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How to Tilt Lesser-Skilled Players at the Lower Stakes

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My approach to the game of poker has always been very simple. I am there to play against the bad players, a category that in the lower stakes games is often comprised of casual or “recreational” players. I know that this is where the money comes from in these games and so my attention when playing in them is often entirely focused on this group of opponents.

But just being at the table with a weaker player is not the end goal. Sure, this is a good situation and you will turn a profit in the long run. But your real aim should be to stack the weaker opponents before any of the other regs can.

This is why one of my main goals when playing against the recs is putting them on tilt. Note: I am notreferring to behaving badly in order to throw others off their games — that’s a huge no-no. Rather, I’m referring strictly to playing in such a way that tends to frustrate opponents, especially lesser-skilled ones, causing them subsequently to play even less well and make more mistakes.

When somebody is on tilt (frustrated with me), then that player is much more likely to pay out like a slot machine when I finally hit something good.

In this article I am going to explain exactly how I go about tilting lesser-skilled players with the way I play against them.

You Need to Have Position

Putting players on tilt is always going to be a million times easier when you have position on them. This gives you the ability to raise their limps, three-bet them, float them, bluff them, and bet much more.

The process of tilting someone really is all about being as annoying as possible. (Again, I’m talking about being annoying with your bets and raises, not with your behavior.) This is infinitely easier to do when you always get to act last. For this reason, when playing cash games I will go to whatever lengths I can to make sure that I have position on the lesser-skilled player.

This also means that I typically avoid all forms of speed poker online. In these games you are moved to a completely random table every single hand, which makes it impossible to maintain position on anyone. In these games it is also very difficult to build up a playing history or “dynamic” with any of your opponents, because they might only be at your table once every 10 or 20 hands.

Weaker Players Like to Limp; I Like to Raise

Now that we have position on such an opponent, what do we do?

Well, players like this tend to limp into the pot a lot. They like to play as much as 50% or more of the hands that are dealt to them and see a “cheap flop” whenever they can.

The easiest way to start building up a desired dynamic with a player like this is to start raising them widely. They will get frustrated quickly when you consistently prevent them from seeing their cheap flops.

I will raise their limps with a wide range of hands that I typically refer to as “anything remotely playable.” What is my anything remotely playable range? Any pair, any two Broadway cards, most aces, most kings, most suited connectors, most suited one-gappers, most suited two- and even three-gappers. You get the idea, I am raising wide.

One consideration here is that it is important to have docile regs behind you. If you have aggressive regs to your left, then there is no way that they are going to let you keep getting away with isolating the weaker players with a range this wide. Luckily though, most regs at the lower stakes are fairly passive.

Continuation Bet the Flop… a Lot

Your approach on the flop should be fairly similar. That is to say, take the aggressive approach more often than not.

When my opponent checks to me, I will be making a continuation bet most of the time. This is especially the case early on in our playing history because I expect the player to give me more respect.

It is important to note that if I get called on the flop, I will often shut down on the later streets, especially if I have nothing at all. If there is one thing these players love to do, it is call a lot. Don’t try to bluff them off their middle pair. It won’t work.

The real key here, though, is that they will miss the flop most of the time, which means you will often take it down with a simple flop c-bet. Also, even if they hit the flop, we could still get lucky and hit a draw or spike an overcard later on in the hand. Since we have position, we will get to control the entire pace of the hand.

Essentially, the deck is stacked in our favor, and that is why we will win in the long run with this approach.

When Lesser-Skilled Players Go on Tilt

If you follow this approach of raising widely before the flop versus this category of players then betting the flop a lot, you should be able to take down the majority of the pots. This is because, once again, they will miss the flop most of the time.

This will lead them to get frustrated. Which, of course, is the whole point of this little game.

As we build up a history with these players and take down several pots, they will start to get more aggressive in some spots because they want to get back at us. A lot of the time these attempts at aggression will come in the form of silly bluffs, but it is important to refrain from getting involved in a big pot with them unless you have a good hand.

By “good hand” I don’t mean having the nuts at all. I mean having as little as top pair, no kicker. As our opponent’s bluffing range opens up, our bluff catching and value betting range needs to open up as well. We don’t need the mortal nuts in order to play a big pot against them.

