VPIP and strategy, how to adjust for higher limits

[Dommer]

[ QUOTE ]
When u say he needs to play more hands I think you should qualify this a little. I spent a long time trying to find out what hands it was I should be playing. It seemed that there were so few really playable hands to choose from, no one ever semed to post a hand that wasn't one of these and yet most claimed VPIP of around 20% in full ring and 30%+ in SH play.

It takes a mental shift to get from the idea of the two cards you are dealt being the 'Hand' (position not withstanding) to the more complete picture of the hand being your cards, your likely opponents in this hand, your position in the deal and in relation to your oponents, your opponents 'style' and weaknesses, the potential earn (implied dodds), your opponents likely cards, availability of reads etc. When you start 'thinking' about a hand this way many cards become playable that a 15/6 player is discarding and conversely, many hands he is playing will be folded.

edit: when i say 15/6 player I mean a 15/6 player who would quote his stats as an idicator of the hands he chooses to play preflop. e.g. I have 15%VPIP so I play AQo+, ATs+ ,TT-AA in EP, add in Axs in MP, add SCs and 2 broadway cards in late. Not I have 15%VP because I ony play hands aginst really bad players avoiding those who are only moderately bad etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm hijacking this post from another thread because I thought it deserved more discussion in its own thread. Great post btw skuzzy. (Original thread link)
For those who didn't read the original skuzzy is commenting on the fact that I'm a 13/5.3-ish player at .5/1. I used to be like 13/4 though so I think I'm on the right track.

I think what you are talking about is one of the things I need to work on to move up to the 1/2 level. Even at .5/1, if the table is all tight-ish I basically break even or make a smaller profit than normal. This is what I believe happens at 1/2.

I think part of the reason I play the way I do is that I do this for a living, so I naturally search for the lowest variance play style, which isn't necessarily the most profitable. For me that means playing tightly and also only playing hard against players I deem will pay me off. So against a tighter player I am only raising to continuation bet the flop and end the hand there (unless I flop a monster of course). Sometimes I won't even bother calling to hit a set against a player because I know hes tight and I know he knows I'm tight. I will loosen my raising standard against a tight player sometimes since I know I'm likely going to take it on the flop. I'll also semi-bluff tight players nearly every time (loose players most of the time). But basically I am just very very cautious overall v a tight player, waiting for a really good hand and not bluffing them much.

Conversely v a looser player (one who I know will pay off with top pair, call with draws, or worse) I am calling with all pp's and AK, and sometimes a suited connector or suited aces if enough people are in the pot pre. If the guy is bad enough I will call with scs and maybe aq heads up. This strategy makes for about 4-7 ptbb which is not a bad living when you 8 table (my last 60k hands are like 4.5bb/100, the 100k before that was 7 for example). It's somewhat simplified of course because sometimes I will change what I do if I feel I have a good enough read, but that's the basic gameplan.

Only problem is, as you move up its less and less people that are going to just pay you off and more and more people playing tightly, and my strategy just does not make money against tight players. A lot of the time even the "looser" players are actually playing pretty tightly post flop (compared to .5/1), and are pretty decent about bluffing and that sort of thing. Meanwhile the tighter players are actually doing some pretty scary bluffs every once in a while taking advantage of my tightness (I caught one of the better players doing this luckily). Combine that with any other mistakes I make (and I do make them, I'd probably be slightly up at 1/2 if I didn't) and its hard to make any money. Sure I run into the occasional .5/1 style donk at 1/2, it's just more rare.

So.... the point of this post is I'm looking for tips on learning to take advantage of scenarios where I can loosen up my play profitably. I don't really see how I can post hand histories... unless I just decide to try playing loose for a day and post the more interesting hands. So many of the hands would go unnnoticed though. We'll see how that goes, in the meantime do any of you guys have some good tips or examples that could help me?

