My basic premise: play a typical tight aggressive game, and to bet large enough in no fold'em hold'em cash games to ensure that the hand goes heads up to flop or is taken down preflop. That could be 5x the BB, 7x, 10x, etc.
From there throw out a large C-bet on the flop, about pot sized. Keep value betting with over pairs or TPTK. If missed on the flop of have an under pair, and your c-bet gets called, then be willing to check the hand down unless a card comes that either helps your hand or can be used as a scare card based on your perceived range. What are your guys thoughts, anyone play like this?


More details below:


Anyone that's played live low stakes poker, has witnessed the all too common sight AA, KK, QQ, and AK going down in a blaze of glory against hands that many of us would not even play in a limped pot. Often the the tight player with the premium hand asks after getting sucked out, "how much is enough?" It seems that a lot of profit at these levels come from people calling large raises and bets when they are getting poor odds.

In these type of games, often times the standard 3x raise gets no respect even from a guy that has folded nearly every hand the past half hour. Many people are even eager to call 5x the BB. Personally I tried 7.5x, and would still consistently get 2 or 3 callers unless I was in a game full of regs. When the over pair does hold up or you spike tptk, the pay off is larger, but it comes with the trade off introducing at lot of variance to your game. Other than AA, the other top 3 hands (KK, QQ, AK) typically have a win rate lower than 50% against 3 random hands. JJ and AQ are even worse multi-way. So my basic premise is bet large enough preflop to ensure everyone folds preflop or that you have 1 caller, at which point you can often take the pot away with a large C-bet on the flop when you miss and do not hold an over pair. For the most part you make a small consistent profit, until someone makes a mistake and stacks off with the worst hand.

More or less typical session of long ball large bet sizing looks as follows:

Since your playing tight, you're raising 3 hands an hour on the low end, and on the high end 10. It all depends if you're catching cards pre-flop. For about an hour or 2 you bring in 5 to 10 bb, and eventually you double against a fish or someone that makes a mistake. If you're fortunate to get good cards and play at a poor table, you double up twice in a few hours. Basically, boring low variance Nitty poker. Personally I do not mind, its not the most profitable style, but is not terrible if you're picking up a lot of dead money with very few risks. I gave the approach a try to today in a 2 hour session. Saw one flop, took it down and brought in an additional 20bb of dead money.

This is the only question mark I see in your post, but it sounds like you already know the the answer. Playing nitty and only opening large sizings with very good hands is profitable against very bad players; or players that weakly call lots of opens thereby putting lots of dead money in the pot for when you do catch a hand. You can make more money at these tables in other ways if this is the case so it's certainly not a "try to maximize value" approach to the game. And if said methodology is gonna be your strat you should likely just short stack to prevent weird situations. Like I said this isn't optimal, but it can be profitable. Still, you're better off simply buying in for the max, having a decent bank roll, and learning how to exploit players that play bad.

What you believe the best approach more often than not to exploit these weaker players? Not so much specific more so general archetype, though you can add specifics if you like. At first I would buy in the max, and play as optimally as I could. Game theory starts to break down the further away from optimal that opponents stray, and in these games opponents stray pretty far.

I enjoy playing a low variance style, though I am starting to get the feeling that by nature these weak games have a greater amount of variance than a typical poker game.

I often play with my buddies that are pretty solid, or .10/.25 in both people are not doing stupid out of line stuff with such great frequency.

I suppose I am looking for resources, you do not have to spell everything out. I will do my do diligence, it's just that most of the material I study discussing playing against either good or at the least discerning ABC players.

I understand that you're not really looking for someone to write you a paragraph telling you how to beat poker, but that's what your thread seems to be expecting. Just read the stickies in this forum, pay attention at the table like its your job, and post every hand you play here. It'll come.

Your main problem is that you think this is a problem that needs to be solved.

This is the crux of the matter. You want to play low variance poker. You want predictable opponents. You want easy decisions on the flop.

That doesn't exist in live poker. Once you stop demanding your opponents to play a certain way and instead start adjusting to how they play, you'll win more money and move up.

