I'm Totaly Incapable of Winning Cash Games

[RPatterson]

This is a realization I've come to. I may win for short stretches but I cannot win over extended periods of time in cash games, especially limit.

It seems like I get drawn out on alot but this has been going on long enough that I'm starting to think I must just suck. I can't think of any specific things I do that suck, but I must be doing something wrong. Part of it is in 2/4 and below cash games, people don't value their chips.

Stealing the blinds is nearly impossible. If I open-raise on the button I'd say I will actually steal the blinds 10% of the time at most. And an open-raise from the small-blind, I can't remember it ever forcing the big blind to fold. Meanwhile if I just open-limp from the small-blind, the big blind will raise me every single time.

These seem like they would be good because you can just make value raises, but it doesn't seem to work out for me. These guys know you are in a blind steal situation and there is no way they will fold on the flop, they'll bet, and re-raise with nothing, check-raise with nothing. I always seem to pick the wrong times to call someone down with A high.

Another thing is a table full of people trying to backdoor flushes, straights, 2 pair, etc. against you. I know eventually they wont and you'll win a big pot. So maybe I just suck.

I like tournaments because people have to value their chips or they are gone. You can actually bluff, you can actually steal blinds. I guess I'm just not robotic and mechanical enough for 2/4 limit. All you can do at that level is wait and wait and wait for a real hand, and then value bet it and hope someone doesn't draw out on you. To me it's very mechanical. There is no room for creativity, deception, psychology. It's just wait for a hand and value bet against the calling stations. I don't have the patience for that I guess.

[bdk3clash]

[ QUOTE ]
It's just wait for a hand and value bet against the calling stations. I don't have the patience for that I guess.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ding ding ding. We have a winner!

To me, limit is infinitely interesting, but I can understand not liking it. Maybe you should check out PL or NL, or stick to tournaments, or whatever you're good at. No shame in that. I, for one, suck at big bet. Limit isn't for everyone, I guess.

[steamboatin]

I have more success at limit than I do No Limit.

[tewall]

In low limit you shouldn't be trying to steal blinds. You should be trying to make good hands as cheaply as possible and then bet them like crazy.

You're right about it requiring patience. That's most likely your problem.

[Kevin]

[ QUOTE ]
Part of it is in 2/4 and below cash games, people don't value their chips.


[/ QUOTE ]

I play 3 2/4 games Mon-Thurs (9p-12m) and 3 3/6 games Fri-Sun (13 additional hours). I play 25 hours a week with 50% of the time on 2/4. I pull in about 2.65 bb/100 - over 3 on 2/4.

180 hands an hour (3 games) 50 hours every two weeks, this translates to +/- $1,000 dollars that I pull out of my account and into my bank account. It is between $23-27m annually - not enough to pay the mortgage, but with a nice 9-5 job, it makes a heck of a slush/vacation/landscaping/christmas fund.

2/4 gets a bad rap as a lottery and the swings and bad beats can be brutal, but it is a very, very, very profitable game when played multi-table online.

best of luck to you,
Kevin

[Blarg]

"I guess I'm just not robotic and mechanical enough for 2/4 limit. All you can do at that level is wait and wait and wait for a real hand, and then value bet it and hope someone doesn't draw out on you."

Actually, you sound a lot like me and my problems with low limit games.

I learned to play by reading Super/System and every 2+2 book I could get my hands on, and eventually became pretty good at stud. I found that I did just average at best at low limit games, but quite well when I jumped up a bit. And I did very well in tournaments right from the start.

I think I'm getting better at low limit now, but used to think much more like you do about those games. I did indeed play them very mechanically, because "playing the player" counted for much less in those games, and it came down to simply playing the cards much more. Stealing pots was much harder too, and cultivating an image meant less because people often weren't paying attention to what you did, and even if they were, wouldn't fold any hand no matter what.

Playing mechanically, though, wasn't an answer, at least according to my old standards. The lower limit games are often so loose that if you just wait for the best hands, you will get killed by a combination of the antes and paying too much when your good hands get both raised and cracked by one out of the 8 guys who see the flop who become 6 guys who see the turn who become 4 guys who see the river.

Now that's mechanical!

But now I'm playing a lot more hands I never would have, and it's helping a lot. I defend my blinds a lot more, too. I may lose a lot more hands, but considering how much raising there is, and how much people raise for no really good reason, I pick up a lot more small and medium hands too, and occasionally get paid off big, whether I start from good cards or bad ones myself.

Playing a lot more hands means you have to be extra careful about trying to get in cheap on the worst ones, and extra vigilant that you don't throw away cards just because they aren't that great, once the pot gets big enough. Because sometimes you WILL hit, and sometimes you don't even need to, to beat the guy that just raised you.

