Pot Limit Rebuy Tournament in Edinburgh, Scotland - Advice needed

[Alex Scott]

I posted this on RGP last week and got an interesting response, was wondering if anyone else has any thoughts?

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Hi guys,

I've just finished playing a Pot Limit Holdem tournament down at my local
casino. It's a £10 buy-in, and you can rebuy / top up as many times as you
like during the first hour and a half. The tourney usually gets 35-40
players, and pays out to the top three. First place is usually close to
£850. Each player starts with 400 points in chips, and the blinds start at
10 and 20 points.

Tonight I played an extremely tight-aggressive strategy. If I was in a hand
I was raising the pot, with the exception of when I was in the blind
positions. This brings me to my questions for discussion:

1. Is the most appropriate bet size in Pot Limit Hold'em always the size of
the pot or close to it? The more successful players at the tournament seem
to almost always bet / raise this amount. I have tended to bet the size of
the pot in early rounds and 1/2 to 2/3 the size in rounds where the pot is
larger and / or I don't want to scare off opponents / risk too many chips on
a marginal hand.

2. Should I play more hands during the rebuy period, even though there are
more players at the table in this time? Also, should I bluff more during
this time? I barely bluffed at all until after the rebuy cutoff since I
thought people were more apt to call when they could reach into their pocket
for more cash.

As it turned out, by the way, I had more than quadrupled my chips by half
ten. Some of my opponents were not happy with me at this point, and were
talking under their breath about me, and obviously on tilt. I kept quiet,
and didn't change my strategy.

3. Should I have contributed further to my opponents being on tilt by
throwing in a few insults / jibes / etc? Some great ones came to mind but I
thought I'd be a gentleman. This is more of an ethical issue really.

Immediately after the rebuy period ended I was dealt 10-10, raised the pot,
got one caller, and lost to a guy who played 8-8 and flopped a set. Straight
after this I was dealt K-K, raised the pot, got one caller, and eventually
lost to a guy with A-J (he made a pair of aces on the river). At this point
the blinds were 50 and 100, I had 300 left, and I eventually went out in
23rd position, with two pair against a straight.

I've not been playing poker seriously for long - less than a year - and I'm
very keen to learn. Everybody at the casino underestimates me - thinks I'm
young and inexperienced (true, I'm 21), unsophisticated (false), predictable
(false) etc. etc. I'd love to exploit this, and any advice you can give me
would be invaluable. As a little added incentive, almost everybody there is
thoroughly unpleasant (especially when they're losing), so they deserve to
lose!

Thanks in advance

Alex Scott

[La Brujita]

Hi there,

Just my thoughts and please note some may be incorrect as I am not a pot limit guru.

1. I am not sure I like the "if I was in a hand I was raising the pot" early when imo if others let you get away with it you should be limping in with a fair number of hands in position trying to hit a good flop. I am talking about the small pair/suited connector type hands with big implied odds given stack/blinds sizes. No reason to raise imo with a hand like 55 after four limpers but even less reason to fold.

I think rather than say a pot sized bet is the best you need to look at the reasons behind a raise and then look at how effective the raise is in achieving your goals. Basically there are two main goals:

1. build a pot
2. thin the field

My feeling is as the blinds get big your primary objective is to win the blinds without confrontation with as little risk to your stack as possible. If 2.4xbb achieves this cool, if it takes 3xbb cool.

Early when the blinds are small frankly I don't think people are as sensitive to the .3 difference. You also want to keep in mind you want to be consistent to the extent possible and to the extent people are noticing your actions.

I will let others discuss pot building if they are so inclined because it is frankly a place I am trying to improve.

2. Basically I think you should try to play +ev poker. Please note there are many strategy threads on this forum re $11 rebuy at Stars. Basically poker is a reactive game so if people are playing too many hands and going to far that should change the amount of hands you play and the number of hands you value bet. Again limping in position with good implied odds is pretty powerful. I guess my point is as follows: if you hold AT on a A-2-7-J board against one opponent there is no absolute rule as to whether to bet the river or not. But factors to consider include whether a caller will call with any middle pair, any ace etc. You also need to consider the range of hands he started with but I guess my point is if they will call with weak hands punish them. The corollary is some calls that might seem unprofitable might become profitable due to implied odds and your opponents' mistakes. The key seems to be to correctly exploit those mistakes.

Generally you bluff less when people call loosely. This is basically the flip side to value bet more.

3. No need to throw people off by being a jerk. Just play your game and you will win. I know at least one poster will smile at my posting this since I have been known to pull my Hellmuth imitation. (BTW and off topic, Doc if you are reading I read Zen and the Art of Poker yesterday). Thanks for the rec.

[dogmeat]

There are several good point in this answer by La. I would just remind you that early betting/raising in pot limit is very different from NL or standard limit. Once you enter a pot you are "helping" the other players push the bet size to where you may not be able to call a raise. Unlike no limit where you can do your own early big raise to narrow the field, in pot-limit you really need solid hands to enter a pot. I play even tighter in a pot-limit tourny as opposed to a NL tournament (and there is a correlation in cash games as well)because if your opponents are good -and- aggressive, they can push you off a lot of calls if they see your opening requirements are not strong.

You also want to just limp with some hands so there is still a chance that a raise will be low enough for you to continue with the hand should a player raise and a player or two call. If you raise early and there is a raise, the raise will probably be 4x what you raised.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[Alex Scott]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Just to clarify something, the reason why when I was in a pot, I was raising, was because I was rarely dealt a hand that was not either an obvious fold or an obvious raise, and when I was dealt a marginal hand I was often in early position. I did occasionally get a chance to limp in late position with hands like A-x suited, and took the chance whenever it arose. But this was not often.

Regarding the pot sized bet, I took to betting the size of the pot preflop in order to knock out some player who might hold marginal hands. I felt this was important with hands like K-J and 10-10 because they're vulnerable against large fields of players, and there were family pots quite often. The purpose of my raise was to both protect my hand and build the pot in the hopes that the flop would fit.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this, or other insights into PL Holdem?

Alex