I'm all for raising enough preflop in order to thin the field to preferably HU or at worse 3ways (in fact, it's pretty much the only reason I believe we should raise preflop). But there are a couple things I don't agree with regarding your overall strategy:

1) I don't think your strategy is taking stack sizes into account enough (and more concerned about 7x sizing or whatever, which isn't as important). The stack sizes should dictate both your opening raise size (especially in situations where you can perhaps get in ~10% of your stack preflop with TP type hands in order to commit) as well as your postflop plan (depending on SPR, with TP type hands you might take a commit vs pot control vs bet/fold line postflop).

2) I really dislike the idea of cbetting a PSB. Most opponents at this level are either calling the flop or not, and the size of the cbet is almost irrelevant (so long as it is "reasonable"). So I would typically size my cbet much smaller when whiffing, say to 1/2 PSB, which means it has to work a lot less in order to be profitable.

3) It's unclear to me, but is your strategy to raise any hand that you are playing (i.e. never open limping or over limping)? I know this forum is divided on this, but I personally think there are lottsa tables (i.e. full of payoff station monkeys) where simply limping/overlimping in for cheap and then trying to hit a hand and get paid off for stacks is fine.

GcluelessNLnoobG

I think this is more of a problem than people realize. Raising TP type hands for very small percentages of stacks only to see a very multiway flop with a very low SPR puts us in very difficult spots.

Gavoidingdifficultspots,especiallyforstacks,isagoo didea,imoG

Do you mean with a high SPR?

No, low.

$300 effective in 1/3 NL (100bbs). We have QQ in EP, raise to $15, get 5 callers cuz games r tuff. Pot is $95, we has $285 back, so SPR = 3.

Ggoodluckmakingthecorrectdecisionspostflop,imoG

Any decent player in pos with big stack size will start abusing you postflop. Unless you balance ur range...

You also forgot the part where your AA get's out flopped and you have already got a 7BB pre-flop raise and a 20BB cbet in the pot. I see a lot of guys that play like this. They win small pots when they have the best hand and lose big ones when they don't. Mainly because by using large bet sizing, they will mostly fold out all the hands they are ahead of.

Echoing what GG and others have already said...

-Your stack size matters a lot. With 100bbs or less, I think it's basically fine. Leaves a lot of money/exploitable situations on the table, but generally profitable. But once your stack gets deep, this becomes a huge problem.

-You're basically setting up a strategy that makes you a little money when opponents don't have anything, and risks a lot of money when they do. Let's say you have queens, you raise to $18 preflop at a 1/2 table, and you get one caller. Flop comes 10-6-3dd. You bet $35, they call. ...Well ****, they either have a good draw, a set, an overpair that didn't reraise, or top pair. You're going to continue betting most boards, hoping to charge the draws and top pair hands. But that means you're committing a ton of money while unsure where your lonely one pair stands. Anytime the pot gets big, you quite possibly are in a lot of trouble.

It's a good idea to find the preflop "pain point" at your table. That pain point will change over time (last night, everyone was calling $10, so I started raising to $15. Then everyone started calling $15. Then I went ahead and abused them postflop, good times!). But yes, stay aware of it. And sure, yeah, "tight is right" is valuable advice. Patient TAGs tend to make money.

But if a player like you is at my table with more than $500, I'll start to call his raises with any pocket pair or suited connector. You're playing tight, but predictable, and that makes it easy for me to develop a plan for taking your money.

But again, this depends on stacks sizes. We're cool getting our AA stacked postflop if our big 7bb raise got it HU versus a speculative hand with just 70bb stacks; with 150bb stacks, not so much (so obviously we take a route where we don't commit postflop).

GcluelessNLnoobG

I did not want to go into exact detail in my original post. I understand the importance of stack sizes and playing more optimal against decent players. I suppose the main topic is reaching what someone called the "pain point."

Is it a good idea to keep jacking up my pre-flop raise amount to achieve the result of heads up action. So prehaps start at 5x + 1 everyone calls, then 7x + 2, 10x + 2, and so on until I reach an equilibrium point where I am getting heads up situations.

Furthermore, with large pre-flop raises come the problem of balancing my range. Perhaps 10x or $20 seems to be the sweet spot in a 1/2 game. I have no issue making this raises with a premium, though should I do this with more speculative hands in order to go for good balance? Perhaps I should not worry a whole lot about balance if the game is really weak. I will throw suited broadway and connected broadway into my raising range, though I believe raising this large becomes problematic for the smaller suited connectors and medium pairs.

