Low Limit Poker Strategy| Part 3
The game really is as simple as Pre-flop and Post Flop action. Now we will look at individual game types within the loose/passive field. You will encounter three different games if you are looking for loose/passive players.
1. Loose Post-flop
2. Loose Pre and Post flop
The softest games will feature passive players in all situations. Again, those are players that do not regularly make large bets or raises. I advise sticking to those games.
Loose Post-flop:
This game will allow you to make some position bets pre-flop. This game will still be somewhat loose pre-flop, but a $20 bet will narrow down the field to heads up, but that doesn’t mean they are holding QQ or better. The main difference here is that your pre-flop raise will mean more to the competition and they tend to “respect” them more. This game will also allow you to make follow up bets on the flop and take down the pot if your oppenent wildly misses. You will tend to see less rivers on this type of game. You can also make the occasional and well timed bluff (depending on your opponent of course).
Loose Pre-flop and Post flop:
This is my favorite and most lucrative game. This should really read: “looser” since a loose/passive game is always more loose than a typical game, this games is just more loose than the above game. Let me define this game as follows: A raise to $20 will get callers with hands like K2h, 84 off, J10 off. (From personal experience, I’ve seen these hands played) When playing this game it is important to understand that you cannot make position bets like you can with better or tighter players. On a 1/2 loose pre-flop game, raising to$20 can easily entice 4 callers. Now, this bet has gotten you nowhere unless you flop a monster hand. Since these players are loose anyway, it is better to keep the pot smaller so that you do not have to invest a lot of money until you get a great hand (after the flop). This also means that you are really going to have to make a large bet with QQ KK and AA pre-flop to narrow the field pre-flop. This should get you in a great position heads up with some crap hand like KQoff.
DO NOT try to win against this field by bluffing. There may be 1 or 2 players at these tables that will lay down a hand, but you will more than likely get called with any variety of hands on this table.
Notice: there is not a specific game labeled “loose pre-flop”. That is becuase, if they are loose pre-flop, they will be loose post flop. These games typically do not tighten up after the flop on low limit games. If you find this rare game where you find players are calling w/ marginal hands and are eager to fold after the flop. You can take down decent sized pots with follow up bets on the flop, especially when an Ace hits the board. But, these games are boring and still a grind. I advise sticking to the loose post flop action games.
Watch and Wait
You will notice this type of play is a watch and wait strategy. You will appear very passive to the table until you get a hand, then you will attack. A personal touch I make to this strategy is to “set up” the table early. Some set ups are a little more complicated than what is required here. This is a simple game that requires very little “set up”. It is as simple as this: Make one large bluff early in the game, make sure everyone sees your hand win or lose. I find it is best to bet from start to finish and end with an all in. Best case, you take down pot, worst case…you lose. In either case, these players will now think you bluff EVERY hand. They will continue to think this even after you show winning hand after winning hand thereafter. Since you brought 5-7 more buy-ins, you didn’t just blow your wad on this bluff if you get called. You may want to make weak bluffs every so often just to keep them guessing and continue the charade. By weak bluff I mean a fairly small bet $10-15 (where this is about a pot size bet, it won’t be much of a bluff at a $100 pot) on the river with low pair or nothing and of course SHOW YOUR HAND, WIN OR LOSE. You may think this is a waste of money, but you have a small chance to win the pot, however the main purpose is investing in the idea that you bluff. This is so that when you hit a hand, they will think your $100+ bet is a bluff too. Bad players can’t tell the difference between all ins and regular bets. To them, once you bluff, it doesn’t matter what you bet…you MUST be bluffing. Of course, after this set up, it is a bad idea to try to actually win a pot by bluffing. You will want to only bet when you have it, but bet strong, because to them your always bluffing.
Play the Field
This article is a general plan and is most effective against the bad to average player. You must still play individual players against their nuances. You can’t play a good player and a bad player heads up the same way. But you have to remember, when other bad players are in the hand, you have to dumb your game down to the lowest level first. You may think it is a good pot, flop and position to bluff against the better player, but as long as dumb players are in the hand with you, it is better to stick to the plan. Also, remember your targets are not the good players. Chances are you and your well playing counter part will gather most of the chips on the table. You will find that the good players will stay out of each others way. I’m there for the easy money. If I wanted a real game, I’d play a better field for higher stakes anyway.
Summary:
-Look for true loose/passive games: Players call many bets with many hands, but rarely raise and they tend to bet small.
-Always have an appropriate bank roll: 20 times the max buy-in or 2,000 times the big blind.
-Sit to the left of large stacks
-Open up your pre-flop hand selection, but adjust the rankings
-Call early position with any playable hand, since it is rarely raised, first position is nearly the same as last. If you find yourself getting raised out of this call a lot, find a new table. In that case it is NOT a passive table.
-Always raise BIG with QQ or better pr-flop
-Do not slow play EVER!
-When you make a hand, bet and bet hard
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