Should you be lucky enough to find a big hand during this stage (e.g., aces or kings preflop, a set postflop, etc.), the chances of you getting paid off in full go way up.

Final Thoughts

Many people forget these days that the money in poker comes from the bad players. It should therefore be your goal to focus on those players and stack them as quickly as possible.

You do this by getting actively involved in lots of pots against them and hopefully even tilting them. It is important to remember, though, that while these players often lack a solid understanding of the game, they are not stupid. If you sit there waiting for your aces all day before ever getting involved in a pot with them, they are not going to give you the big action that you want when you finally make your hand.

As the old saying goes, “you have to give action to get action.” The best way to do this is by getting position on the weaker players and raising and betting a lot, especially in the early stages of the hand. Eventually you will make a big hand (or even just top pair) and you won’t have to worry much about getting paid off. (Source: pokernews.com/strategy/…)

Three Key Ingredients to Winning No-Limit Hold’em Tournaments

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Social Poker
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No-limit hold’em tournaments not only challenge players to discover the best ways to play particular hands, they also require them constantly to keep in mind the broader perspective imposed by the tournament format. In other words, while it’s great to have a solid understanding of NLHE fundamentals, in tournaments you always also have to remain aware of the constantly changing contexts for individual hands.

Popular Twitch streamer Evan “Gripsed” Jarvis identifies three key ingredients that he believes can help you maintain a dynamic strategy to maximize your expectation in poker tournaments no matter what the situation.

Those three ingredients are:

  • Look at the big picture
  • Know how to play various stack sizes
  • Understand the effects of the payout structure

In the video below, Jarvis explores each of these three ingredients in more detail.

Under the heading of looking at the big picture, he explains how even the best players only cash a small percentage of tournaments, making the deep run (and big cash) an important goal upon which to focus. Meanwhile knowing how to play various stack sizes represents a skill that distinguishes tournaments (somewhat) from cash games — especially deep-stacked games — since stacks are changing so frequently in tournaments. Finally, understanding payout structures can have a big effect on how much risk you take on in the effort to make that deep run and finish in the highest-paying spots.

With the 2016 World Series of Poker getting underway this week, Jarvis will be back at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino where among other goals he’ll try to tie Ronnie Bardah‘s record by cashing in a fifth-straight WSOP Main Event.

To mark the start of the series, Jarvis is hosting a couple of free webinars this weekend along with fellow poker pro and coach Nicholas Verkaik.

The first, titled “How to Win Consistently at the WSOP,” happens Saturday, June 4 at 1:00 p.m. ET and will cover planning for the series, maximizing expectations, deciding when and where to play, managing your time, energy, and emotions, and more. The second follows on Sunday, June 5 at 1:00 p.m. ET, covers “How to Sell Action & Play More Events,” and will discuss the process of selling action, putting together packages, finding investors, record-keeping tips, among other related topics. (Source: pokernews.com)

Five Reasons Why You Aren’t Winning in a “Great” Home Game

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Social Poker
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A player in that great home game you’ve heard about has finally invited you to play. You’ve gone to the game, have been accepted by the group, and now you are a regular. It’s a great group of guys, with excellent fellowship, a nice spread, and many seemingly poor home game players from whom to win money. Congratulations!

But there’s a serious problem. You have been losing! And you can’t figure out why.

Here are five things that you should consider about the game which may be contributing to your losses. And when you’ve figured them out, I’ll show you what you can do to turn things around in my next column.

1. You’re Too Clever By Half

Bad players are generally bad for one reason — they call too often with poor hands. The chief difference between a typical home game among casual players and a casino game among good players is that the casual home game players have much lower standards for playing their hands. That means if you’re trying to use clever plays to confuse and exploit your opponents, you may well be costing yourself a lot of money.

I remember a friend of mine, someone I had first met at Foxwoods in a tough Omaha game. I invited him to come play in my home game. He lost an enormous hand and bellyached that his opponent should have folded to his bluff, since he had the ace of a suit and was representing the nut flush with his raise. His opponent had called him down with a lower flush, in spite of my friend’s huge bet on the river.