I've actually gotten into doing this recently (this is probably standard stuff for you guys but a little bit looser than normal for me). Before I wouldn't get involved with tight players at all like I said, this means playing qq/jj for sets, etc. But I've found that even tight players raising range in late position when its folded to them is pretty loose, so I've started reraising with 1010/JJ/QQ, AK, or maybe worse (KQ/AQ). This works quite well as they mostly fold the flop. But really I could be doing that play with 87s and it would play just the same, I just haven't had the balls to try it so far :P

Another thing I've been doing is limping more hands in late position, because I know I have a good chance to steal if its checked to me (I count betting with marginal hands like a flopped middle pair as stealing too). Sometimes if I think they are pretty tight I'll bet the first time it's checked to me, sometimes I'll wait till the turn (do this more when I flopped a little bit of something and want to make sure no one else did).

So basically to me it seems theres a lot of chances to exploit tighter players when they are making a position play (attacking your blind for example) or when you have position on them. That's just pre-flop though, I know there are some players so tight that they'd fold aces/kings to me if I put the pressure to them, haven't had the guts to try that yet though (I'd feel like an idiot if it didn't work.) And of course most tight players are going to fold to strength when a flush hits or when the board goes 1 to a straight, or when the Ace falls (which I of course haven't bothered exploiting yet as well), stuff like that.

Anyways, sorry about how long the post got, lets here your tips. I'll add more if I think of any too.

[sweetjazz]

Just curious, but why do you play NL instead of limit? Looser play gets punished a bit more in limit, and you can do pretty well up to about 3/6 or 5/10 limits playing straightforward ABC poker. (Not that I recommend jumping into those games right away, as there are some adjustments you need to make, specifically when to call down with moderate hands facing aggression. Plus you do need to make more loose calls in limit than in NL because of pot odds.)

I come from a limit background and am just learning no-limit. I am still pretty clueless in NL, but it seems like you need to really think about how much fold equity you have in various situations. Like you say, if people are always folding to a big bet when the third card of a suit comes when they don't have the flush (let's assume your bet is big enough to kill the odds for sets and one-card flush draws to try to hit their hand), then you need to figure out that possibility in preflop and flop decisions. For example, let's say you decide to play T [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 7 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] in late position against an EP raiser. Flop comes K [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 8 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]. The EP raiser makes a continuation bet of half the pot. Obviously, you can't call trying to hit your gutshot if your opponent is halfway decent. But what about other possibilities? Can you steal the pot if the turn card is a spade? If you call the flop and EP has missed the flop (say with AQ or maybe even TT), will he check and fold to a bet on the turn? Those possibilities might mean that calling the flop is superior to folding. Or if your opponent is very aggressive, firing second continuation bets a lot, or makes a lot of loose calls, then obviously this is not the time to continue on in the hand.

The key is observing your opponents and deciding what hands to play and how to play them in order to exploit the way your opponent plays. Against a loose opponent who calls down too much, solid tight play seems close to optimal. (You can probably get away adding additional hands depending on how loose and how passive/predictable the opponents are.) But against tighter players, you have to look for ways to exploit their willingness to fold. And you also have to observe when they change their perception of you from tight aggressive to loose aggressive (or more generally, from someone who raises with solid value to someone who bluffs a lot). Once they perceive you as a bluffer, your goal should be to tighten up and try to trap someone for a lot of chips.

Well, that's how I understand NL, but I'm just a beginner. So take what I say with a grain of salt. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[amoeba]

you really should do the opposite,

play more hands against tight players, play less hands against loose players.

[Dommer]

7 tabling right now so I can't get too detailed, but you made some good points. The 107 example is a good example of a spot you could steal from a tight player. Never tried limit because I started with NL and was told you make less in limit and that there is more variance. Is that not true?

[amoeba]

there is more variance in limit.

[Dommer]

Well I think you should only be playing more hands against tighter players if you are going to bluff them. If you try to play for value you'll just get slaughtered (which is what I do). Vice versa if someone is a pay off machine you're getting a lot better implied odds to play poorer hands so I tend to loosen up v them. But even then I'm only playing poorer hands to flop something really strong.

[amoeba]

[ QUOTE ]
Well I think you should only be playing more hands against tighter players if you are going to bluff them. If you try to play for value you'll just get slaughtered (which is what I do). Vice versa if someone is a pay off machine you're getting a lot better implied odds to play poorer hands so I tend to loosen up v them. But even then I'm only playing poorer hands to flop something really strong.

