjust their starting range by position. Even if you are playing tight, you should playing about 25-30% of the total hands on the button. That should give you enough to stay in the action.

3 or 4 orbits? That's pretty normal. I just came off a session where the most playable hand I had for the last 5 hours was JTs from early position. Fold, fold, and keep folding. People will still give you action when you get a hand.

my mantra is "focus on the quality of your decisions".

if the correct decision is to fold for 4 orbits, then I do so. If I'm in my A game mindset, I'm happy about it, too.

This is the best advice of all. 3-4 orbits is nothing, OP.

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Look for weaknesses in your opponents and go after them. If they are limp folding a lot, widen your opening range from the button and CO. Use position to steal pots. 'Card dead' is an excuse, if we have the right reads, we can use positional advantage to overcome card advantage.

This. 3-4 orbits isn't "nothing." I mean, for sure, there will be stretches at points in our poker careers where we go 30 hands without volunteering money into a pot, and I'm not going to go near as far as saying that you're playing wrong if you can go that long without playing a hand (because that's a TERRIBLE approach to the game). But it shouldn't be too common that you go 12 straight BU+CO+HJ hands without seeing some sort of avenue to profit, unless you're at a wild table where the only way to make money is to flop a good made hand and win a huge pot.

... which may very well be a common table dynamic if you're a reg on the strip who mostly plays weekends.

I don't know, anything any one of us says is just laden with like 5 qualifiers and caveats. It's hard to speak this generally.

FYP.

There are sometimes opportunities to steal at LLSNL, but at most tables such opportunities are very rare. Trying to force something to happen when card dead is usually just a excuse to play because you are bored and is not +EV.

BaconMaker plays in Vegas, where tighter play is common. If you are playing a normal loose-passive showdown-happy table, you'd better have your reads dialed in before you try this.

Note: I do this, from time to time. I'm not saying it's impossible, but you need to know that your Vs are loose pre, fit-or-fold post.

Find spots where other players are unbalanced and take advantage of them in decent position

Or just fold forever

I am curious as to what you would do at a table where they are limp-calling a lot and rarely limp-folding. Assume it's the sort of table where I've seen aggressive players go on tilt because they keep trying to raise a bunch of limpers and take down the pot preflop but keep getting 4-5 callers while increasing their raise sizes.

Sigh.

I like the mantra of evaluating decisions. The only reason you should deviate from the optimal strategy is to exploit a perceived weakness. The only way that can happen is to you know your opponents well enough to confirm it.

If you're card dead there are two things that absolutely must be happening for you to be a winner.

1. You are still engaged mentally. You can in the space of a few orbits learn vast amounts of information in most of your opponents. It's more than you can process really so you have to take longer just to categorize it all. That is #1 activity when not in a hand. Still be in it.

2. Going along with that, realize that you are constructing an image. Also realize that not everyone will receive that image. By observation you should be able to learn if it is possible to use that image to widen your range and steal some pots. You should never be opening randomly just for the sake of card deadedness.

I'd say most players do faaaaar too little of #1 and faaaar too much of #2.

I usually just ride it out and have a tight image that session, which isn't a bad thing at all.

If I haven't played a hand in a long-ish time -- like an hour or two -- I'll open up my ranges in middle and LP a little. Raise/cbet abcs when they limp in. Still folding unplayable crap though.

I limp a really weak range along, against maniacs when they limp and the pot is likely to be limped; stuff like J9o that is normally a fold. This is okay if they cover and we have 100bb, I think. This usually makes my range so wide that I'm rarely actually folding for two hours I guess.

The point about getting information when we are card dead is spot on. There is so much info out there...so much that it's difficult to avoid being overwhelmed.

Well, I'm not just talking about straight steal plays, and I'm not just talking about tables where everyone is old nits. I'm saying unless the table is fairly maniacal, it takes a pretty bad run on situations for you to have to fold 12 straight LP hands, because only at a maniacal table do you need broadways / PPs / SCs before you can consider joining the action. I'm not saying it doesn't happen and I'm *definitely* not saying that if you do run card/situation dead that you should somehow compensate for it by overplaying your hands. I just wouldn't be all "yawn, I fold 30 straight hands all the time; super standard."

This is kind of an extension of my sneaking suspicion that preflop decisions in this sub are like 90%+ based on where they fall on the hand chart. I base this mostly on the fact that Hero never holds worse than KJ in any of these HHs.

FWIW, I play at a local casino, ~60% during reg-infested mid-week hours and ~40% the weekend. For the most part, the games are pretty showdown happy, but that's only because people check down everything all the time. It's pretty rare that pots break the $100 mark without monsters being involved. I played about 20 hours over this holiday weekend, and less than half that time was spent at table conditions where I was all, "Man, I can't wait to hit top pair+ and stick it in someone's pooper." I rarely make plays just purely based on their in-a-vacuum profitability for stealing the dead money in the pot, but I do find a whole heck of a lot of situations to play marginal hands profitably in the last 3 positions.

EDIT: I realize that I +1'ed a post where BaconMaker was talking about straight steals. I certainly don't think most players do that enough as well, especially against old nits, fit-or-folders, and TAG wannabes (and the game is FULL of these), but that probably makes up the minority of situations where OP might fold where I probably wouldn't.