Discuss: Five Basic Mistakes to Look For In an Opponent

[creedofhubris]

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I liked your article.

My one bone of contention or point of clarification.

I certainly have a lot more tourney than cash game experience, but am a winning player. What is wrong with min raising preflop from the small blind? This is about the only time I min raise, btw.

I like the argument that the entire contest is based on the battle of the blinds. I like to risk the minimum to win the maximum. I also find that you get a lot more action with premium hands.

If you are against this strategy my question would be do you vary the amounts of your preflop raises.

Great article and this is the only part I disagreed with, doesn't mean I'm right.

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If your opponent is folding a lot preflop, then minraising has some theoretical sexiness. However, most opponents make the opposite mistake and call too much in the big blind, and minraising makes that less of a mistake.

[Collin Moshman]

Great article. A couple of questions, though:

1) Are you arguing for raising 100% from the button, never to limp, or never to fold? I agree that raising wide from the button is definitely your best strategy, just not sure the exact limp/fold/raise pre-flop strategy you're suggesting.

2) I think making a min-raise (or slightly above, e.g., raising to $4.5 in a $1-$2 game) is defensible from the button, as comic2b mentions earlier. You're doing this to build a slightly larger pot with position, even though your chances of winning the blinds outright are small. Also, when the pot is unraised going into the flop, I think sometimes making a min-bet (or close to it) is a defensible play when your opponent is passive or has shown weakness.

All in all, a very good article.

-- Collin

[creedofhubris]

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Great article. A couple of questions, though:

1) Are you arguing for raising 100% from the button, never to limp, or never to fold? I agree that raising wide from the button is definitely your best strategy, just not sure the exact limp/fold/raise pre-flop strategy you're suggesting.

2) I think making a min-raise (or slightly above, e.g., raising to $4.5 in a $1-$2 game) is defensible from the button, as comic2b mentions earlier. You're doing this to build a slightly larger pot with position, even though your chances of winning the blinds outright are small. Also, when the pot is unraised going into the flop, I think sometimes making a min-bet (or close to it) is a defensible play when your opponent is passive or has shown weakness.

All in all, a very good article.

-- Collin

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1) I'm saying that limping in is usually a sign of a weak opponent.

It's slightly beyond the scope of the article, but the general preflop strategy I advocate is raise/fold, no limping.

2) No argument from me that building a pot in position is a worthy goal. However, why minraise when they'll call a pot raise?

As for postflop minbetting -- frequent minbetting is a mistake. However, there are situations where a minbet is reasonable, like the unraised pot you mention. (In fact I say in the article that an opponent who minbets into a pot after limping in is making a decent postflop play, but he's losing equity overall because he let you see a flop.)

[heresjohnny]

I'm just starting to play hu games, starting off at 400NL where as my usual game is 1k/2k 6 max. Recently I watched CTS' new video on cardrunners and he advocates limping sometimes with really weak hands against people who 3 bet alot from the BB.

What do you think of this strategy? The games I've played so far have included some super aggro player who are 3betting every 2nd raise I make from the SB, thus negating my positional advantage. Obviously I've adjusted with some light 4 betting and cold calling and floating, but I still think there may be some value in limping some garbage hands occasionally. Thoughts?

Good article btw.

[creedofhubris]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm just starting to play hu games, starting off at 400NL where as my usual game is 1k/2k 6 max. Recently I watched CTS' new video on cardrunners and he advocates limping sometimes with really weak hands against people who 3 bet alot from the BB.

What do you think of this strategy? The games I've played so far have included some super aggro player who are 3betting every 2nd raise I make from the SB, thus negating my positional advantage. Obviously I've adjusted with some light 4 betting and cold calling and floating, but I still think there may be some value in limping some garbage hands occasionally. Thoughts?

Good article btw.

[/ QUOTE ]

It takes a deft touch to make money by limping in with crap hands. You make a lot of weak hands postflop and you need to have good reads on your opponent to extract the maximum when your 3rd pair is good and get away with minimal losses when you're beat.

Ordinarily, I wouldn't recommend this play to someone who's just starting out in HU, but if you can beat 1k/2k then I'm not going to say it's necessarily a mistake.

However, you might get a better hourly rate, especially at lower limits, by just throwing away junk and moving on to the next hand. By limping in, you ensure that you will get raked on the hand (or lose entirely if the other guy raises you out), and a potential small edge may not be worth pushing.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

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Donk-betting the flop leaves your opponent in control of the pot size and the situation. Also, it's hard to both donk-bet your good hands and have hands left over that are worth calling if you check and he continuation bets; so either your donk-bet range is going to be quite weak, or your checking range will be quite weak, and in either case you're giving your opponent useful info about the strength of your hand while having no info on his, which is IMO a poor situation.


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What do you think of donk-betting with a small random sample of your checking range which has the same strength and distribution as your checking range just to see how your opponent reacts to a donk-bet?

FWIW, I rarely play heads-up NLHE, but when I do, I start out committing some of the errors that you list and trying to play a lot of small pots in an effort to get a read on my opponent and figure out how best to stack him.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

[ QUOTE ]

What do you think of this strategy? The games I've played so far have included some super aggro player who are 3betting every 2nd raise I make from the SB, thus negating my positional advantage. Obviously I've adjusted with some light 4 betting and cold calling and floating, but I still think there may be some value in limping some garbage hands occasionally. Thoughts?


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I would think that against a super aggro player who sees just about every flop, you'd start limping in with hands that have value rather than garbage hands. A hand like 87s might be more profitable if you limp and call a raise preflop instead of having to play it for a raise and reraise. You maintain the implied odds power of the hand by keeping the preflop pot smaller relative to stack sizes and you give yourself more room for plays like a check-raise with money still left in your stack for the threat of a future bet.

You might also want to limp-reraise this player, although I'm not sure what hands are best for that strategy.

[Erik Blazynski]

Joe and Tom both sit down at a heads up NLH cash game table with their last $100. Three hours later Joe is a head of Tom. Joe has $66 and Tom has $9. Tom goes on a winning streak and three hours later he has the lead, now Tom has $26 and Joe has $22. They decide to keep playing and three hours later Tom goes all in for $16 and Joe calls with his $11, Tom wins and walks with $27, Joe has nothing.. GG boys..

-Erik

[heresjohnny]

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Donk-betting the flop leaves your opponent in control of the pot size and the situation. Also, it's hard to both donk-bet your good hands and have hands left over that are worth calling if you check and he continuation bets; so either your donk-bet range is going to be quite weak, or your checking range will be quite weak, and in either case you're giving your opponent useful info about the strength of your hand while having no info on his, which is IMO a poor situation.


[/ QUOTE ]

What do you think of donk-betting with a small random sample of your checking range which has the same strength and distribution as your checking range just to see how your opponent reacts to a donk-bet?

FWIW, I rarely play heads-up NLHE, but when I do, I start out committing some of the errors that you list and trying to play a lot of small pots in an effort to get a read on my opponent and figure out how best to stack him.

[/ QUOTE ]

hey, thanks for the reply, by 1k/2k I meant 5/10 and 10/20 btw. still a long way from nosebleeds. I've read your article a few times and I think it's really well done.

Hopefully, we'll see some more in the future.

Bets of luck.

[PokrLikeItsProse]

Err, I'm not the author of the article.