My friend had brought his tough, clever, and deceptive game to my house — and he had run into a calling station who didn’t know enough to be fooled.

2. You Play Too Aggressively For the Turf

In a casino poker room, the goods often go to the player who is willing to take the most risks with aggressive play. Against the typically tight, aggressive opponents you find in a public room, you can often win pots by representing a strong hand while serious players avoid the risks of standing up to you. But against home game players, you may be hurting your bottom line with your uber-aggressive play, risking much more than you need to on borderline hands and interfering with your opponent’s natural inclination to call.

By playing extremely aggressively in a game that is typically more passive, you may be needlessly sticking out. In the process you might be scaring away opponents who might otherwise be calling you with subpar hands and keeping as opponents only those players with monster hands that are well ahead of you.

Imagine the first round of a flop game with blinds. In a tough casino game, it is typical for at least one player to raise the blinds and not uncommon for a third player to reraise. But in many home games, this is highly unusual. Players whom you want in with their bad hands are scared into folding by an unusually aggressive move (for this game), while players with huge hands stay in to draw against you. In other words, your aggressiveness may be increasing your risk without doing much for your reward.

3. You’re Seeing the Forest, Not the Trees

You’ve noticed that this should be a good game. There are many casual players who are out to have a good time more than they are trying to win money. That’s what attracted you to the game in the first place — all the “bad” players.

But you don’t play against the average level of your opponents as a group. You play against each one of them individually. And in your zeal to exploit their collectively weak play, you may have failed to address each of their particular styles.

Just because you are the most experienced and thoughtful of the players (if indeed you are), that doesn’t mean that you are foreordained to win every contest. You must take specific actions against specific players. At the same time, if your game has been ramped up in a general sort of way, you may well be making yourself exploitable even by the relatively unsophisticated players you’re up against.

4. Not Paying Attention to the Rake

Not all home games are created equal. Gone are the days when the great majority of home games were just free, easy-going affairs among friends, rotating each week with the expectation that everyone was in it for a good time and little else. Today some home games, though still featuring easy lineups of casual players, are run for a profit — occasionally an extremely high profit.

Setting aside legal questions regarding such games, be aware that these profit-driven games can sometimes consist of a 10% rake up to a maximum of any amount. Those who operate games like these try to hide their avarice behind such lines as “it just covers the food” or “the game is so good that you won’t notice the rake.” But believe me when I tell you that both lines are usually bullshit.

With a professional dealer, it is common to be dealt 40 hands an hour. If the house is raking 10% up to a maximum of $7, and you are tipping the dealer $1 a hand, then the game is raking off up to $250 or so every hour. That’s an average of $25 an player per hour. If players bring an average of $300 to such a game and play for 8 hours, the house is raking $2,000 of the $3,000 total brought to the game.

I don’t care how good you are — you are going to lose in that game!

5. Underestimating Your Home Game Opponents

Though home game players tend to be less skilled than those you’ll face in the typical casino game, that doesn’t mean that you are better than each of them. Players vary. Some “casual” players are very strong. Some excellent players find their way into home games — after all, you did!

Though your typical home game opponents may approach the game with a friendly, happy-go-lucky attitude, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have skills that rival or exceed yours. Their laid-back, somewhat passive style may cloak their understanding of what really works best in their home game — something that you may not have figured out.

I recall one regular weekly home game where I initially interpreted the loose-passive style of a couple of the regulars as a sign of weakness and poor play. A few thousand dollars later I realized that they had adopted this style to best exploit their opponents in a way that my hyper-aggressive style didn’t do. Recognize the possibility that one of the reasons you may be losing is that your opponents are simply playing better than you are.

If You’re Not Bluffing, Then It’s Not Poker

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Social Poker
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During Season 1 of High Stakes Poker, Doyle Brunson ran a failed bluff against his friend,Ted Forrest. After he was caught, Brunson was heard mumbling to himself “I know better than to bluff an idiot.”

