How to beat limit games?
Speaking of 5-10, 10-20.....
Seems to be pretty much what goes around comes around......
so if you suck out to win a big pot, eventually someone will do the same to you and you'll just be back to where you started from?
While being up I've tried tightening up so I can keep a lead but eventually get sucked out on.....
Is that just the nature of limit or is there some advice that I can apply?
I pretty much play decent hands and every so often 5-4 off or whatever, and most of the time throwing away stuf that fishes like to use like k9,k8, a3,a7,k5 suited, q5 suited...
Seems to be pretty much what goes around comes around......
so if you suck out to win a big pot, eventually someone will do the same to you and you'll just be back to where you started from?
While being up I've tried tightening up so I can keep a lead but eventually get sucked out on.....
Is that just the nature of limit or is there some advice that I can apply?
I pretty much play decent hands and every so often 5-4 off or whatever, and most of the time throwing away stuf that fishes like to use like k9,k8, a3,a7,k5 suited, q5 suited...
Comments
Hammer
read the book twice and memorize the chart.
and the best rule of all is ... DONT TILT.
if u take a bad beat , go for a walk.
follow these steps and u will find that limit holdem is the easiest game in the world.
1) Winning Low Limit Holdem (Lee Jones)- good beginner book. Is considered to be "weak-tight" by most but it will allow you to learn the game without losing a ton of money. Doesn't aim to maximize profits in my opinion.
2) Small Stakes Holdem (Ed Miller/Sklansky/Malmuth) - The next step. Focuses mainly on post flop play. Takes a more aggressive approach to holdem, and it modeled to deal with loose holdem games. I have read sections of this book at least 5 times.
3) Holdem for Advanced Players (Sklansky) - Book for Tight Agressive hold em games. I have read this book twice. Doesn't really apply to most games I play, but is a good resource.
I would't get to caught up on the limit of game your playing, but would focus on the type of game your playing in (i.e. Loose, Tight, weak, aggressive, passive). For most online games I find that the concepts in SSHE apply more that Holdem for advance players. Limit Hold em profits are made in post flop play. SSHE addresses this concept well.
i guess limit u just have to hope ur better cards prevail cause limit u can't push em out and thats what i'm finding difficult i guess........
Don't take this the wrong way, but by not raising preflop with hands such as AK, AQ, QQ, JJ and possibly TT, aren't you losing a ton of equity when your hands hit or hold up? I realize that many low limit players play Ace-suited a ton, but to me buy not raising when you likely have the best hand at the table is a considerable leak.
If I have misunderstood you post, please correct me. Just my 2 cents
No, you didn't misunderstand anything.. He's just plain 'ol wrong.
When they raise - you fold.
Thank you for the compliment.
Classic rock with late raises = make money
Foolish youngsters coming from failed attempts at N/L raising trying to push ppl off hands = donate money to classic rocks.........         LOL..
Actually your reasoning is fine too and I also will sometimes raise preflop with any pair from 7 up in late position because if they hit you do get paid well.. Just mix it up a little. What I am really getting at here is don't bring the N/L strategies to the limit table and expect to make money long term, because you won't. Raises with big pairs in N/L preflop is to thin the field, since that doesn't work in limit raising 10's and J's is really not much different than raising lower pairs. ie if they don't trip up and the likelyhood of made overcards is high then your probably done with the hand. Staying for bets after that with lower pairs hopping for trips is one of the biggest leaks I see at low limit. (Lose little pots, win big ones..)
Maybe, but not as much if you'd open your game up more.
Please stop representing this crap as 'help' or trying to 'improve' someones game. It's Weak-tight B.S. and it's the wrong way to approach the game. Your view is flawed because you immediately dismiss the biggest mistake your opponents make: preflop hand selection. When they play crap and you play better hands than thiers, you win money. Raise preflop and win more money! Your profit in a limit game is ruthlessly exploiting any situation where you have a pot equity edge. You don't think you have an edge against the field with your JJ or TT versus thier random hands?
heh.. the biggest leak of any weak-tight player is not raising thier premium hands preflop for fear of getting drawn out.
