Cash Games: Adjusting to a loose passive table

I am on pace for my goal of $15,000 profit from June to xmas this year. I ran pretty bad lately and had a bad downswing, but played in a few $2/$5 NL games and did well. My hourly rate and ROI have dropped a little since my last update, but these numbers do seem sustainable in these games even considering the relatively small sample size of hands I have logged.

I decided in this blog to go over two different topics: quickly mention the difference between $1/$2 and $2/$5 games here, and the adjustments I have made to make a stead profit in these loose cash games, with low risk play.

Adjustments
I mentioned some of the typical player tendancies in the last post at these levels. Most people make terrible preflop decisions that can be exploited, but playing these situations too aggressively can also backfire as people are hard to move off hands.

I'll give an example. $1/$2 NL. I make a $15 standard raise in the cutoff with AQs. The button, who has been raising with lots of marginal hands raises me to $45. My read on this player tells me he doesn't actually have that strong a hand. He also did the same thing a few hands ago with 99. The small blind, an extremely tight player flat calls. I have played with this tight player many times and he views me as a very tight player for 3 or 4 betting. I know by him flat calling that he has a hand that he can be pushed off of, because he always reraises preflop with KK or AA. I know he can make a big laydown if I 4-bet and see this as an opportunity to pick up this pot or isolate the very poor player heads up. The pot is now $105. I 4-bet and make my bet $185 total, leaving about $200 behind. The button looks like he absolutely hates his hand and after about 30 seconds calls putting $140 more into the pot. The small blind folds and says aloud "that's kings or aces for sure!", referring to me. I'll spare the rest of the details, but the poor player made this call with pocket 10s preflop and hits a set on the turn on a AJ6 flop.

As we can see making moves preflop can be exploited, but also can backfire causing a high amount of risk. There is a saying at these casinos "in for $2, in for $15", meaning that most people that limp in for $2 will call a raise of $15 every time. While this is good to build pots, it also normally results in bloated pots preflop with 5-6 players to see each flop. General estimations give each player about a 5% chance to make 2 pair or better on the flop, so raising preflop and hitting top pair with 5-6 other players may not be a pot to fight over if there is a combined 25% chance that you are in a marginal situation. On the other hand, small bets relative to the pot size often do the same job that larger bets would do in online games. Of course we generally need a fairly strong hand to continue. Continuations bets are generally useless as a lot of players tend to be calling stations.

With some of these charastics in mind, here are some adjustments I have made:

• Abandon most continuations bets unless I make my hand or want to control the pot with a draw. I will still make continuation bets with players that I know can actually fold or be outplayed, but for the general player I willl generally check the flop.
• I limp with a lot of strong hands. As I mentioned, raising preflop just bloats a pot and your hand range may be more transparant. By limping I desguise my hand and have the chance to 3-bet if anbody raises behind me. This is about the only way to limit the fields preflop and usually a way to pick up a lot of dead money as well.
• I play as many cheap hands from late position as I can. On the button or cutoff I will see a flop with probably 60-75% of cards in a limped pot. With these types of hands I will generally only play 2 pair or better postflop.
• Call raises in late position with gap suited connectors and any pair. I outlined in an earlier post why I believe these types of hands have the largest implied odds value. My opponents and I generally must have at least $200 stacks for this though. The more opponents that come along the better and the deeper the stack sizes the better.
• Bet for value, not to bluff. Every once in a while I will bluff, but it is usally a semi-bluff or I have a dead read on a player. A lot of these players are calling stations and are coming along in the hand regardless of your cards. Value betting is essential in these types of games. This is something I have been working on in my game. River value betting can make you a lot of money in the long term.
• Trust physical reads in critical situations. The more I play live the more I realize how consistant some physical reads can be. One that I find true probably 90% of the time in critical situations is if a player is breathing very heavy and just staring at the board he probably has monster hand. Some times in this situation if a player has gone all in and it is to me to call and I have a set or something I may turn my cards over just to confirm if I am beat or not. The player will often now get very calm and relaxed from this heavy breating state. Now I know I have to fold. The times that I felt priced in and ignored my read I have lost every time. Also getting the player to talk or answer even just one question can give away a lot of informaiton. I usually say something like "I guess you don't care what I have in my hand do you?"
  

$1/$2 vs $2/$5 live NL
These games are not that different from each other and I actually prefer $2/$5 NL. Of course I am basing these observations on a very small sample size, so I could be completely off on this. These games are a lots of times filed with the same players that frequent $1/$2 and exibit the same charastics. The better players that you would expect at these games all stick to Dealer's Choice games where there is more action. Because the $2/$5 game plays very similar to $1/$2 the only major difference is deeper stacks and a few more agressive players that get themselves in trouble and pay large hands off.

Deep stack poker is the game I enjoy the most and feel I have a better edge in. A lot of these players don't have any fundamentals of pot odds, implied odds, etc. which can be exploited in the correct situations. In this game I will raise in position more than $1/$2 and maybe continuation bet more, but I will play the same style as far as seeing cheap flops and calling raises in position with hands of high implied odds value. Implied odds can make a lot of money in these games.