Brunson obviously does not believe that Forrest is bad at poker — rather, he was just humorously lamenting his bluff getting called. In spite of this, many people took his words completely out of context. They use them as a mantra to remind themselves not to try and bluff players in small stakes games which they view as a sea of idiocy teeming with schools of fish incapable of folding.

The truth of the matter is, if you’re not bluffing, then you’re not playing poker. You’re playing with one hand tied behind your back. This was a huge mistake I made when I began playing live cash games. Once I realized this, my results began to improve dramatically.

Why Bluff?

In my first live cash game, I quickly noticed players limp-called with much weaker hands than they do online. Then if they made a pair or had a draw, they’d call down to the river. They just wanted to see if the hand they made was better than the hand I was betting. Usually, it wasn’t. This allowed me to print money by just betting big hands. I thought to myself, “if they’re going to call my value hands, why should I ever bluff?”

There were two big problems with this sticking with this strategy. For one, I didn’t make big hands often enough. As soon as one of them got cracked, I gave back the bit of money I’d made. The bigger problem, though, was in the stereotyping of players as “idiots.” They were not idiots. They just found joy in making big hands and winning. Eventually, they realized that I was a nit and that the hands they made were not big enough to beat me.

Occasionally, I’d find that one guy who would announce “Oh, Carlos is betting? I know you’ve got the nuts… sigh, I call… nice hand.” I loved that guy, but he’s one in a million nowadays. Most of my opponents soon realized that when I bet, I had it. If they could crack my big hands, they’d call. If not, they’d fold. I, the learned poker scholar who’d mastered tight-aggression and never bluffed the river, had become the “idiot.”

The “never bluff and print money” game I’d found had become the “never bluff and never make money” game. After working on the neglected bluffing half of my betting range, I learned how to do it correctly and began playing a completely new game called… poker.

What is Poker?

Poker is a game of adjustments. Your job is to adjust until you find a good mix of value bets and bluffs that best exploits your opponent’s mix of value bets and bluffs. If they truly never fold, then never bluffing is the correct strategy. Just wait for aces, shove, and collect the other stacks on the table often enough to buy yourself a few islands.

In reality, we know that they do fold sometimes. So now, we can improve on that strategy by finding the times when they fold and then bluffing. Even I knew this back when I “never” bluffed. That’s why I would continuation bet on ace-high flops when I didn’t have an ace. The play had become so automatic in my game that I’d completely forgotten that continuation betting without a pair is, in fact, a bluff.

The problem I ran into is that there are some players in small stakes games who will call that bluff without an ace. Most times, I did not double-barrel the turn. The times I did, I rarely triple-barreled because I thought they’d never fold the river. Now I know I was just fooling myself. This is only a legitimate concern in games where people consistently play with small stacks.

Bluffing requires the ability to put significant pressure on your opponent. In order to do this, you have to make sure you have enough chips in the effective starting stacks to size bets big enough to get the job done. In my game, the stacks were deep. My problem was not that I shouldn’t bluff — it was that I didn’t continue my bluffs often enough against players who called the flop bet with weak ranges.

An Example Bluff

Preflop

A lot of well-intentioned aggressive players make their first mistake when they try to bluff small stakes players with bad hands preflop. Very rarely do these players fold before the flop. The whole reason they are playing is to see if they can make a hand. In their minds, if they are going to fold to your preflop raises, then they may as well stay home.

A bad preflop bluffing hand is one that has very little potential to become the best hand postflop. This usually means hands that are unpaired, unsuited, unconnected, and not very big. Raising hands like these in small stakes games, then not being willing to bluff on multiple streets when called, is a recipe for disaster. If you aren’t an expert on postflop bluffing, you have to tighten up your preflop range.

Flop

Once you do get a hand with which you can raise preflop, you’re going to be stronger on average going into the flop than the players who limp-call before the flop. This means that you are more likely to have the best hand. More importantly, you are likely to have a robust drawing hand that you can use as a semi-bluff when you are behind. Let’s look at an example of a hand where I decide to bluff my loose friend postflop.

My friend, let’s call him Sticky, limps in from middle position. I raise from the button and get called by the big blind and Sticky. The flop comes {A-Diamonds}{9-Spades}{5-Hearts}. This is a good flop for my range which has a lot of {A-}{x-} hands. It checks to me and I make a continuation bet, the big blind folds, and Sticky calls. Great.

