Calling Preflop Raises

[JLimbs]

I play for a living, almost exclusively in live casino cash games. One of the things I am best at is isolating against bad players, and avoiding other good players. The main way to do this is by selectively choosing which hands to call raises with preflop and which ones to fold. I always hear people group hands into tiers based on their strength and while statistically they are right, the true value of a hand comes from its playability in large pots. I think I have a slightly different set of standards then most other people and I was curious to hear other opinions about it.

While some hands obviously play themselves, there are other 'marginal' hands which there is usually not a clear cut decision. I generally play deep stack poker (5-10NL and 10-20 NL) and I base my preflop calls almost entirely on implied odds.

When facing a preflop raise from a bad player I tend to call with a pretty wide range of hands, suited connectors, suited aces, suited kings and other hands which even though are vulnerable have the potential to win big pots against weak post flop players. That is in addition to the obvious pairs and big cards which depending on the situation are normally auto calls.

Conversely hands as strong as A-J, K-Q suited and most connectors I will fold if I am facing a raise from a solid player. The main reason for this is because these aren't the types of hands you can win big pots with against solid players. Most solid players will stab once on the flop even if they miss but then shut down unless they have a hand worth betting again. Once a solid player puts out another big bet, top pair with hands like a-j and k-q are usually no good. Depending on how deep our stacks are I will generally still call small pairs preflop for sets but I rarely get cute with them after the flop if I don't improve.

While this may seem extremely passive to most people, I have found that it works extremely well for me. Disguising hands and randomizing play is important when playing against the same opponents over a long period of time. However the fact is when I play I am generally chasing specific players that are barely paying attention to their own cards, let alone analyzing how I play mine.

[miw210]

Sounds standard.

[West14thAve]

yea i thought everything u mentioned was right on point with the way i play. very good post.

[Frond]

Very good post. Your idea on isolating bad players and avoiding good ones sounds like something I heard Barry Greenstein say a while back. I think he said something to the effect of that he has made his money in his career doing exactly what you said, taking advantage of worse players. Why take on a player who is your equal or better, when there is almost always a few that are a lot worse(hopefully) than you at your table. This transfers well to all limits I think, even small stakes games.

[SplawnDarts]

Good description of what you're trying to accomplish preflop.

[jeccross]

I met a guy in vegas recently who was doing exactly the same thing. I was chatting to him about a pot i'd just lost against a good player we'd played with the night before and his response was, "why were you in a pot with him". His strategy involved completely ignoring the good players without a very solid hand and focusing entirely on the fish.

Are you this passive against a player who raises alot preflop, or would you reraise alot of these hands, surely just calling preflop won't isolate a bad player, it will invite more callers?

[JLimbs]

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Are you this passive against a player who raises alot preflop, or would you reraise alot of these hands, surely just calling preflop won't isolate a bad player, it will invite more callers?

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The toughest players for me to play against are solid player who "stab once." Good players that raise a wide range of hands from any position and will usually stab on the flop but then shut down if they haven't improved. Since they are in SO MANY hands they make it hard to avoid them. Since they won't pay you even if you hit it forces you to either tighten up even more preflop or just call with the intention of bluffing even if you don't improve.

I generally don't chase small pots in deep stack games so players like this tend to be very problematic for me. I will adjust to him based on how the other players at the table adjust. If his raises get called by 4 or more players then I will call as well with hands that work well in multiway pots. If he is only getting 1 or 2 callers preflop I tighten up a lot and look for a table change as soon as possible.

[Gonso]

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Sounds standard.

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[damedley]

Good post. The only thing I would add is that this works better in casinos than it does online, for two reasons.

1) Skill differential. The competition in casinos is so varied. I tend to put them in three groups: total tourists, players who are always at the casino and are good, and players who are always at the casino but are *bad*. I won't get into generalities on how to play against each one, but there are definitely ways to beat the tourists and addicts. Online there are way fewer tourists.

2) Identification. In a casino it's usually not to hard to classify players into these three groups. Online it's harder to identify the players. This is partly because the distinction between bad experienced players and good experienced players is more subtle, while tourists make themselves known pretty quickly. And the other part of course is that there's less information to glean online since you're not actually looking at the person.

[egj]

So you'll call a raise from a bad player with K4s, say? Out of position or only in position?

Do you really find that you make your money by hitting a big hand against their top pair? Or is it more that you're bluffing bad players off of flops that they miss?

It seems to me that you need a very special combination of events to win a big pot with K4s. You need to hit a big hand (2 pair or better) and your opponent needs to have at least top pair. The combination of those two events happening would seem to be quite unlikely.

But it seems you have success with this strategy so I'm curious how you do it.