Odd betting amounts - how loose do i get?

[321Mike]

Here in the state of Florida dog tracks can have poker rooms, but, by law, the maximum bet is $2. I visited one recently and saw an interesting version of Hold'em being played. Instead of blinds everyone antes $2. The bets are then $2 (pre-flop and post-flop) with a 4 bet cap on each street. This leads to a lot of money in the pot pre-flop. While I was watching the pre-flop betting was frequently capped with at least 6 seeing the flop. I saw one pot with $92 in it before the flop. This is followed by a lot of checking and calling as everyone chases their draws (how could you fold?).

Given the fact that folding still costs me $2 per hand, the big pots, and the large number of people playing to the river, I know I need to play looser than usual and favor pockets that lead to big hands. But, how loose should I play knowing that I'll face multiple bets pre-flop a large percentage of time?

I'm thinking I should play any pocket pair, suited connectors 4 and higher, suited gappers 7 and higher (not sure about this one), Ax suited, Kx suited (I question this one too), Q9 suited, suited broadway, connected broadway, AQ, AJ.

I'm thinking about taking a shot at this game this weekend so any input on how to play it (and whether I should play it) would be appreciated.

[AaronBrown]

The silly thing about the $2 law is it converts a game of skill to something much closer to a gambling game, presumably the opposite of its intention.

You need to play pairs. 2's are better hole cards than AK suited. An awful lot of pots like this are taken by the high pair in the hole, and a lot of the rest by someone who matches his two cards for two pair or matches a pair on the board for trips. Notice that high cards don't help much as much as regular Hold'em. There often is only one pair in the hole, in which case 2's are as good as Aces. For matching, you're as likely to match a 2 as an Ace. The chance of getting a straight or a flush is not worth pursuing on its own, without the ability to juice the pot when you hit.

Of course, playing only pairs will make you too tight. So you also need to play some high suited connectors. None of those things (high cards, connectors, suited cards) individually justify a call, but if you have two or three of them, you have multiple ways to win.

In the extreme version of this game, say everyone anted the same amount and just dealt to showdown, you'd want to stay in about half the time. Whenever you had a better than average hand, you have better than 1 chance in n of winning (where n is the number of players including you) and you get the odds to make that attractive. But "better than average" means better than average chance of beating n-1 opponents, not better than average heads-up. In the real game, I would think something like playing 30% of your hands makes sense. Too tight will still win, just not as fast or with as much standard deviation as looser play. Too loose will lose, and have a high standard deviation. So start tighter than you think is correct and loosen when you're playing with their money.

Also, think about being aggressive after the flop, especially when you've got high cards but there are flush and straight possibilities. You will either force out some people who might have beaten you on the river; or you will increase your pots when you do win.