Need emergency help adjusting to Aruba Rules!

[DrBob]

Aruba live 4-8 has rules where the flop bet is a full BB, instead of a small bet (actually optional, but noone bets only $4). I am hoping someone has experience with this sort of game and can give some pointers on adjustments. I'm finding the game is extremely loose preflop, even more so than much lower limits I've played in oneline games.

It's clear that you can't wait for the turn to protect a hand in a big pot, since the bet size won't be increasing. Also, your flop bets/raises are going to be more effective. I'm wondering about preflop selection. It seems like maybe suited holdings, e.g. playing any 2 suited preflop from the small blind, isn't right, since you'll have to play more on the flop to chase the flush draws you make. On the other hand, maybe the implied odds are bigger, so this isn't at all clear to me.

Anyone who's got experience with this rule variation, your advice would be greatly appreciated. I don't want to get clobbered playing here in Aruba, the rest of the week.

Thanks,
Bob

[DMBFan23]

seems like pocket pairs go up in value

[DrBob]

Yeah, that sounds right, again because the implied odds improve. Unfortunately, the first night I played, the ONLY hands I got the entire evening, were speculative, including about 5 small pocket pairs. I failed to flop a set on any of them, but that's just bad luck, of course. The remaining speculative hand, 87s, paid off very nicely, so I almost broke even for the evening despite getting the worst run of preflop hands I can remember.

[Octopus]

My intuition - take with a (largish) grain of salt:

1) This structure will hurt the implied odds of any hand which does not tend to get made on the flop.

2) In general, hands which get made on the flop will be somewhat better. Pocket pairs are a perfect example of this, but so are high cards. Raise with AJ+ and KQ+ in any position. In late position, I might raise medium suited Ax's (and KJs, of course) as well. Play any pocket pair in any position. (Note: If people are largely folding on the flop, you will need to think a bit about how that affects things. It may be enough to cancel out the benefits (for made hands) of the larger flop bet.)

3) If the table is very lose, as you imply, then suited connectors are good in an unraised pot, but suited one-gappers and esp. two-gappers are worth less than normal. You are not going to be getting the odds to chase a gutshot, so probably limit these even more than usual. I'm not sure J8s (or even Q9s) is playable outside of the blinds, unless they are loose post-flop as well.

4) In the SB, it depends a bit more on how many people have limped. If everyone, then any two suited is probably still ok. With fewer, be more selective.

[Entity]

I think the biggest question to how this alters the game is how other people play on the flop, given the bigger bet structure. Generally you're going to be getting lower odds to call with gutshots and such, but if the other players aren't paying attention to odds, you're often going to be making more money on strong draws, like flush+gutshot, flush+straight, flush+over, and pure flush draws. This comes down to the fact that you'll be investing a full BB with ~30%+ equity, which will be very nice for the situations when you have multiple callers on the flop.

Consequently, flush draws will be more +variance, but very much more +EV because of the increased amount you earn from them.

Also, it should be observed (though obvious) that "raising for a free card" is now a worthless play.

Rob

[Khern]

or, is Raising for a free card now a preflop play?

-John

[DrBob]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. It must've helped, because I ended up ahead despite having almost no B&M experience and playing at higher stakes ($4-$8) than I'm used to.

There did seem to be an incredible number of sets, including set-vs-set hands, so maybe people are playing all pocket pairs from any position, with the flop BB rule.

A very sad story: The second night I'm playing I had quad Ks twice within 1/2 hour! What's sad about this? On the second occurrence, the flop is AKQ, followed by A, then K. One guy is with me to the river, and folds when I show my hand. Ten minutes later he realizes that he'd lost with A's full of Qs, and we missed the jackpot, which was at about $16 grand. That's poker I guess. What was particularly surprising is that aside from playing way too many hands, he was probably the best postflop player I ran into in the 5 sessions I played in Aruba (all at the Radisson). So this wasn't an ignoramus who forgot the jackpot.