Beating the Locals in Vegas

In my last column, I discussed how to beat the Las Vegas tourists in small-stakes no-limit hold’em games. This column is about beating the locals.

Las Vegas has a large poker-playing community of locals. Some are casual players who just happen to live in Vegas. Some are longtime players — often retired or working jobs with flexible schedules — who play nearly every day. And, some are pros and wannabe pros. I’ll discuss beating each type of player.

The Casual Player

There are lots of casual local players who stop by the cardroom once or twice a week to play some small-stakes no-limit hold’em. They often frequent the cardrooms at so-called locals casinos, like The Orleans, Green Valley Ranch, Red Rock, and so on. But they also play at the Strip casinos.

I find that most casual local players have a decent grasp of the basics, so unlike some of the tourists, they won’t make too many plays that leave you scratching your head. But these players tend to be too loose on all betting rounds, and they are not aggressive enough with good hands. For instance, they might limp in from early position with hands such as the 10♣ 7♣ and K♦ 6♦ and then call a large raise from the button. And they might call two streets with bottom pair with just a general feeling that you might not “have it” this time.

This tendency to play loosely will enable you to distinguish a casual local from some of the other player types.

Go for value against these players. Although you should still take a stab at some abandoned pots, don’t bluff too much. When these players limp in, make large raises from the button with hands that can make decent top pairs, like the K♣ 10♠ and A♣ 8♣ (but not with bad offsuit aces, which are generally terrible no-limit hands). If you flop top pair, bet it strongly for value, including on the river. Playing this way will enable you to extract value from all of those loose preflop, flop, and turn calls.

The Nit

The Vegas nits are legendary. The very first hand of poker I ever played in Las Vegas was nearly 10 years ago, in a $4-$8 limit hold’em game. A player won a decent-sized pot with pocket aces, then tossed a dollar chip to the dealer and said, “Chop it.” The dealer traded the chip for two half dollars, put one in his pocket, and threw the other back to the player. I’d never before seen someone ask the dealer to break up a $1 chip so that he could tip the dealer 50 cents. As it turned out, this was standard practice in Vegas — at least among many of the nits.

Nits are everywhere in the small-stakes games. Daytime games are particularly rife with them. They play tight preflop, and even tighter post-flop. They’ll make a cheeky bluff here and there, but only if you show so much weakness that they can be nearly certain you won’t call. Other than that, when they bet, they are betting for value. If they make a large bet (a third or more of their stack), they have a huge hand — every time.

You’re not going to get rich playing big pots with the nits. They simply don’t get their money in without a near lock. When a nit seems to want to put money in the pot, get out of the way. You can, however, grind nits down in medium-sized pots. Here are some tips for getting an edge on them:

Call the flop and fold the turn with medium-strength made hands. Nits almost never fire multiple barrels with overcards. So, if a nit raises preflop and the board comes low, you can call the flop with a pair and be certain that you are beat if he fires the turn. If he checks the turn, it might be a whiffed A-K, or it might be a pocket pair with which he’s being cautious. Either way, he won’t bet again unless he improves.

Watch out for extra-large bet sizes. Nits often bet too large with vulnerable holdings in a vain attempt to “protect” their hands. You might see them make an unusually large preflop raise with J-J, or a very large flop bet with A-Q on a Q♣ J♣ 9♠ board. These extra-large bets are mistakes, because they put too much money at risk with medium-strength hands, and the sizing also effectively turns their hands faceup, enabling you to play nearly perfectly against them.

Bluff scary boards. Nits will fold top pair or an overpair to large bets on scary boards, but the smarter ones will apply some hand reading and snap you off if you aren’t representing anything credible.

Mix up their hand reading. Let’s say that a nit open-raises from early position, and you call from the button with the A♦ K♦. (Reraising doesn’t make much sense, since nits typically fold A-Q to reraises.) The flop comes K♣ 3♠ 2♥. The nit checks. Very often, this means that he has a pocket pair smaller than kings. If you bet the flop and turn, you might get a flop call, but almost certainly will get a fold on the turn. If you check it back, though, the nit might bet the turn for you (a bet that you should flat-call), and then make a frustrated call on the river if you don’t bet too much. In general, nits are more likely to pay off if you let them get to the river with their second-best hands.

Don’t seek out the nits. They don’t put enough money in the pot to make for very profitable opponents. Playing ultra-tight is not a particularly good no-limit hold’em strategy. But, it’s also not bad enough that you can make much from the nits at a small limit like $1-$2.

The Pros and the Wannabes

There are some bona fide pros who play in the Vegas no-limit hold’em games, particularly $2-$5 and $5-$10. There are also a lot of wannabes. These guys all have flaws in their games and can be beat, but there’s no sense in butting heads with them, since there are plenty of bad players to go around. Beating them is a matter of developing a solid, polished all-around no-limit hold’em game. No problem, right?

I can’t give you the recipe for beating them in two paragraphs, but I can give you a quick preflop tip. Do not let them isolate you out of position. Don’t limp in and call their button raises. Those are their pots. Your pots are when you have position. In that spirit, if you see a bad player limp in and a pro make a raise, expect the pro to have a wide range of hands that are not very strong. If you have the button and something playable like the J♦ 9♦, you can call and steal many pots when the pro and the bad player both give up.

The next time that you visit Vegas, look for all of these player types and remember the advice. It will help you to have a fun and profitable trip. ♠

Ed’s latest book, Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em, is available for purchase at smallstakesnolimit-holdem.com. Find him on Facebook at facebook.com/edmillerauthor, and you also can check out his online poker advice column, notedpokerauthority.com