Low Limit Poker Strategy | Part 1

Low Limit Poker Strategy | Part 2

Low Limit Poker Strategy | Part 3

When playing lower limit NL Hold em games, it is important to understand that in order to win you typically need to leave your advanced concepts on the rail. The best way to say it, you should dumb down your game. Low limit games are notorious for poor play. Poor play is what makes these tables so attractive to play, yet it is also a big reason knowledgeable players cannot post a trend of winning sessions. This does not mean that you should play stupid, it just means you should treat this game different. We are going to look at how to take advantage of soft games on lower limit games. There are three major things to consider when playing any game, they are: blinds, bankroll, seat selection and competition.

Blinds/Buy-in

A lower limit game is generally considered to be a $2/$2 game or lower. These games typically have a $200 max buy-in or lower. While many people will argue that $200 is not chump change, in the world of poker…it is. These games will generally attract softer competition, which can get a lot of “text book” players in trouble. I respect the “Super System” and other well known advanced poker strategy books, but these books are only half truth when it comes to low limit NL hold em.

Bankroll

Like in any poker game, you then want to think about an appropriate bank roll. Your bankroll is how much money you have behind you devoted to playing poker. This should not include IRA’s or your children’s college fund. It is a roll of money you absolutely can afford to lose. Generally, your bank roll should not be any less than 20 times the buy-in for your preferred game. The most important reason to have this size bank roll is psychology. If you only have $100 or $200 to gamble with and losing that money will make you lose sleep, you will play scared. If you know you have 20 buy-ins to play with, you will be able to play with the proper aggression and take proper risks. However, that does not mean that you should bring your entire bank roll with you to play. I typically bring about 5-7 times the buy-in to play and leave the rest at home. The reason you do not want to bring your entire roll is simple. If you loose more than 7 buy-ins you will probably not be able to play right. Whether these losses where due to poor play or not, you will more than likely be on tilt. You will either play scared or take too many risks trying to “catch up”. I typically call it a day if I loose 5 buy-ins, even if I bring 7.

Competition

Now you need to evaluate your competition. The optimable table will consist of 2-3 bad players, 4-5 average players and 1-2 good players (including yourself of course). Too many bad players and the game can be too erratic. Many times it is already difficult to know where you stand in any hand at low limit games, but adding more bad players increases the random calls of players who you did not think stayed with a gut shot draw for a pot sized bet. If there are not enough bad players, the game can be fairly tight and is usually not the best to make money at. Good players help control the game a bit, but you do not want too many of these either. They are your direct competition, they are the only players who will consistently win at these tables along with you. Average players are just in the mix. You can make money on them and they give you the opportunity to make bluffs the bad players won’t fold to and the good players might sniff out.

Note on good players: There will be two types of good players you will encounter, “low limit sharks” and “poker snob”. Both of these types understand the game of poker completely, they have probably read books, played many hands and have studied the game as if it were an art. The difference between the two players is that the shark understands that “textbook” poker does not apply to lower limit.

The poker snob is too educated for his own good. He has read all the books and now he wants to apply them to a game where the “rules” don’t apply and other players don’t play by the “rules”. He is a player that will constantly get frustrated that no one gave him respect after 3 calls, a raise and now his re-raise. He is also a player that will check in the dark with a big hand, thinking it will incite action. It usually just confuses people into checking at low limit games. I have seen these players routinely walk away in frustration and call me a donkey, because they don’t understand how to play low limit. What they fail to realize is their raise textbook raise of 4 times the big blind is still only $8. When they have $400 in front of them along with me, $8 is well worth the risk to “hit” a monster and drain their stack. Because he doesn’t know how to adjust to the low limit game, the poker snob can be pooled with the average players if you spot one and adjust your play accordingly.