Sticky is the guy about whom I used to have nightmares. He is the inspiration for the “I should move up to where they respect my raises” fallacy. When he calls my c-bet, he could have a set, two pair, an {A-}, a {9-}, a {5-}, any small-to-medium pocket pair, or any of the available gutshots.

If he has any pair, he’s happy because he’s made a hand. This was his purpose in calling preflop. He’s not just going to fold it to a single continuation bet. Once I fire the flop, I know I’m going to have to fire the turn the vast majority of the time to convince him to fold his weakest pairs.

Turn

The turn is the {8-Clubs} (completing the rainbow). This is where I used to go wrong. I wouldn’t fire the second barrel because I knew he wouldn’t fold. If he didn’t believe me on the flop, why would he believe me on the turn?

I’d remember that one time I barreled the turn and got my self-righteous suited-Broadway cards beaten by some guy with a trashy bottom pair when the river went check-check. I’d say to myself “This time, I’m not going to throw good money after bad.” I’d silently chant Brunson’s sage advice to myself and decide to check it down. Sometimes, if you were sitting close enough, you could sniff a whiff of defeatism in the sigh I’d undoubtedly exhale.

But that was yesterday. Today, I barrel the turn. I now know that this bet adds credibility to the story that I have a big ace. In spite of my selective memory, many of my opponents will fold to a sizable turn barrel (that is, if the turn doesn’t improve their hand). Unfortunately for me, ol’ Sticky McCallingston could have anything, so I don’t know if this card improves his hand or not.

He calls the turn bet. This could mean he has the ace, but because he is Sticky, he could also have any other pair or draw. I used to take the pessimistic view that he’s calling with every possible pair and I could not beat any of them. Now, I instead notice the good news, which is that he did not raise. This allows me to remove the strongest hands from his range, like a good two-pair hand or better, because he would have likely raised the turn with these.

The bad news is that this turn card improves his range significantly. A lot of his pairs picked up draws and a lot of his draws picked up pairs. But even this has a bright side — I now have a good idea of which river cards are good for me and which are bad for me.

River

Finally, we get to the… river. Just the sound of the word used to conjure up bad feelings for me. Previously, by this point I would have already mentally checked out of the hand. This was a huge mistake because the river is the spot in the hand where you have the most information and where people play the worst. Now instead of being fearful, I’ve come to realize that this is where I can have my biggest edges and win my biggest pots.

I know that Sticky is not likely to have a strong hand given that he did not raise the turn. If he were drawing to a strong hand, I know which cards he’s looking for. The board is {A-Diamonds}{9-Spades}{5-Hearts}{8-Clubs}, so the cards right around the middle of the pack will help his pair-plus-a-draw hands. They could give him a straight or two pair. Chances are, he’ll let me know if they do by betting.

I will not reveal the river card, but I will say that he checks to me again. In the past, I’d check back and prepare to muck. Now I see his check as a green light to make my move. I am not expecting to make him fold the times he has an ace or better. I just want to get him off of his weakest pairs that did not improve to two pair or a straight. For this, I can size my bluff smaller. This has the added benefits of needing to work less often and possibly being successful more often because it looks like a thin value bet.

Even for ol’ Sticky it’s going to be very difficult to make this call with a hand like {5-}{x-} or {8-}{x-}, especially if the river is another overcard and all the draws miss.

But What If They Call?

If you bluff and get called, don’t worry. It’s not supposed to work every time. Don’t be ashamed to show your hand. This may lead your opponents to call you down more lightly in the future.

Meanwhile when they show the winner, pay particular attention to the hand that called you. If he shows you top pair or better, don’t worry because you weren’t trying to make him fold that hand, anyway. If he shows you bottom pair, then you really are dealing with a maniac and you can go back to never bluffing, but only against him specifically.

Conclusion

If the people in your small stakes game do not give up easily with their wide ranges early in the hand, then you should find out where they do give up and bluff them there instead of not bluffing them at all. In order to do this, you’re going to have to play hands that allow you to get to these spots with decent equity for you to use as a Plan B in case they do hero-call you.