I just know there are a ton of lurkers on this message board, so when I see bad logic being passed off as good, I have a need to answer.
It's only when you are faced with a table full of decent players that you have to alter your game, open it up as it were, to keep your head above the rising skill level of water. Thanks to the ever increasing popularity of poker these days... games like this are few and far between.
Even in NL, this line works... There is a UBER-ROCK in the regular game I play in... and when he's in the hand, you know you better have the goods...cause it's gonna be needed if you want to take the pot down.... and yet, this gentleman gets payed off with unbelievable regularity, mostly by the young guns that just can't let go of a hand. Is he capable of playing a different style... yes... I've seen it... but he has practically no risk (relatively speaking).
Does that mean we should aspire to this type of play... NO!... but discarding this style, because it does not skim maximum profits from the game is not the way to go either... If you've ever run bad for an extended period of time... (and who here hasn't?)... sometimes a break is in order... now you won't have to... just break-out the UBER-ROCK style for awhile!
Isn't it the goal of every poker player to play to thier maximal EV potential? Isn't that how we define great/good/so-so and bad players?
We have a difference in philiosophies or atleast how we dispense advice. It's too easy to fall into a weak-tight state of mind and never want to venture out of it. It feels safe and warm. You win a bit of money. Then one day you decide to move up limits and get killed. The problem is that you pretty much stop growing as a poker player. Thats why I dislike people pushing that frame of mind. Even more when it's written with a tone of superiority as if it's the best way to play.
I guess I don't care much if compuease wants to rock it up himself. It's his money but I don't like the idea of leading people down that path.
I don't think being led down that path is horribly wrong for a beginner, as long as weak tight play isn't the final destination. I'd say going from LP to weak tight to tight-aggressive is probably the way most players transition from bad, to decent to good (and hopefully) to great...
Sadly or not, this is not so... and I give thanks each night for this fact... lol
For the serious poker player... this should indeed be the goal... but some lack the time/discipline/desire/ability to put in the work that this requires.
The ROCK-GARDEN style gives them a short cut that allows them to "stay in the game".
This thread started with the title "How to beat limit games?" and one of the early OP post stated... A little ROCK-GARDEN advice might be in order here...
Clearly this is the way to go here...
I've got friends that I see at the casino every now and then... they sit 3-6 and play 70-80% of the hands. Some nights they actually make money... but usually they end up broke... advice is sought out from Mickey... and usually it starts like this..."Quit playing every f**kin' hand!!" Classic ROCK-Garden advice...
...remember... small steps.
Mrs. Holdem has always been a rock... even before poker... always careful with the money (it was me that bought Nortel)... When I taught her how to play... it was natural for her to play tight... the trick has been to get her to be aggressive and loosen up her play a bit... Her forage into the NL game has forced that a little. She's still the ROCK at the table, but there are always players that pay her off.
"How do you beat limit games?"
First... learn how to beat it.
Then... learn how to extract maximum value.
Understandable... but our intentions aren't to lead them blindly down this path and desert them at the end! We can be a guide and answer questions as we go!
Talk about reading between the lines. You posts never even hinted at that way of thinking.
Does every player have to waste away at the weak-tight level? Or can we just push them directly onto the correct path?
Not all players but the vast majority. I think only once you have refined your ability and discipline first, can you even think about playing tight-agressive. It's way way to easy for a person without the experience of both overplaying way to many hands, and then tightening up to then zero in on the "correct" middle ground.
I'm a poker amatuer I play with the aim of yes getting better but also challenging myself, enjoying myself and to be honest.
I know i progressed from played extremely weak-loose (one of those guys who limped everything, from everywhere, for any amount), then loose-agressive for a short while (Heh this betting thing seems to work well and is fun). Then i did the magic mistake and i read some books, and misapplied them and became weak-tight. i couldn't figure out why my 'book' tight-weak was loosing so i re-read and became tight-fall-asleep. Slowly i hated poker and then moved down limites and started playing loose-agressive in shorthanded and weak-tight in higher limit full ring.