Seat Selection

If you have time to observe a game before choosing a seat, it is best to sit to the left of any player who raises a lot and plays aggressive. If you do not have time to observe the table, a good rule is to sit to the left of the big stacks. These rules apply to other games as well, but we needed to mention it. If there is only one seat available, just sit down and play. Players will be knocked out and you will be able to change seats if it will benefit you later. The most important thing is that you have identified the right game, which we will cover in the last section.

Continued: Low Limit Poker Strategy Part Due

Try your low limit strategy at PlayersOnly.com: This site is known for huge fish and poor play. They also have the highest credit card acceptance rating among online poker rooms.

After you understand how to calculate your odds and outs of poker hands. The next step is applying this information toward valuing each pot according to the size of the pot and your outs. Using probability in valuation is nothing new. It is the basic approach toward valuing stocks and other investments.

For a quick and simple understanding of pot odds. Consider this example: Imagine a game where a 2 sided coin was flipped and if it landed on heads you would be paid $10. The question is, how much would you pay to play this game each time? If you answered less than $5, pat yourself on the back, you understand pot odds (unless it was a lucky guess).

Why less than $5? In each game you have a 50%(1/2) chance of winning $10. If you pay 5$ each time to play, you will be getting even money. Over time you will break even. You will not lose money, but you will not win money either. Why waste your time? If you pay less than $5 you will win money over time given the odds. Further, if you pay more than $5 to play, you will lose money over time. Notice: $5 is equal to 50% of $10 or (probability x pot). If you were using a mythical 4 sided coin and you were paid $10 for landing on one of the 4 sides. Even money would then be 25%(1/4) of $10 or $2.50.

Let’s look at 10 trials if you pay $3 to play.

50% of the time you will lose and pay $15 (5 trials x $3) to win $0.
50% of the time you will win and pay $15 (5 trials x $3) to win $50.
Total you would pay $30(15 + 15) and win $50 for a net profit of $20. Of course this assumes the probabilities hold true for this small sample. These probabilities will be more accurate as the amount of trials increases.

This example is no different from pot odds in poker. To calculate the value of the pot, you simply multiply the odds (percentage) of winning times the amount you can win, in the case of poker that amount would be the pot size. After you calculate even money, it is as simple as paying anything less than that amount.

You can find the odds of winning on the turn with the following formula: (# of outs x 2) + 2 = % to win hand.

If you have a flush draw on the turn, using the formula you will find that you have a 20% chance of making your hand [(9x2)+2=20]. If the pot is $100. You want to pay anything less than 20% of the pot after all bets are included after your bet or call. Meaning if this situation was heads up and your opponent bet $20. The pot after all bets are in will be $140. You will be willing to pay anything less than $28 to see the river and hopefully hit your flush. If you pay less than $28 and can repeat this situation many times through other hands. You will win money over time. This exact situation with the same amount will not occur in succession. However, over time the principal will remain the same. You want to pay appropriate values for hands and avoid overpaying for draws.

In poker, you don’t have to win every hand. The key is losing some of the time and winning most of the time.

TIP: Many people are intimidated by working with percentages. However, there are some simple tricks you can use to estimate the percentage of the pot. If you know how to find 50%, 10% and 1% of anything you are good. Here’s how to use it.

Find 25% of 350. Many people would have trouble with the multiplication in their head. A trick to finding this percentage is simply finding 50% of 50% of 350…or 1/2 of 1/2 of 350. 50% of 350 is 175, 50% of 175 is approx 87. So, 25% of 350 is approximately 87. You only need to be accurate within 1-2%. The actual number is 87.5 which is close enough. You will want to round down so that your approximations are more conservative and you will avoid overpaying for hands even by a few percentage points.

Find 33% of 400. A simple way to find this is break it up into 10% and 1%. 30% is simply 3 x 10% and 3% is simply 3 x 1%.
10% of 400 is 40, multiplied by 3 is 120. 1% of 400 is 4, multiplied by 3 is 12. So, 33% of 400 is 120 + 12=> 132.

The pot size can be in terms of dollars as in cash games or value of chips if you are playing a tournament. The principal is the same.