Those who live and die by Brunson’s often misunderstood words either face players they don’t have enough history with to exploit their nittiness, or they are fortunate enough to have truly found the last game of regular idiots in existence. Luckily for them, they can continue to play No-Bluff-It Stack’em.

But the rest of us had better learn to box with both hands if we want to play No-Limit Hold’em. Source: pokernews.com/strategy/…

Select Starting Hands in No-Limit Hold’em

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Social Poker
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As explained in the video, one factor affecting starting hand selection is the number of opponents at the table. With full-ring (nine- or ten-handed) games it is often necessary to tighten up your starting hand requirements, whereas in short-handed games (six-handed, four-handed, heads-up) you’ll want to be looser and play more hands.

Also briefly touched on are certain hand groups like big pocket pairs, hands with two Broadway cards (i.e., ace through ten), and suited hands, all of which can be playable given your position and your opponents’ styles.

The biggest pocket pairs (aces, kings, queens, and jacks) are generally always playable, while discretion sometimes needs to be used when playing middle and lower pairs, particularly in the face of a lot of preflop aggression from others.

Ace-king, ace-queen, and king-queen are often good starters that can make top pair/top kicker hands, while other hands containing two Broadway cards can sometimes fall into the category of “trouble hands” that aren’t always so easy for beginners — or even experienced players — to play postflop.

Suited aces — e.g., {A-Hearts}{9-Hearts}, {A-Spades}{7-Spades} — can make nut flushes, while other hands like suited connectors and suited one-gappers can be potentially profitable, too, especially if you can see a flop cheaply with them.

Probably the most important element worth recognizing for new players when it comes to starting hand selection, though, is to realize how a large percentage of the hands you’re dealt in no-limit hold’em isn’t necessarily playable on the basis of their value preflop or potential to make strong hands postflop.

In other words, while you might occasionally play “trash” hands like {10-Spades}{6-Diamonds}, {J-Clubs}{4-Clubs}, {K-Diamonds}{6-Hearts}, and so on based on position, stack sizes, or your read of an opponent being tight and/or weak, you generally will toss such hands away and only get involved with stronger holdings.

In fact, for beginning players especially, it isn’t a bad practice simply to limit oneself to the better starting hands, particularly when out of position or facing a raise. Source: pokernews.com

How to Play Premium Hands at the WSOP : JonathanLittle Analyzes

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Social Poker
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Whenever you are fortunate enough to be dealt {A-}{A-} or {K-}{K-}, you want to do everything in your power to get all in — in a way that makes your opponents think you don’t have a premium hand.

But sometimes it won’t work out!

Take a look at this hand I played in a $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event from last summer’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

The hand came early in the tournament during the very first level. As you’ll see, a short-stacked player opens with an especially large raise preflop (5x the big blind), another calls, then another reraises over that before it gets to me in the big blind with {K-Clubs}{K-Spades}.
How would you play such a situation, knowing that you absolutely want to get your chips in with pocket kings? Take a look and see how I played the hand:

Source: pokernews.com

7 Tips For Finding the Best Home Poker Games in New York

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Social Poker
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Finding a home poker game is not always an easy task. In the early old days, the only public poker room was available in Nevada, California and some parts of Washington State. But with the enormous growth of legal, public poker venues came the demise of home poker games. Why waste the time and vigor organizing a home game when a good poker game is suitably located near you?

Today, finding a good home poker game can be tough. So let me give you some tips to find one.
1. Ask friends, associates, neighbors and family:
Clarify to them you likes to play poker and you are looking for a nice friendly poker game nearby. Keep track of what they say. Don’t turn aside any suggestions they make — even if they say that the stakes are very big or very low because one game may leads to another and one person leads to another.

2. Visit nearby organizations
These can be especially good resources if someone from your initial list of contacts is connected in some way. I found my best game by visiting a Poker Club — the best poker room of Midtown, New York — and just asking if they had regular card games for members. They told me that they had a poker game and runs seven days in a week then gave me the contact information. You also can do the same.

