Hi all,

I have been focusing on PLO for the last couple of years and am now delving back into NLHE and need some help. Previously, I played at Jack Cincinnati and HSI Southern Indiana. The following are differences that I have encountered in my new room Tampa Hard Rock.

1. Promos are great but there is a ton of deceptive limping of good hands. Raising to 8-12 does not narrow the field but bloats the pot. Should we be consistent with our raise size here (ex, 3bb +1bb per limper) or should we be raising to 10x (or higher) to attempt to narrow the field?

2a. The rake/Jackpot drop. The rake is 10% up to $5 and $2 for the jackpot drop at $10. So, for example, if we raise to $10 and the BB calls but folds to a cbet on the flop, we make $5.

2b. If we steal the blinds, the house takes $1. So, in a 1/2 game if we steal, we only make $2, instead of $1.

How do we adjust to this? Raise larger?

3. Short stacks. The buyin is $60-$300 and there are many short stacks at every table. Typically, around $100 is the average that I have seen. The above logic seems to point at a larger sizing preflop but this will put us in trivial spots post with only 1 PSB remaining.
Any suggestions on how to combat this?

Move up to 2/5.

I play here and grinded the 1/2 for about 9 months. This game is hard to beat for a lot of $ IMO. The very best 1/2 grinders make around 10BB/hr, which is about what I had when I moved up.

1) Yes you have to be very wary of players limping hands like AK (very common) and even QQ+. Spot which players are doing this and burn them into your mind. Do not ISO these players with marginal hands unless they're the type to limp everything, in which case they still have tons of worse hands that will call. Mostly my adjustment to these players is just playing tighter, overlimping more and ISO raising less. The great promos are a double edged sword. On 777 HH nights, there will be many fish, but some are so passive they will check down their sets trying to hit quads. It's very hard to know where you're at against these players.

My standard raise was always 4BB+1BB/limper, 5BB + 1BB/limper at particularly actiony tables (rare) and 3.5BB+1BB/limper at particularly nitty tables (more common). You'll rarely get it HU except on nitty tables. Just accept it. Most pots go 4-ways+ and villains can have all kinds of crap. Just value bet your good hands relentlessly and if you get raised by passive players (most of them), fold anything not very close to the nuts. There are so many players at 1/2 who just do not raise without the nuts or extremely close. So if I flop TPTK on A76r and I get minraised, I'm folding. It's hilariously exploitable but nobody is exploiting you. This player has 77 66 or at minimum 76 like 99% of the time. There are sometimes LAGs and spewtards who will raise with like 98 here but they won't minraise it typically.

I wouldn't try 10xing it. You can experiment with it but I found these large raises just get everyone to continue with super strong ranges which is not what you want.

2a) No you should get back 16 here. Still insane though. Are you counting a tip? I don't tip on pots that small which is arguably harsh but at 1/2 so many pots are tiny if you are tipping all of them it really cuts into your winrate. You can straddle the button to help make the pots larger which diminishes the relative effect of the rake somewhat, and may get other people to start straddling which is always good.

2b) Don't blind steal light. Just bet hands with significant equity when called because it's not worth it to just try to take the blinds when so much gets raked. The rake is the same on uncalled bets regardless of your raise size. I would actually suggest raising slightly smaller in the case it gets folded to you in LP, so you're risking less in case the blinds do fold. Like if you open 4BB in EP try 3BB OTB.

Again the main adjustment for the rake is moving up in stakes. In 2/5 the rake is the same but pots are usually 50+ and hit the cap, so the relative rake is lower. And at 5/T they switch to time rake, but one step at a time...

3) Just try to put the short stacks on your right. Particularly the very short stacks ($60) and the aggressive short stacks. Realize you have very little fold equity against these players post flop. They are almost universally terrible players. Happily stack off TPGK vs. these guys. Preflop happily GII with TT+ AK vs the $100 stacks and you can go quite a bit lighter vs. the $60 stacks. Do be aware SOME short stacks are actually playing TP, just limping and trying to make high hands, so be careful not to mix these ones up with the aggressive short stacks. If a TP SS jams pre-flop they are probably quite strong. Even the aggressive ones are typically not using their pre-flop fold equity to jam nearly as wide as they should.

When you get in multiway pots with deep stacks and short stacks things can get tricky when you have a marginal hand like TPGK. Be ready to stack off vs. the short stacks but be wary of the deep stacks. Most of the 1/2 players who buy in deep are incredibly nitty. Be aware of changing stack sizes. A short stack that runs up to a deep stack may continue playing like a short stack. You find a lot of deep stacked fish very late at night who just don't know how to play deep. This is where a lot of your money comes from in 1/2 here.

Final advice....table select aggressively. There are many many what I'd call "grinder fish" in the 1/2 games here. They play super nitty, often wear headphones, and play a break even to slightly winning poker game. Their bluffing frequency is basically 0. They just peddle the nuts. These guys are terrible for the game and if you find yourself at a table full of guys in headphones not speaking to each other, change tables FFS. You can request to move to a specific table. What I would sometimes do is take a picture of the 1/2 table list, then spend about 15 minutes walking around, taking notes on my phone of which tables seemed better. Typically, if there are 15 tables going, maybe 2 or 3 will be really good, 5 or 6 mediocre, and the rest nitfests. You can request a transfer to a specific table or list of tables. I would often request a transfer then ask the brush e.g., "Any of tables 5, 9, or 16" and then I'd get my transfer after a few minutes. They do let you transfer your whole stack now which is fantastic.

Good luck. The 1/2 games here can be pretty frustrating. When you have the roll for it and the data to support you can beat 1/2 (minimum 500 hours of 8+BB/hr is the benchmark I'd use), take some shots at 2/5. It's really not much tougher. Fewer grinder fish, less scared money, more actual grinders, but the recs are still bad only now they have more money. And both the min and max buyin are higher so short stacks aren't as much of a problem.

PM me you have any questions about the room or want to talk some time.

Mostly you need to play this like you are in a short stack game all the time. Big preflop raises and short stacks means that SPR will be trivial a lot on the flop. In those situations whoever has the best top pair will be the consistent winner.

The people who limp/call with strong hands are easy to beat once you pick them out. Don't over play top pair less then top kicker against them, don't try to bluff them out of hands and if they call a c-bet generally give up. Since their raising range is super tight you can fold all but the best hands when they do raise unless the situation is good for set mining.

Preflop you need to adjust your sizing on the fly. 1/2 games wander around a lot, 4-5X + 1 per limper is a good starting point. Adjust your range based on what sort of sizing you go with, the bigger you raise the tighter your range.

Taking $1 when you take it down preflop means that trying to steal the blinds will mostly be worthless. Even in LP don't raise with garbage trying to just steal the blinds, limit yourself to hands with some value.

I really appreciate your time and candor with this response. I will take your advice and see where it takes me. GL to you.