Playing with half-price blinds
On a trip to Vegas last weekend, I played in the 4/8 game at Mandalay Bay. This game had a really strange betting structure. The blinds were 1/2, and you could see the flop for just $2 if nobody raised. The betting structure, though, was 4/8. So if somebody raised pre-flop, the cost to call went from $2 to $6, then to $10 with a re-raise, etc.
How would you adjust your play to take advantage of this blind structure?
The table I played at was nice and loose-weak, so I wasn't too concerned with making sure my adjustments were ideal. Here are the (possibly incorrect) adjustments I came up with:
1. In late position, be more inclined to limp in with marginal drawing hands and see a cheap flop. Be ready to drop it if I don't really hit the flop well.
2. In early position, be more inclined to raise with medium pairs and big cards in order to thin the field.
3. Be less inclined to play a hand when someone before me has raised. Most of my opponents seemed intimidated by the high cost of a raise, and seemed to be only raising AA, KK, QQ, and AK. I laid down JJ and AQo a few times.
4. Be more inclined to fold to a raise pre-flop after attempting to limp in. I was the only one at my table to do this in a 4 hour + session.
I'd appreciate comments on these adjustments, or any other ones that might work. I have a sense that this blind structure favours tight-aggressive players, so I'd like to play there again some time with a better understanding of how to take advantage of it.
How would you adjust your play to take advantage of this blind structure?
The table I played at was nice and loose-weak, so I wasn't too concerned with making sure my adjustments were ideal. Here are the (possibly incorrect) adjustments I came up with:
1. In late position, be more inclined to limp in with marginal drawing hands and see a cheap flop. Be ready to drop it if I don't really hit the flop well.
2. In early position, be more inclined to raise with medium pairs and big cards in order to thin the field.
3. Be less inclined to play a hand when someone before me has raised. Most of my opponents seemed intimidated by the high cost of a raise, and seemed to be only raising AA, KK, QQ, and AK. I laid down JJ and AQo a few times.
4. Be more inclined to fold to a raise pre-flop after attempting to limp in. I was the only one at my table to do this in a 4 hour + session.
I'd appreciate comments on these adjustments, or any other ones that might work. I have a sense that this blind structure favours tight-aggressive players, so I'd like to play there again some time with a better understanding of how to take advantage of it.
Comments
1. Since the blinds are small, there is generally very little ante/blinds to fight for, so tighter than usual play is called for.
2. Since I play much better than my opponents post-flop, it's worth the cheap price I can get pre-flop so that I can see the flop with many more hands than usual. I can extract more profit than usual relative to the cost of entering the pot in the later betting rounds.
If you are playing quite a bit better than your average opponent, #2 is probably the way to go.
Your 4 pre-flop items seem sensible. I'd also be quite concerned with post-flop (in particular on the flop itself) adjustments.
On the flop, the "bigger" betting sets in. Both you and your opponents have your first, and possibly most important, chance to make a substantial mistake in the hand, or cause other players to do the same.
The unusally small pot the pre-flop betting generates a lot of non-standard post flop play.
1. Drawing hands go down slightly in value* when facing post-flop bets, since the pre-flop pot is almost always small. Quick and dirty pot odds helpers like "If there are 2 other players in I can chase the flush" need not apply.
2. Slowplaying monsters on the flop is more often correct. A small pot is not really worth protecting, and so attempting to extract the big-big bet of $8 from your opponents isn't nearly as risky as it usually is.
3. Bet strong hands for value as much as usual, or perhaps even slightly more than usual when your opponents may be dominated. Top pair, top kicker is normally a strong holding, but is stronger still with so many pre-flop limpers as candidates for being outkicked.**
4. Take it easy with marginal to good hands, and be prepared to get out with some hands you might think worth a call-down in a standard game. It is far too costly to make post-flop looseness errors. Let's hope your opponents are often doing so.
5. Know thine enemy post-flop. "This yahoo plays anything pre-flop" is probably an insufficient box to put someone in. Understand what your opponents' motivations are post-flop, both individually and as a table. Is it Grand Calling Station Central? Is it weak-tight on the flop when the limit goes "all the way up" to $4?
These points are all very tricky, and highly dependent on game texture. For example, if you average 8 players seing the flop, all of whom are "passive/payoff to the showdown" players, then points #1 and #2 are completely wrong.
All that said, you probably don't have to go way outside of the standard solid LLHE textbook to have success in the modified blind structure. The fact that poor opponents are less injured on the whole by their pre-flop play, probably ends up being counter-balanced to some degree by the fact that the sharks can tangle with them on more flops.
ScottyZ
*I'm always talking about relative to a standard 4-8 game, and assuming no pre-flop raise.
**Of course, I'm assuming the pre-flop action is an absolute VP$IP zoo.
also if you find the table has very little raising at all pre-flop, then i think for the cheap price many drawing hands (connectors, small pairs etc...) are viable from early and middle position also
That's surprising, I would have guessed the opposite on this one. Since the table was loose-weak, I run the risk of nobody betting the flop. This would mean that not only do I loose out on bets on the flop, but a bet on the turn could easily be $8 into a $10 pot, which would be much more intimidating than, say, $4 into a $10 pot, or $8 into a $22 pot.
Very true. One of my normal leaks is calling too often when I'm behind, and being aware of this fact helped me to lay down some decent hands. Strange how playing in non-standard situations can improve one's play.
I had a very drunk player on my right who always put into the pot whatever number the dealer said first. For example, "It's 4 to call" meant he would put in 4, and "You can check or bet 8" meant he would bet 8, since that was the first number he heard. Essentially, this gave me the option of a single or double bet on every street. The only variance in his game was that whenever he had a monster hand, he'd lean over to me and say "I'm going to win this one", even when I was still in the pot. Talk about a sweet seat!