3. Go to the local library
There are often clubs that meet at libraries for card games like bridge. Find out about who organizes them. Check out other non-card games like chess, backgammon, scrabble, or checkers. Organizers of those games may well know of some poker game. I’ve even seen a poker game advertised at the library — it was a discussion group more than a game, but still, it was a starting place.

4. Visit local gathering places
If none of the above pans out, or if you want to track every possible source, you can visit the bars, hotels, motels, restaurants, pool halls, nightclubs, bingo halls, racetracks, or other places that might have some connections for you. I once found a poker game in Atlanta by talking with my desk clerk at the motel at which I was staying. Another time I found a poker game in Nashville by speaking with the woman who seated me at the hotel restaurant. And in Hawaii once I found a poker game by asking the concierge of my resort.

5. Try your personal networks
If you are visiting a city and want to find a game before you arrive, I’ve found that it is helpful to start with your own personal networks. I’m Jewish, so when I wanted a game in Lynchburg, Virginia — a place with no public poker rooms — I called the synagogue. I asked for a service and I asked for a poker game. Believe it or not, they didn’t have a daily service but they put me in touch with a local merchant who knew of a game, and it turned out to be both fun and profitable.

6. Accept invitation no matter how big or small
I once got an invitation to the perfect $5/$5 pot limit game from a guy I met in a game played with a nickel ante. The nickel ante game was a social affair for this guy who played much larger when he wanted serious poker. I met him in the small game, and he brought me to the larger game.

7. Keep track of what you have learned
It’s easy to forget contacts, phone numbers, emails, and the like. So write them down or enter them on the computer and get back to them occasionally to see if they have turned up any useful information.
Source: pokernews

Daily No Limit Hold’em Poker Cash Game in Midtown

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Social Poker
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Social Poker offers Texas Hold’em poker for every skill level and budget. Our poker room features No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, and weekly tournament. Live! Poker action begins at $2-$5 and $1-2 No Limit seven days a week. We also have $250 rebuy tournament every Sunday. We have added a professional touch to the home game experience. Our staff is dedicated to running a clean, friendly, and low-key cash game.

No Limit Hold’em Cash Games:
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Strategies for Beating Low Stakes Cash Games

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People sometimes complain these days about how tough the cash games are even at the lowest limits online — a topic I considered not long ago in “How to Beat Tough Low Stakes Cash Games”).

However, if you play on some of the smaller lesser known online sites and utilize some table selection — or if you play live at all — then you know that there is still plenty of very loose low stakes action out there.

These games require a completely different approach to beat them, though, and that is what I am going to address those strategies separately here. What follows are three ways you can beat loose low stakes cash games, live or online.

1. Practice Patience, Not Aggression
As I discussed last time, in order to beat the tougher low stakes cash games, you need to identify the weaker regulars and play aggressively in the right spots against them. When you are playing against a bunch of loose calling stations (including recreational players), however, you need to employ the exact opposite strategy.

In these looser games, most of the time when you have nothing it is better just to give up on the pot and let them have it. You can shovel as much money in the middle as you want, but if your opponent won’t fold bottom pair, you are still going to lose the hand. And, of course, your failed bluff attempts will only cost you even more.

Instead, the way to beat a loose calling station is to wait patiently for your opportunities. The reason why is that most recreational players are only first-level thinkers (i.e., thinking about their own hands). They aren’t thinking about what you are trying to represent.

Now don’t get me wrong — I am not advocating here that you wait for aces before getting involved. In fact, against the bad players you should try to get in as many pots with them as possible, ideally when you are in position.

Before the flop, you should often raise when they try to limp in (an “isolation raise”). Then most of the time you should take a stab at the pot on the flop with a continuation bet. This includes any time that you have connected with the board in any way as well as with all of your reasonable no pair/no draw hands such as ace-high and king-high.

The reason why you should continuation bet this wide is that loose calling stations do still fold sometimes, too, and if they are going to fold it will most likely be on the flop. Furthermore, when you are only betting 50%-60% of the pot with your continuation bet (as you should), then you don’t need that many folds in order to turn a profit.

The turn and the river are a different story. If you get called on the flop, this means that they connected with the board in some way. They may only have a weak draw or bottom pair, but they like something about their hand. And players like this do not like to fold when they like something about their hand.

