100 Big Blind Stacks in Low Limit Games

I differ from Harrington on Cash Games in that I still play speculative hands when the stacks are a bit smaller than the recommended 200 big blinds. As I play lower stakes games I find players generally buy-in shorter than 200 big blinds anyway but do not adjust that well to these slightly smaller stacks. I am not saying that 100 big blinds are especially short but you should be playing differently to 200 big blind stacks. I will still play mostly premium hands and some connectors in position and I am looking to hit the flop hard and win my opponents entire stack.

What Can You Win?

If you are limping in with a low pocket pair, for example, like 6-6 to hit your set you know that when you are called you will face overcards most of the time after the flop and even without them on a 2-3-5 board you have the wheel to worry about and straights. Your goal is to hit your set. Your opponents stack size should be about 25 big blinds to make it worthwhile for you to compensate for the times you lose when you hit your set; they fold rather than call, and the times you miss hitting your set and are forced to fold. Realise that if you play to hit a set and win 5 big blinds from an opponent about to bust out of the game, it is good you won the pot but you made a mistake chasing a set in this spot.

Playing Deep Stacked Players

Deep stack play is what the professionals love to play because you do not reach a spot betting half pot and pot where the last bet is always all-in. Often it works out this way, but not necessarily. This leaves room for creative and skilful plays and separates the good poker players from the weaker players.

You should bet the pot and be aggressive when the stacks are deep. You will get some folds, some calls and when you win your opponents entire stack this will make up for the time when you lose chips using this aggressive method. Harrington on Cash games volume 1 proves this theory by using tables and math to show why you should play this way. Even as a general concept you should know putting your opponent to a tough decision is the way to beat the game. The math just happens to agree.

I recommend you read the book Harrington on Cash Games volume one and two which goes into great detail on some of things to think about whilst you refine your online poker strategy. Perhaps we will sit on the same online poker table in the future; I play at bwin.com and would highly recommend it as an online poker room with good software and games.

By Malcolm Clarke

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The big blind checked and as it turned out had the 10c-9c. So we have a four way pot and the flop comes Jc-6h-2c giving our hero a flush draw. He checks being first to speak and so do the first two limpers, the final limper bets and our hero calls which is fairly straight forward as does one other player.

This is purely a pot odds call as it seems likely that one of his opponents has made a decent pair. The turn card is the 3d and the big blind and the other limper check again. The flop bettor bets again on the turn and once again our hero is getting a decent price to call. The other limper folds and the river card brings a ten to give our hero a pair.

He checks and his opponent bets again, this time he check-raises and his opponent thinks for a few seconds and calls. The result is that his opponent wins with J-9. Now here our hero did everything perfectly until the river where he went a little crazy and lost an extra big bet. Folding was really not an option and he had to pay off.

Too many players who are at the intermediate level or beyond try to make great laydowns all the time but this just doesn’t get the job done in limit hold’em. Most of the time in situations like these then the simplest play is usually the best.

Limit hold’em is simply about making a series of correct decisions over a very long period of time, quite often poker software can help make many of these decisions for you. If you can make many small correct decisions in limit play then you should do very well. In this example then it was perfectly obvious that his opponent had a hand that could beat a pair of tens and even if their hand was marginal then because of the pot odds that they were getting then they were always going to shrug their shoulders and stick their money in.

I simply do not know that this guy was doing, if he was raising a bluff then why did he raise when all he had to do was check-call? Also if he thought that his opponent had a stronger hand then he must surely have suspected that they wouldn’t have laid it down at this form of online poker with the pot odds that they were getting.

Maybe our hero just lost focus or discipline or whatever but he certainly threw a big bet away here. This just proves that with online poker you really have to keep on top of your game all the time. This requires focus and discipline and hard work unfortunately. It is this gradual bleeding of small and big bets in limit play that literally blows the vast majority of players out of the water in the long run.

This article was written by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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I hope you don’t mind if I ask something about betting.

Let’s say for an instance, in a no limit game, the blinds are 50/100. Then there is player 1 who is the first one to act after the big blinds and a raise to 300, players 2 and 3 fold to player 4 who eventually places a 500 chip.

Player 1, being dissatisfied discoursed that a re-raise less than double the original bet is not possible. Any idea?

Somehow, I thought that a re-raise was only bound to the minimum of the big blind, therefore if someone places a bet of 300, I could make it 350 or so. Do you think, the minimum raise should be twice larger than the bet placed earlier? And one more thing, is this the same thing at all betting rounds?

Thanks!
Jacob
Jacob,

Once a pot has been raised, the re-raise must be in the amount of the previous raise. In your example above, since your opponent raised by 200, the reraise must be at least 200. Player four’s bet off 500 was a call of 300 and a 200 raise.

This applies to all streets of betting.

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Well, three players were left in the pot and at the turn the 1st player to act bet. Eventually, the 2nd player to act called and then the 3rd player raised. After which, the 1st player called and the 2nd player re-raised. Someone at the table who was not in the hand called a foul for he thought a re-raise after a call was not supposedly possible.

Personally, I thought it was a check raise so I haven’t reacted.

What do you think?

Regards,
Jayden
Jayden,

A check-raise is when a player checks the betting to another opponent, that opponent bet and then you raise. What your opponent did was known as a limp-raise. This is perfectly acceptable. When a player raises as opposed to calling a bet, they are reopening the action to other players. The players have the same options to call, raise, or fold. Would your opponent objected to your other opponent calling and then folding to a raise? Not likely.

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