[/ QUOTE ]

yes you should be bluffing tight players.

while you get a lot more implied odds, if loose opponent is aggressive, you'll also be paying much more for draws.

there is no hard and fast rule but its good that you are thinking about these things.

[Dommer]

I just tried one, it worked! Villain is a tight player (10/3 over 900 hands) and also knows I'm tight. I don't think he's seen me do the weak continuation bet before, I usually bet more. How did I do?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (9 handed) FTR converter on zerodivide.cx

Hero ($102.35)
Button ($135.20)
SB ($24.75)
BB ($150.15)
UTG ($451.52)
UTG+1 ($113.05)
MP1 ($122.20)
MP2 ($139.70)
MP3 ($96.75)

Preflop: Hero is CO with 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img], 6[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. SB posts a blind of $0.50.
[color=#666666]3 folds</font>, MP2 calls $1, [color=#666666]1 fold</font>, [color=#CC3333]Hero raises to $4</font>, [color=#666666]3 folds</font>, MP2 calls $3.

Flop: ($9.50) 3[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], 4[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] [color=#0000FF](2 players)</font>
MP2 checks, [color=#CC3333]Hero bets $6</font>, MP2 calls $6.

Turn: ($21.50) 9[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] [color=#0000FF](2 players)</font>
[color=#CC3333]MP2 bets $12</font>, Hero calls $12.

River: ($45.50) A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] [color=#0000FF](2 players)</font>
MP2 checks, [color=#CC3333]Hero bets $25</font>, MP2 folds.

Final Pot: $70.50

Results in white below: [color=#FFFFFF]
Hero has 5d 6d (high card, ace).
Outcome: Hero wins $70.50. </font>

[sweetjazz]

Yes there is more variance in limit, but that is also why there are a lot of bad players available even in the mid-limits (including some passive, straightforward to read players). They will lose all their money in the long run just like in no limit, but the long run takes longer to get to.

So you can probably make as much in limit, but the variance is higher so you need a bigger bankroll. Playing professionally, you should have several months of living expenses saved away and several hundred big bets (at least 300, probably 400-500 since you are pro). If you make it to 5-10, that's a hefty requirement.

Honestly, I don't see how multitabling low-limit games (NL or limit) is really a sustainable profession. It becomes very tedious and your hourly rate will slowly decline as the fish become slightly less worse (assuming that the influx of horrible poker players peaked already) unless you make improvements to your game.

I think you should seriously consider transitioning to higher limits in either NL or limit, whichever game suits your strengths better (with some weight given to NL because you have more experience with it). Since you are pro, you still to need to rely on multitabling your current NL game, but you should try to set aside a certain amount of money for playing in the next highest limit. That bankroll need not be very high (enough to have a few buy-ins, but as long as you don't dip into your regular bankroll you're fine) and the point is to use that money to try to beat the tougher games. That means playing just one table, and just focusing on learning how to adapt your play to tougher opponents.

If you're happy with your situation and feel confident that you won't burn out, then maybe this advice is not for you. I just offer it as something to consider.

[sweetjazz]

Okay, I don't know much NL, but the turn call definitely seems better than a fold because you have a draw to a pretty disguised hand (6 outs to the absolute nuts) plus you likely have some fold equity on the river.

It is possible that a turn raise might be even better, but you'd have to think MP2 is capable of laying down QJ or KQ here. Also, he could come over the top if he has a set, and then you lose your chance to draw out on him.

Not betting this river when checked to would be criminal, because it is likely the worst card your opponent could have seen hit. I think he's mucking a pair of queens here, so even if his flop call and turn bet are with a legitimate hand, your bluff will likley work.

Suppose the river had been the 8 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] instead. Would villain have check-folded QJ to a $25 bet from you? How likely is it that villain called the flop with air trying to steal the pot with his turn bet?

Seems to me like those are the kind of reads you need in order to figure out when this type of play will be successful and when it won't.