This is why it is crucial that on the turn and river, where the pot starts to get a lot bigger, that you do not make the mistake of trying to bluff these players off of their hands with nothing. Patience instead is the key to success. This often means checking it down or even folding if they bet.

2. Value Bet Absurdly Wide
Another key strategy difference when playing against bad opponents — as opposed to decent and competent ones — is that you need to value bet a lot wider.

Against thinking opponents, it often doesn’t make sense to value bet bottom pair or sometimes even middle pair on the river, because they will usually only call with better and fold all worse hands. Loose calling stations, though, will call you down with bottom pair and even ace-high or king-high hands. So while you need to be extra patient against these types of players when you have nothing, ironically you should be hyper-aggressive against them when you have any kind of made hand.

I will routinely bet all three streets with top pair versus these types of players. But I would never do the same against a competent player, because there is no way I could get this much value out of them. In fact, if I am up against a bad player I believe might be on tilt, I might even take a middle-pair hand and just bet all three streets with it for value.

In a nutshell, versus loose calling stations just bet absurdly wide even when you can’t think of a hand with which they can possibly call. They will come up with something.

3. Stagger Your Bet Sizes Both Preflop and Postflop
I famously (or infamously) claimed in my first book, Crushing the Microstakes, that you should stagger your bet sizes versus bad poker players. A lot of people misread this to mean all poker players and criticized me because of it. I was never talking about all poker players, but only the category of players we are focusing on in this article. Versus those players, this is absolutely still the correct strategy.

What do I mean by “staggering” your bet sizes? I mean you should make your raise amount preflop according to the strength of your hand. In a crazily loose, live $1/$2 game, there is no reason why you should be raising the same amount with all of your hands. Your opponents aren’t paying any attention to what your bet sizes mean, so you should simply make it more when you have a premium hand in order to build the pot and prevent too many callers.

The same goes for postflop. If I am trying to pick up the pot with ace-high on the flop, I will make my continuation bet 60% of the pot at most. If I have top pair or better, however, I might just pot it or even over-pot it if I know that my opponent is on tilt against me.

You should never follow any kind of standardized betting rules against really bad poker players. Doing so is only important against competent players who might be paying attention to what you are doing. Against loose calling stations, simply bet more when you have it, and less when you don’t.

Final Thoughts
The strategy to beat loose low stakes cash games is actually very simple. First off, get involved with plenty of hands preflop by coming in for a raise whenever you can. You don’t need to wait for the nuts against opponents who are playing any two cards.

But be patient if you do not hit the board in any meaningful way postflop. The worst thing that you can do is try to bluff a player whose favorite thing to do is call. On the flip side, you should aggressively value bet with all sorts of made hands against these types of opponents because they will call you down extremely wide.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to stagger your bet sizes according to the strength of your hand against really bad players. A marginal increase in the size of your bet size means very little to them if they are intent on calling. But it allows you to build a much bigger pot when you have a big hand and stack them quicker. Source of contents: pokernews.com

How to Play Strong Hands Postflop by Jonathan Little

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Social Poker
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With the 2016 World Series of Poker now just about a month away, I’ve been going back through hands I played at last summer’s WSOP. Today I’m sharing another from a $1,500 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, this one coming from very early on Day 1.

The first level had just started and we were only playing six-handed as players were still arriving. Partly because it was short-handed, I raised from under the gun with {A-Spades}{5-Spades}, the player to my left immediately reraised, and the next player to act cold-called the three-bet. It folded back to me and I called as well.

As you’ll see, I managed to flop a five-high straight plus a nut-flush draw in this three-way pot. I checked, the three-bettor continued, and the cold-caller called again. Noting that a lot of turn cards could kill further action, I decided to check-raise, and after the three-bettor folded the caller stuck around by calling once more.

I was lucky to flop so strong, but even luckier that my remaining opponent ended up playing the hand in a way that would get me off the hook if I didn’t have such a strong holding. Always be sure to play your hand in a manner that keeps in a wide range of marginal made hands that you crush.

Source: @pokernews.com/strategy

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