It means your volatility goes way up, and you both play and lose a lot more, but you have to play to win in those types of games. Sitting around waiting to be asked to dance will at best see you dribble away your money to the blinds. Considering how often your good hands get both raised to the skies and THEN beat, and how many raises you might have to endure on your speculative hands, you absolutely need to get your hooks into some of those monster pots that you ordinarily would never feel you have any business being in, and just as important or maybe more important, you need to give those marginal hands you might ordinarily discard in higher limit games a chance to hit. Your monetary outlay will be very large, so you need to give yourself enough chances to succeed to pay the cost. Starting with great hands alone won't do it; you'll be lucky to cover expenses. So you must speculate -- and just endure the volatility. Consider the implied odds if you win: pots over 25BB are not super common, but fairly big pots are, and when they happen, they pay the expenses of a lot of the chances you take.

Draws and weak hands with multiple "outs" gain enormously in value. Pairs gain enormously in value when you realize all that many people are taking to the river are unimproved drawing hands and pairs even lower than yours. Ace-anything hands gain a lot when much of your competition is trying to beat it with King-anything. Instead of worrying about all the people trying backdoor flushes and straights against you, just take that for granted, and then ask yourself if the pot size or the likely pot size will be big enough for you to play those same hands against THEM. Turn-about is fair play!

When and where you make your plays is where the mechanical aspect of things steps back a bit and your playing ability sometimes matters more. Keeping in mind how big the pot is likely to get and what your opponents might have makes the lower limit games interesting sometimes, and kind of fun.

But if you play them by mechanical standards in a mechanical way, especially if you come from the kind of background I do -- tight play trained into you through reading and studying poker books and maybe playing higher-limit games -- you may well find yourself at best just a very, very average winner at best, and very likely a loser.

This was happening to me when a lot when I started learning hold'em a month or two ago after not playing poker for years, and having come from a few years of live experience in mid-limit 7-stud games. I wanted to start slow, to get myself used to both a new game and poker again in an easy, relaxed way, and wound up with the low-limit blues I remember from when I was starting 7-stud years ago. Now that I've loosened up a bit and accepted the volatility that will come with it, I'm doing notably better in low limit hold'em, maintaining over 2BB/100 over more than 7k hands in $1/2 hold'em.

It really hurts me playing my "natural" game tailored for $15/30 7-stud when I try to apply it to low and micro-limit hold'em. Being mechanical is no help at all. It helped a lot to realize that if I wanted to play a different type of opponent, I needed to adapt and become a different type of opponent myself.

[RPatterson]

I think one of the reasons I do alot better at tournaments is because I'm good at taking into account the payout structure, blind level, average stack, my stack, and where I fall place wise to help determine the decisions I should make. To me this is real interesting and I probably think about it more throughout the tournament than other players.

Also I don't know why but if I'm losing a bit in a tournament I alwyas know in the back of my mind I just have to like double up once to be back at average stack status. But in a cash game you are just stuck.

It's like cash games take away everything I am good at.

[Blarg]

Yeah, I feel the same way and do better at tournaments than limit games myself.

But, I'm staying away from them for a while because I want to be able to learn to really get limit games wired, since there is always a limit game somewhere, but not always a good looking tournament. And limit games give more reliable income per hour by far.

Normally, most people would want to play to their strengths. But right now I want to work so that I have fewer weaknesses. I like the idea of having more strengths to improve, instead of becoming too narrow a player.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

I just wanted to say nice posts, Blarg.

[Richie Rich]

Ever tried No-Limit?... /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[R Petty]

It seems to me that there are more ineepeienced players at this level also. The are possibly not even realizing the bad calls they are making. They may just remember that once they took down a pot by playing the same way.

Also some players just like playing. It is much easier on their bank account to lose at these lower limits. It's tough to push these players off of hands becasue they just want to have a good time; which might include playing every hand.

[RPatterson]

I screw up in no-limit too. It's like the ability to buy back in makes me stop valuing my chips.

[Richie Rich]

When playing no-limit, you can push opponents off draws by betting big and giving them incorrect odds to chase. This is also when you make money. Make sense?

[Blarg]

Thanks very much, Patrick. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[jwvdcw]

[ QUOTE ]
I like tournaments because people have to value their chips or they are gone. You can actually bluff, you can actually steal blinds.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with this. When you play in tournaments, people just think of them as chips not really as money. I've seen people call all ins with low pocket pairs for a huge stack in a tournament. I doubt I'd ever see someone call $500+ of real money preflop with a low pocket pair.

[Blarg]

I think they're often trying to double up early so they get enough of a lead that they can sit and wait while others eliminate themselves, then slide into the money, or at least close, without hardly playing more.

Either they steal the pot outright, which doesn't hurt, or they get called heads up and often have a good chance of beating a hand like AK with their pair, no matter what size their pair is.

So it's not that they don't respect their money; they're just working a particular strategy that isn't too uncommon.

Whether you or I feel that strategy respects their money properly is a separate matter. It seems that would depend on who you're pushing your whole stack in against and when, but considering they can in just a few minutes of a sit-n-go tournament either put themselves either in the money or close to in the money already regardless of what other hands they get or, on the other hand, be bounced out and ready to try another SNG, you have to at least give the strategy points for time-effectiveness. Coming in 4th in a SNG is a good way to spend a lot of time for nothing, and coming in third isn't much better; the push-it-in-early with any pair strat at least places a solid value on the time value of your playing.