4/8 at local casino, weird preflop action. Adjust? (no HH)

[syncmaster]

I was going to play some NL the other day but the card room was dead. 1 table with a list and a 4/8 game with open seating. I joined the list but said I would play 4/8 untill my seat opens. I sit down and notice some strange things.

1. The first thing I notice is its 1/2 blinds. All I have ever played live is 3/6 with a big blind of $3. I was a little confused but oh well, I'm just playing untill my seat opens. I figure this just lets me open up a little more preflop and call hands I wouldn't most of the time.

2. I call my 3rd hand w/ a medium PP, only to have the guy to my left make it $6, then a guy 2 seats make it $10. These were the ONLY preflop raises you could make. $2 call, $4 raise to $6 total, $4 raise to $10 on 3bet, and I never got to see past that. I do think it caps at 4 bets however.

On the Flop/Turn/River everything was normal. $4 bet/raise on flop, then $8 on later streets. I was very confused and just happy to get away when my NL seat opened. On the other hand the game was not that bad and I would love to adjust and go back. Do I need to make any adjustments in this game?

[FoxRiverPlayer]

This sounds like a 2/4/8 limit game, except that I believe normally the raises preflop would be in $2 increments, not $4.

As you described it with the $4 raises, I would play as usual in early position but you could really loosen up with marginal hands in late position when it is not raised, since you can limp in so cheap.

[chillrob]

They have this game at one of the casinos in Vegas, I don't remember which one, maybe the Luxor? Standard 4/8 betting except with smaller blinds. I would guess you could be limping preflop lighter than usual, especially in later positions.

[Gap23Razor]

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They have this game at one of the casinos in Vegas, I don't remember which one, maybe the Luxor? Standard 4/8 betting except with smaller blinds. I would guess you could be limping preflop lighter than usual, especially in later positions.

[/ QUOTE ]

Mandalay Bay i believe, and the correct adjustment is to tighten up preflop as the ante/blinds are smaller than a typical 4/8 game

[danderso8]

Excalibur used to have it too, not sure if they still do. There have been threads on here in the past, maybe in poker theory.

You made the right adjustment (or at least had the right idea) in loosening your starting hands...with the small blinds, you are basically getting double implied odds on your limps. suited connectors & small pairs go up in value.

You still don't want to limp total crap hands though, because you'll often be raised and just have to give up.

The one time i played this at excal, it seemed like it was a good plan to limp often, but fold many of those hands to raises. If you do that too often, though, they might start to take shots to steal your two bucks, so then LRR becomes a useful move.

Raise only real premium hands from EP, as you are risking more compared to the blinds than in a normal game. Even these might be better to LRR, as mentioned above.

my $.02

--Dan

[jesse8888]

Most, if not all, of the 3/6 games in Reno follow a similar structure: blinds are 1/2, but all bets and raises there after follow the 3/6 structure.

The main redeeming quality of this structure is that "live 5" sounds way cooler than "live 6", and thus people do it more often, setting fire to more chips.