Beginner's Series: Playing In Loose NL Games - Lend Your Expertise

[SkippingGoat]

While there is substantial literature on playing in loose limit games (Sklansky, Miller, Jones, et al.), there seems to be next to nothing in print about playing in loose NL games beyond the stock warnings regarding getting "tricky" with fish. Some advise tightening up and aggressively playing only very strong hands. Others argue that when opponents are playing very poor values, your standards can drop as well.

Should calling standards drop? Consider the following scenario: Betty McBettorson is sitting to your right and raises to 7xBB roughly every third hand. You pick up AJo in middle position and Betty raises the pot to 7xBB as Betty is wont to do. Against a tough opponent this is a relatively easy laydown. How do you play here?
What if Betty is sitting to your left and you have AJo. You've been limping hands like this all session but have then been forced to fold after Betty raises to 7xBB. How should you play this hand?

Should raising standards drop? If players are willing to call hands such a AT-6, and JK-T to a raise should one raise with AJo given a few limpers ahead of you or are you just trapping yourself?

Against players that will play any two cards (and do), do you tend to play more cautiously post-flop or more aggressively (or some combination of the two)?

etc.

Hopefully everyone can contribute their thoughts on how to play LAGs, calling stations, maniacs, and at tables that contain a cast of these characters. What strategies work best for you?

Hopefully this can be an interesting discussion since this seems to often be a subject of inquiry but rarely one of substantive discussion.

[charlin]

This is my opinion...

Hands like AT-AK, KT-KQ, and 88-AA become much more valuable against loose aggresive WEAK opponents. Reason...You will be frequently 'dominating' their hands.

However...In the situation with Betsy, I believe your position in the Most important aspect. I believe a call or raise is in order in late or mid-late position with either 1 caller (who typically calls those bets with Ax or Kx). If you are in early position or in late position with 2+ callers I think it's an easy lay down.

You have to remember that Weak players think KQ, KJ, A9, QJ are hands worth a big raise.

Just remember...POSITION POSITION POSITION!

[Rah]

One thing to bear in mind is that people don't get worse hands just because they are loose. Hands like AT, KT, KJ without position are still suicidal. You don't want to lose a buyin because a fish is dominating you.
Of course, there are different schools for these games. At party, however, the buyin is small compared to the blinds. This means that you can play TPTK strongly, especially against loose opponents. Personally, I see no reason to loosen up when the opponents do so. The action you get when you flop TPTK is more than enough. AJ is borderline, but I wouldn't go any lower. See the flop against Betty and push hard if you hit.

[RichB]

I watch for the short buys, those players are sometimes pretty bad. A lot of them seem to have missed the day at poker school where the rest of us learned what a kicker is. Some of them will raise with any ace.


Rich

[JohnG]

In short, you want to build strong made hands from any position, or hands that can flop a draw to the nuts in position against a loose player/s that can't lay down top pair. Gut shot straight draws etc are great when you have position on one or 2 of these players. If it's a passive loose game, you can play drawing hands from anywhere, but probably keep them suited out of position.

In position, the only requirement for entering the pot is whether you can win a huge pot. Out of position, you need the chance to win a huge pot and be able to draw cheap to hit. The hand needs to be easy to play. If it isn't, fold out of position.

[ QUOTE ]
While there is substantial literature on playing in loose limit games (Sklansky, Miller, Jones, et al.), there seems to be next to nothing in print about playing in loose NL games beyond the stock warnings regarding getting "tricky" with fish. Some advise tightening up and aggressively playing only very strong hands. Others argue that when opponents are playing very poor values, your standards can drop as well.

Should calling standards drop? Consider the following scenario: Betty McBettorson is sitting to your right and raises to 7xBB roughly every third hand. You pick up AJo in middle position and Betty raises the pot to 7xBB as Betty is wont to do. Against a tough opponent this is a relatively easy laydown. How do you play here?

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably fold in most cases.

[ QUOTE ]
Should raising standards drop? If players are willing to call hands such a AT-6, and JK-T to a raise should one raise with AJo given a few limpers ahead of you or are you just trapping yourself?

[/ QUOTE ]

With hands like AJo, that are just building top pair average kicker, wait until after the flop to put the money in. This isn't limit. You're just building the pot with dangerous hands, and giving yourself less room to work post flop.

