[bkholdem]

I made a few posts to a thread in small stakes limit the other day about this type of game. I used to play low limit B&M at Foxwoods and logged many many hours there.

When I first started I had read a few books and felt prepared. I lost my first few sessions and was frustrated. I thought to myself "I'm a smart guy, I studied and I'm losing, what's up with that?"

Well I soon figured it out. The long and short of it was that I was:

1. Overplaying TPTK and overpairs and
2. Not playing enough drawing hands

TPTK turn to dogmeat on the flop and turn in these games frequently. Some dork can argue "you make more than you loose long term" and this may be true, but you make even mroe folding hands when you are beat and do not have the odds to redraw to a winning hand. Pay attention to the players and the table dynamics. When people hit their draws they will let you know if you are observent. When players have a better hand than you they will let you know when you are observant. This is much more the case live than on the internet. It is particularly true in the low limit live games.

So play those group 1 and group 2 hands. Play them agressively preflop. Play them agressivley on the flop. But pay attention to the other players in the hand. Since there are so many opponents, when a draw card falls on the turn it often hits one of the opponents. So on the turn if you have an overpair and are up against a straight and there are still 3 other opponents and there is 2 or three to a flush on board there is quite possibly someone else in there drawing to a hand that can beat the straight. Your overpair is no good. Everyone can fold two undercards on a flop when there are 2-3 players raising and reraising a flop full of paint. The good players are the ones who can fold 3rd and 2nd best hands. Players loose a boatload of money paying off with 2nd and 3rd best hands. Good players fold these hands. Bets saved are bets earned. Read the board. Read the players and learn how they play.

Play suited connectors and unsuited connectors. One gappers are good too. Be careful with position as you don't want to limp with this and be faced with coldcalling a raise and reraise and be out of postion. In family pots hands that are drawing to straights and flushes have a lot of protection. Your drawing to a 2 to 1 odds hand and since your up against 6 opponents your getting paid 6 to 1 to do so. This is where you make your money in these games.

Play Ax suited. Look to flop the flush draw. Your pair of aces are often no good when you have a low kicker as everyone plays every ace in these games. Again, pay attention to position.

Figure out how to get the most money in the pot when you have the winners (this is not just blindly raising as players will sometimes fold on the turn if being faced with calling 2 bets cold but will continue to the river for 1 bet. Everyone calls the second bet when checkraised.

You will be looking at lots of flops and not connecting to them. Don't kid yourself. If other players have connected to them or have good draws they are not going away even if they do not have correct odds to draw. It's one thing to make them chase you down when your holding the best hand. It is another thing to keep pushing after they hit because you don't have the skill to be able to drop a second best hand. You don't want to be throwing away good hands but as you probably know in these games players do not bluff on the river. They have to showdown with 2 other players every single time (rare exceptions but that is the norm) so they are not going to pick up the pot with A high. The best hand wins in these games. Your objective is to have the best hand on the river and to have the pots be nice and huge at these times.