FLO8 - Betting Structure

[RobNottsUk]

In the generally loose-passive & tight-passive low stakes FLO8 games, though players are constantly making loose flop calls, through "herd immunity" they're not losing much more than tiny fractions of bets by it.

In FLHE you exploit passivity by making free card plays on the flop, and also it's easier to predict the likely flop bettor allowing you to check/raise and protect a fragile made hand.

In the FLO8 games on the flop, it appears most players are perfectly happy to give cheap cards, and allow opponents to make weak and backdoor draws profitably. Should someone raise early in the hand, they're likely to be checked to on next round, and lose an opportunity to 2 bet the turn, so sand-bagging is habitual (even where it's clearly not in the best hands interest).

The most profitable games for me, have been where a predictable Maniac, has helped me generate action exploiting equity edges and charging a stiffer price to loose calls.

In Ciaffone's Omaha book he suggests a 1/2/3/3 betting structure for Omaha Hi, and I'm beginning to think this would balance the FLO8 game better to.

For instance this would reduce the de-skilling when Fish jam pre-flop, making their mindless calling correct post-flop. The pot on the flop would be smaller in relation to bet size, giving more incentive to bet hands (and also raise). Finally the smaller increase, turn & river would reduce the windfall benefit to players catching 'miracle' cards.

As is, it's almost 1,000 hands ago since I was able to cap in a multi-way pot trapping the loose auto-call players...

Omaha "The Action Game" at moment "Inaction Game" seems more appropriate.

[cjs]

Rob right now online the action games are all 6 max. You can usually get all the action you want even down at 1/2. Beware of what you ask for because the variance is a killer.

[RobNottsUk]

Don't you have the same problem, there was a recent thread on Loose post-flop call type players, jamming pre-flop.

In these passive full ring, most hope for someone else to bet their hand, so they can trap later on.

Short-handed, those who like it will become auto bettors rather than auto callers, until they realise they're in a spot and go into call-down mode.

Really it's the info starvation and the sheer mindlessness of the "wait and see" games. You have loose bettors, who can bet on the slimmest whim, simply because it's only 1bb, and the pot is 8+bb, and they fear no raises or 3 bets.

Fixed Limit poker, needs you the skilled player, to be able to build up the pot when you have an advantage, and to realise when you no longer have profitable situation to play on. It really takes some kind of struggle between a couple of players, who have mutual interests to raise the stakes.

The games I've seen lately, any action is about LAGster's trying it on early in hand, perhaps 3-betting with hands pre-flop that probably arn't profitable for even 1 bet nevermind playing against raises. Of course they get called, and called; because they're totally out of line far too often. Because players won't fold, promo raises then become pointless leading to yet more calling (accompanied by crossed fingers).

The balance of the game seems wrong. For most there's a pre-flop decision, on flop the next card is seen for 1 bet, and then on turn, if they have the nuts they raise (may be).

When you analyse the hands carefully, the risks taken playing accurately on the flop aren't matched by enough reward. Sometimes there's too many 'bust' cards likely on the turn, to make fast play correct (as explained in the top set example by Ray Zee, where str8-ning is concerned). Othertimes, players are failing to protect top set on HHL flops, despite being given the opportunity, and then go on to lose 1/2 (or all) the pot to running cards.

For the game to be interesting, you need some information, the "Language of Betting", some signal muddied by a certain noise ratio. As is often, there's no information to go on, except that certain of the players have a random hand, and others will have a low hand.

Paradoxically, when you get a good spot, with some of the good players who can read each others hands, they squeeze extra bets out of the "Carvees". Also they're aware of "Duplication" so are less likely to stubbornly persist in getting quartered.

To make an exciting game, you need 1 or 2 players to have good reasons to bet & raise, so that a player must really take care making that first call of a bet.

As Ray Zee writes, your profit comes from opponents mistakes, not from great plays, but then you need opponents to have an opportunity to make a mistake.

A larger flop bet would aid in bluffing to, as is 3 or 4-way raised pots, make the flop bet a seemingly insignificant decision.

It is a terrible thing, if you need to have 2 good players in the pot, basically implicitly colluding in order to shake down the weak.