I figured each approach would keep testing my abilities in different ways ... maybe someday i'll reach the tight-agressive realm everyone else on this forum thinks they occupy (I'll start a new poll thread)
Tight-agressive
a. That's me, fear me on the poker table muuuuhahahaha
b. That's what i tell everyone i am, but i'm really weak-tight except I keep betting an unimproved AK or AQ to the river
c. I say i am because, that's what everyone says a good poker player is, and i think i'm a decent poker player
d. A quality i look for in a girl, both on and off the poker table.
But for now i'm having fun, coming out ahead and improving my game ... seems par for the course.
What? If you are getting 7-8 to a flop why would you tighten up? These are the conditions for you to increase your starting hand range.
The one thing that the players here preach is a tight-aggressive game and raising pre-flop w/premium hands. Last night I played in Brantford (I usually play there weekly but haven't been since my trip to Vegas in Sept). I was catching premium hands the 1st 2hrs and raised like crazy and was up about $300 very quickly. The next hour I folded every hand and our table had changed from very loose to weak-tight. The last 2 hrs of my session I would get a great hand and raise at every opportunity and found myself winning 2-3 hands in a row. (they kept calling only to fold on the turn & river). In the last hr I had everybody folding with better hands than I because I kept raising.
It was the first time at a b&m where I had complete control of the table. Thanks to the advice that has been posted here I was able to adjust my game depending on how my opponents played. Something clicked last night and I kept telling myself to keep playing aggressive and raise instead of just calling when I thought I was ahead in a hand. I think that I have finally changed from weak-tight to a tight-aggressive player. I just wish that it hadn't taken a year.
Anyways, I want to thank all the experienced players for sharing their advice on this forum...for me it has started to make sense.
Cheers!
If it were me, I could've stopped right here!! LOL!
Seriously, I'm where you are - trying to sort some of this stuff out. Really trying to understand the concepts behind some of the plays advocated.
Yep, At least I have to waste away because I'm a slow learner.
I started playing about a year agon in September.
I started off playing tight and *very* weak.
I lost money for the first 3 months 2bb/100
Found sites like this.
Then I started playing tight and a little aggressive.
Won money 2bb/100
3 months later ...
Then I made a comitment to being aggressive. I tried playing like Doyle Brunson the party 25NL
moved up to 100NL
Won more money, not because I was good but because the other players sucked so badly.
I became more aggressive. Started paying attention to my opponents. worked on pot size control.
moved up to 600NL
Slowly my game improves for a bit and then goes to shit when I try to add a new concept that I don't really understand, and then it improves a bit.
I think BBC is right about tight aggressive being the endpoint where we want to end up.
And I think the advice the original poster needs is ...
.. Play better starting hands than your opponents..
At the risk of sounding patronizing he's not ready to learn about aggressive play or even post flop play - He needs to fix the preflop bleeding.
Oh BBC_Z, you are so wrong. It's obviously not the goal of EVERY poker player to maximize thier EV.. People play poker a ton of reasons unrelated to winning..
I have to admit that when I wrote that, it was more of the meta-level of giving advice to players who ask for it, than a statement on the state of the OP game.
Understood.
The Brantford rake in 2/5 game is so high that I can belive that you need to play very tightly to make up for the $180 in rake+tip comming off the tables per hour.
So you need to play *very* tight or you will be raped by the rake.
While I belive that compuease has been winning for years, I think he would win more if he raised JJ preflop.
While I belive that compuease has been winning for years, I think he would win more if he raised JJ preflop.
Actually I treat JJ much as any other mid pair, I will sometimes limp, sometimes raise preflop, it depends on the table and how many of them I have played with before. All in the name of keeping others from putting me on a hand. Works well at low limit. Remember I am only referring to 5/10 or below. Your mileage may vary a higher limits and certainly at NL.
There are always improvements we can make to our game no matter how long we play but it is not an exact science. Constructive comments always welcome! Jeff...