Throwing Out The Book

This column is aimed primarily at low-stakes no-limit hold’em (NLH) cash-game players who recently switched from online to live play. If you’re one of them, then you’ve certainly seen the immense differences between the two. Sometimes it’s almost as if you are not playing the same game anymore.

One problem many of the “switchers” have is that they played a very formulaic style online, multi-tabling and trying to make a tiny profit per hand. They used online tools to help them determine the right play in a given situation against a given opponent, and obviously those tools are not available in a card room.

As a “switcher,” the first thing you have to do is throw out “the book.” Whatever system you used online, it won’t translate to live play at the same stakes. You still need to choose the right play for each situation, but now you must start from scratch, and the burden will be entirely your own. No tracking software or analytical programs will help you anymore.

Furthermore, if you are an avid reader of poker literature, most of it won’t help you, either. A lot of good material was written about how to beat $1-$2 NLH games online, but you would be hard pressed to find much advice on $1-$2 NLH live games in the current card-room environment, especially ones that are loose-passive with a lot of preflop limping. (Alan Schoonmaker coined them as “No-Limit Hold’em Limpfests” in Vol. 23, Issue No. 1.) You’d rarely fi nd such a game online, but in card rooms they pop up frequently.

For example, here is a common live-game scenario from a deep-stacked NLH limpfest: Loose passive players A and B limp for $2 in early position, as they often do. Player C, a tight-aggressive player, raises to $20 from middle position. Everyone folds around to A and B, who call the extra $18.

You know what? I intended to continue describing the hand, but instead let’s simply discuss these preflop actions.

First, you have the two preflop limpers. Many live $1-$2 games have at least two very loose-passive players. They don’t care what position they’re in; if they think they can see a flop cheaply, they will play almost anything. They really don’t consider whether or not someone will raise behind them. Instead, they just hope that the action will remain at $2, but they frequently find themselves disappointed.

Sooner or later, they get stubborn. They get tired of limping for $2 and being forced to fold. Where’s the fun in that? So, eventually they start calling large raises, even from out of position. Usually all they are looking to do is catch a lucky fl op, and of course they will miss much more often than not. They are easily exploitable, and unless they are rebuying frequently, they don’t last too long.

My point is that if you had two players like this in an online $1-$2 game, you’d usually have a long waiting list of people looking to sit down with them, and they’d probably go broke before a seat opened up. It was a rare treat when an ultra loose-passive player made an appearance. In live games, there are many more players like that, and you should be more prepared to take full advantage of them.

That brings us to the tight-aggressive player who raised to $20 preflop. No poker book (at least none that I’ve seen) recommends raising to 10 times the big blind behind two limpers in a deep-stacked NLH cash game. The pundits assume that such a big raise will usually kill all of your action. With a big hand, you’d want to raise less so that you might get a player or two to chase with a worse hand. Meanwhile, if you had a marginal hand and raised to 10 times the big blind, you might get action only from hands that had you beat.

Again, that logic makes decent sense in a typical $1-$2 online game. In fact, your online opponents would probably treat you with less respect after seeing you put in such a large (and seemingly illogical) preflop raise. However, in certain live games, if you want to maximize your profits, you have to kick that logic to the curb.

Once you are confident that you have an ultra loose-passive player or two in your game, you need to test their limits. The first time they both limped for $2, perhaps you made it $12 to go, and they both called. In that case, wait for another favorable scenario, make it $15 to go, and see if they call. If they do, make it $20 to go the following time, and so on. You want to find out exactly how far your opponents are willing to be pushed. In theory, if you have a loose-passive opponent who is willing to limp for $2 and then call another $50 from out of position, then you should be raising him $50 every time you think you can get heads up with him. However, if you formulaically raise to $8 preflop every time against a limper, as perhaps you did online, then you’ll never know how much you could have potentially exploited him.

There’s another reason to make larger preflop raises in live games. Online, the typical rake was 5 percent with a $3 cap. No matter how large or small the pot was, you would pay a reasonable rake proportional to the amount you won. However, in California card rooms and certain other areas, you pay a flat rake of anywhere from $3 to $5 every time you see a flop!

With that in mind, where is the sense in raising to three times the big blind preflop? Let’s say the rake is $4, the action is folded to you on the button, you make it $6, and only the big blind calls. If you continuation bet on the flop and take it down, you just won a $13 pot from which $4 will go to the house, so you drag a $9 pot, $6 of which came from you!

Clearly, this is not a long-term winning scenario. If you’re going to play your button, you have to put in a larger raise preflop. You either want to win uncontested and avoid the rake, or build a bigger pot to partially compensate for it. If you are playing in a house that rakes even without a flop, you simply have to fold your button almost every time. Also, you should probably find a new place to play.

You must also make larger raises when you have a preflop limper or two. Size your raise so that there is some chance they will fold preflop, or else, if they call, you will at least stand to win a pot in which the rake will represent a smaller percentage of your winnings.

Perhaps you’d feel like a tool for making this play online, but that’s why between live and online you’re really playing two different games, even though they are both $1-$2 NLH. Let’s continue to discuss these live “No-Limit Limpfests” next time. See you then.

Matt Lessinger is the author of The Book of Bluffs: How to Bluff and Win at Poker, available everywhere. You can find Matt’s other articles at www.cardplayer.com.