You can also apply this shortcut to other percentages like 5% which is simply 1/2 of 10% and so on.

If you don’t fully understand it all. Don’t worry. Like anything, it just takes a bit of practice. I really only began to fully understand percentages and probabilities after I started playing poker. It gave everything a hands on application.

If you need further relief from the math, you can round the percentage DOWN to the nearest tenths place in increments of 5%. Example: 33%=>30%, 46%=>45%, 22%=>20%. It is best to be as accurate as possible. But, The difference of 1-2% will not make too much of an impact on you deciding to play or fold. And since you are rounding DOWN, the rounding errors will keep you from loosing money, due to overpaying for hands even by a few dollars.

You may want to remember common percentages for both the turn and river for different draws. Mainly, Straight Draws, Flush Draws and the monster, a combination of a flush and straight draw.

Keep in mind you typically only want to draw into hands that will get you a premium hand. Playing pot odds on a big pot just to get an 8 high flush is probably not a good idea. This is especially true with more players at the table, because the likelihood someone else will be drawing for a much higher flush is greater. You also want to avoid drawing into hands when a pair is present on the board, this is because you can be trumped by a full house. The last example is drawing into sucker straights. Example: Hole Cards: 3,6h…Board: 5s 7c 8s…This hand is not a strong hand to draw into with 6-10 players at a table. The reason: The only card you want to see right now is the 4. Someone may already have the nuts with 6,9 and even if you hit your 9, you will then be guessing what other straights may be out there. It’s not that you should never play from these positions, but drawing into large pots using pot odds with these hands will tend to get you in trouble. Stick to the the more promising draws.

Be sure to read about amex casinos and poker sites that accept us players.

Understanding probability in poker is essential for consistent winning sessions for No Limit Strategy and becomes even more important for the Limit player. Many players avoid this facet of poker all together, typically because they are intimidated by the math portion of it or they simply think poker is just another casino gamble. Poker is a game of skill that is broken down into two major skill sets, Psychology and Math. Psychology includes reading tells and accessing your opponents behavior. Math mainly includes bank roll management and odds/probability. Match is the focus of this article and in particular, the math surrounding odds. When figuring out odds in poker, you are basically looking at the known information on the table, what cards are shown and therefore what cards are left in the deck. Using this information you can determine how many of those cards left in the deck will “make” your hand.

For example: If I hold 2 hearts (Ah, Kh) as my hole cards and the flop has 2 hearts(6h 10h 2c). Without seeing any other cards I know what there are 13 cards of each suit in the deck. There are 4 showing leaving 9 more hearts in the deck. Those would be my “outs”, because those cards are required to improve or “make” my hand. It is that simple.

Most people understand this concept, however converting to probability typically becomes the intimidating part. The thought of fractions and percentages makes many people queasy as they think of the horrifying days of math class. Fortunately, there is a math trick thanks to a player named Devil Fish. He is a world class poker player and has expertise in mathematics. He has created a simple formula of converting outs to percentages or probabilities. It is broken down into two formulas, one is for the probability on the flop and the second is for the probability on the turn.

Formula for the Flop:
(Number of Outs on the Flop x 4) -2 = Odds of winning or making your hand in terms of %
Example: (9 x 4) – 2 => (36) – 2 = 34%

Formula for the Turn:(Number of Outs on the Turn x 2) + 2 = Odds of winning or making your hand in terms of %
Example: (9 x 2) + 2 => ( 18 ) + 2 = 20%

In each case the probability produced is the odds that you will make your hand by the river. Since on the flop there are 2 cards yet to come (the turn and river) the percentage is higher because you have more chances to make your hand.The next step is simply applying this percentage to the pot size to find out if you have “pot odds” to call, meaning are you getting value on your hand given the relationship between the pot size and the amount of the bet to see the next card.

I will discuss pot odds in a future post.

Be sure to read about poker sites that accept us players.