I suppose one benefit of very large raise sizes is that I deny regs implied odds. Presumably if I open raise for 1/8 my stack, then regs are not getting the odds to set mine.

Here's an article that describes the approach better than I do:
http://redchippoker.com/long-ball-poker/

^^^^

In the end, I'm totally cool with you finding the pain point in raise size which limits the field, which (imo) is always our goal when we raise. Note that this is regardless of whether we are raising with a huge TP type hand or a speculative hand, so balance is already included. For instance, if there is one fit/foldly limper to me in CO/Button, I'm typically raising big with any playable hand in order to take the money now or get this HU against the limper where a 1/2 PSB cbet should then be profitable.

I see so many players at the table making lol preflop raise sizes that just guarantees very multiway bloated pots. I think those players are making a big mistake. It looks like you are doing a good job trying to avoid that mistake.

ETA: Having briefly skimmed the article you linked, I'm not exactly sure we're discussing the same things (as I was more focused on your preflop goal and your flop cbet size).

GimoG

At some tables, that equilibrium point you are hoping to reach doesn't exist (or it exists for a ridiculous raise amount such as all-in preflop). Trying to get it heads up might be the worst strategy at that table.

The article you linked to suggests that small ball is optimal against weak players with shallow stacks and suggests long ball against players who are not as weak. If everyone is calling your preflop raises, then there are probably a lot of weak players at the table. If you believe that article, you are using the wrong tool if you are trying to force a long ball style when small ball might be best.

And I really believe the best way to keep regs from having the implied odds to set mine is to avoid getting habitually stacked against them when you have an overpair vs a set.

And the best way to do this is to make sure the field is thinned if you are raising preflop.

GimoG

Yes. But you won't find many of these in low stakes live games, at least in Vegas. When you see one, you can adapt to him.

Gobbledygeek, I like the way you think about poker. I have just finished a new book you might like to read (not yet published). If you are interested, email me at astron8@earthlink.net.
Steve

Yes, this is true. But it may take a long time to reap the benefits of our opponents pre-flop errors if we are either...

A. stacking off frequently when we are beat.

or...

B. Pushing all the hands we want calling out of the pot with huge pre-flop raises and flop bets.

Although I do agree that this strategy will be profitable in the long term, I think that not bombing the pot pre and OTF will probably be more profitable because you will get called by worse hands. I will admit that I play mostly 2/5 with a $1000 cap, so I'm almost always playing 200bb. Raising big pre so that I can commit easily post flop isn't really applicable most of the time.

I Dont get your point.. If a tag is pf raising & keep betting wrong flops... Anyone will be able to understand what he is doing.. And people starts floating on wet flops and donk bet on turn... If friends are at the table, then they start raising & reraising each other on the flop itself with absolute air.. I don't think you need to be good at poker to do this..

Now, let say a decent player is sitting on his left and is floating.. How is hero going to adjust?.. Coz he Dont know if he will call or fold.. What if multiple decent players are at the table.. Some times if the higher table is not available good players simply sit down at low stakes to kill time.. Unless he balance his range, he is in for a tough sessions..

Ya, if we're playing deeper then there's no way we will realistically be able to setup nice small HU SPRs (perhaps not even by limp/reraising either). Although even deep I think it is of great benefit for a raise to narrow the field. I'll admit that some my thoughts on this might not apply to superdeep games, where shania / active image / etc. might start overriding this stuff, but I'm also guessing these superdeep games aren't the norm at this level.

GcluelessNLnoobG

+1 to GG and AsianNit.

That longball poker article is primarily about aggressive postflop play with a wide range of hands. And the author ends with the disclaimer that you should be ready to "embrace some variance" with the strategy.

Your initial post seemed more focused on tight preflop play, paired with selective postflop aggression, meant to limit variance. Those seem like fundamentally incompatible approaches.

I have some friends who like the longball style. They call and three-bet pretty wide preflop. They put deep-stacked opponents to difficult decisions for large pots. They experience huge swings, but usually come out big winners. And they completely abandon most of these techniques when facing a table full of standard, short-stacked, no-fold-em-hold-em 1/2 recs.