Here are my observations of benefits in the $2/$5 NL game:

• Preflop raising is usually $15-20 (3-4 big blinds as opposed to 7-10 big blinds in $1/$2 NL) giving better pot odds.
• The players skill level is a little better adding the benefit that we gain more fold equity as we may be able to actually push people off marginal hands.
• There are not as many preflop callers, narrowing the hand ranges we can put people on and limiting the field preflop.
• Players are easier to figure out. You don't see as many plays that are completely random and void of logic as you would in $1/$2 NL. This allows you to better define opponents and look for situations in which you stay a step ahead of them, whether it is in pot control or just outplaying them.
• Stacks are deeper. With the relatively smaller preflop raising action and more limited fields to a flop, the stack to pot ratios* post flop allow for more play and better situations to exploit players with monsters.
• Scared money. If you can figure out which players have moved up that normally play a smaller game, you can put more pressure on them that you normally would if you detect weakness. This is a big deal to them and them may not want to invest money into a pot without a monster. As soon as you get resistance from them, get out of the way.
  

Until next time, keep fit and have fun.

* For more on stack to pot ratios (SPR) I highly recommend
Professional No-Limit Hold 'em: Volume I, one of the best cash game books on the market right now.

Live Casino Results

Last year I played poker almost exclusively online. This was mainly because of the convenience factor and lack of casinos in my area. Recently, I have moved to a new city that has a lot of casinos filled poor poker players with lots of money in their pockets from the oil industry. The first month that I played in these casinos I made a small profit while adjusting to the different style of game. I had not really had a whole lot of live poker experience up to that point. Here are my results after making some critical adjustments to the live play.

June 14, 2008 - August 17, 2008
$1/$2 No Limit Cash Games:



Because of these results I now rarely play online. The $1/$2 no limit cash games in these casinos are very soft. Here are a number of reasons why:

• Players are either passive or bluff way too much - Most players can never seem to find middle ground in their play. They are either at one side of the spectrum or the other. Players that bluff tend to do it a lot (and in very poor spots) and passive players don't seem to bluff or raise at all.
  
• Very few players adjust their game to the table - I tend to see a lot of the same players in the games I play and they all play the same style no matter what table they are at. None of them adjust their game to the changing dynamics of the table.
  
• Players just play their cards - I am always amazed by this. Some of these players have been playing poker for 20 years and still play without consideration of other players actions or the number of other players in a hand. It is not uncommon to see a player in first position to act bet a flop into 6 other players with top pair and a weak kicker. They will genuinely think they have the best hand. The play of some players can be very tranparent because of this once you sit at a table with them long enough.
  
• Players over-value their hands - See the above point. AK gets overplayed. Top pairs get over played. Bottom two pair gets over played. Pocket pairs are a disaster for everybody. Etc.
  
• Players have a lot of physical tells - I recommend reading Reap Em and Reap and Caro's Book of Tells. While these books should not be followed exclusively, they do give a good background of things to watch for. One thing to watch out for though is that physical tells can be misleading if the player over values their hand and actually thinks they are ahead, when in fact they are not. For example, some players will reraise with top pair in multi-way pots and have very confident body language because they think their hand is stronger than it actually is that particular situation.
  
• Players do not like to fold, especially before a flop. - If players limp for $2, they are almost always willing to call a $15 raise pre-flop out of position to see a flop. So a $1/$2 game can easily have a $75 pre-flop pot after a few limpers and callers. Some players will even call $25 pre-flop raises with a $100-$125 stack and then say something like "I have pot odds so I have to call." um, yeah sure... just nod and smile, nod and smile.
  
• Players lack basic understanding of poker odds and theory - Players love to chase their draws to the river. Because of this you can really charge players to chase their draws, especially on the turn. Another fundemental that some player even get wrong is that they will continue to chase even when their hand cannot improve (chasing a straight on a flush board).
  
• Players do not follow the size of the pot - I will give a common example I see to illustrate this point. Preflop their are 6 limpers and the button raises to $25. 5 People call, making the pot approximately $150. Bets on the flop now tend to be $35-$50, which is 1/3 or less of the pot, but these raises get the same result as a $75-100 bet because nobody follows the total pot size. The best way to explain this is that players view bets as absolute and not relative to the pot.
  

With all these observations in consideration I can basically set mine and wait for big hands, while using pot control on small 1 pair hands for a pretty steady profit. The games I play in have a minimum buy in of $100 (50 big blinds, not that blind sizes seem to matter in these games) and a maximum buy in of $500 (250 big blinds).

I have experimented with different buy ins and have had the most success with a $200 buy in. Most other players usually tend to have and average of $150-$200 stacks, with 1 or 2 bigger stacks at the table. I like to sit with $200 initially and play short stack poker fairly aggressively, while observing the deeper stacked player's tendancies. Once I build up to $300-$400 I am deep enough to be playing the deep stacks a lot more with hands of high implied odds value.

In a future post I will talk about some of the adjustments I made to maximize profit in these games and other strategies that seem to be the most effective.