[DrPublo]

I think the problem is that all loose NL games are not alike, because all loose NL players are not alike. Some are incredibly weak, others like to get aggressive preflop but then turn into weakies postflop. Still others make one pair (not necessarily top pair!) and decide that they'll call all the way.

You need to be paying attention to these players throughout the session, whether or not you're involved in a hand. Stay out of pots with these players with marginal hands (AJ-A9, KJ, etc) until you have a feel for in what way the player is loose. It does you no good just to know that the guy in the black shirt across the table is a bad player; you need to know how and when he's bad so you can exploit that. One thing I like to do as a quick and pretty accurate gauge is to use the first 5-10 orbits to make a mental note on each player, if he is a "caller" or a "folder." That simple distinction lets me know what type of plays I can use against this player. Against the caller, I'll wait until I have a good hand and jam the pot; against a folder I'll c/r with top pair bad kicker or even middle pair.

As for your raising/calling standards, I dont think you should lower your raising standards. No reason to invest more money into a pot with a marginal holding when you know that you're going to get called by players with equally marginal holdings. You're not giving yourself an advantage in those situations. Hence dont raise KTs because you'll get called by J8s or Q9s, and while you're a favorite heads up if the raise gets called in several places you're in trouble. Only raise premium hands that give you a significant edge going into the flop (big pairs, AKs AQs etc). Exception: if your raises are getting too much respect or if you're simply running over the game, mix it up and raise things like 9Ts, 78s, etc WITH POSITION.

While I dont think you should lower your raising standards, definitely lower your calling standards. Call a 5x BB raise with KQo or JTs and the like, sometimes even lower if you think the player goes too far with his hands postflop, whether he hits or not. You're operating on the theory here that you can outplay your opponents postflop, so you dont mind investing a little bit of your stack preflop (this is primarily in a live, deep stack game) for the chance to bust your opponent. I think most of the time, you're opponents arent raising with hands MUCH better than the hands you are calling with, and if you can get the pot multiway you're in great shape. Of course, you need experience to tell when your opponent actually has the goods, so watch their betting patterns and dont go too far with your draws hoping for a miracle card.

Finally, LIMP. I read somewhere (I think in super system) that a good NL player in a soft game will be seeing about 1/3rd of flops, and limping into most pots. Since you can outplay your opponents postflop, give yourself the most opportunity to do so by seeing as many flops as possible. Suited one gappers are great for this purpose, as are suited Kings . You can drop your limping standards even more if the game is such that a raise on the flop or turn will give yu the pot without having to show your hand.

In sum, my operating theory in these loose NL games is that I can outplay my opponents postflop with position with any two cards, and with a decent hand I can outplay them even out of position. So I try and give myself as many opportunities to do so. Postflop, I'm very aggressive, always pounding chips into the pot, and a lot of these loose players dont want to get involved with me because most of the time I go to a showdown, I win. So I can exploit this and take down a lot of pots on the flop or turn.

One final thought about low suited connectors and one gappers. I may not limp with them, because many loose players dont mind folding top pair-like hands in an unraised pot. But I'll almost always call a raise (not a huge raise, and not a reraise, but a standards raise) with a hand like 35s or 46s because these loose opponents love to get themselves in situations where they go to the felt with just one pair in a raised pot, and I want to be there with a "stack taking" hand when they decide to do so.

Just me .02c. Hope it helped.

The Doc

[SkippingGoat]

Great post doc. I guess my original post was primarily targeted at live games where play in my experience is worse than online play. In the past I've been applying my online strategy where I can see 250+ hands/hr to a live game where I'm seeing something like 35 hands/hr. The result has been that I'll sit for four hours, play something like 20 hands and leave with the feeling that I left a lot of money on the table by refusing to get in there and PLAY. I'll definitely use your advice to adapt my game online game to live play and hopefull extract some more dollars.

[Wayfare]

I'm going to try limping more too and seeing if I can outplay people instead of simply pounding the good hands. Especially live you need to give action to get action, and a combo of agressiveness and being more alert (not to mention plain better) than your opponents should let you pick up some extra pots to finance all your draws. Also, when you do hit those draws, the payday will be huge because the people at these games don't lay down.

EDIT: Skipping if you are on IM send me a message thx.