Maximizing Profits in a Limp-Call Heavy 1/2/3 Game: Seeking Your Expert Advice!

This is fairly standard for a lot of low stakes live poker games. As long as you can raise big and still get called with marginal holdings in a few spots, there is no problem. Tighten up your opening range, pick a sizing that narrows down the field to 1-3 callers and play fundamentally solid poker post and you should have no problems beating this game.

Play big cards and raise to 20, easy game. If you have small pairs just try to set mine cheaply.

Not so easy if you're playing with people who know you, or even with people just paying attention over a few hours.

Or do you play at one of these mythical rooms where everyone is a fish except the person who posts to an online poker forum?

I was saying in general AQ is gonna do ok against the guys with 53o.

OPs game doesn’t sound like it has a lot of GTO bots. Playing TAG will likely print.

It's pretty lazy thinking to assume cognizant opponents are GTO bots. I see lots of middle-aged TAGs who are clinging to strategies from 2004 because it's too daunting for an old dog to learn new tricks.

Read his post. They’re calling 3b with JTo and K9s. OP can play tight ranges pre and do well hammering value.

I’m a middle aged TAG :O

There's a HUGE difference between "playing tight ranges and hammering value" and "raise big with big hands and small with speculative hands."

Where did I recommend OP raise small? That would be an absurd strategy.

Getting in cheap with small pairs means don’t raise.

I understand what you're saying, but playing a very tight range from EP with large opens would seem to signal to the better players that you're a garden variety, old-time TAG, while also causing you to miss value from the weaker players by not being in there with decent hands, even OOP.

In addition, I've also found that raising UTG $10-$12 rather than $15-$20 puts less pressure on me when I don't flop well or when multiple people call, which can still happen with a raise to $20.

First, this rake struck sounds horrible. I'd play somewhere else if I had the option.

Given the shallow buy in cap, I think the main adjustment we'd want to make is to over-fold pre with speculative hands, and weight our continue range towards hands that are going to fare better against the loose ranges our opponents are playing. We want to mostly be playing premiums, decent size pairs, and big SC's.

Once we know which opponents are squeezing the limpers and 3B'ing pre, we can start to opportunistically expand our range with some over-limps and over-calls in spots where we expect to see a flop with a speculative hand. I'd also think we'd want to increase our raise size and 3B size, particularly when we'll be OOP post flop, to lower the SPR and decrease our positional disadvantage.

I'd expect to see frequent all ins on earlier streets, and plenty of suck outs. I'd have multiple buy-ins on me, and be topping off frequently.

Do you open different size from EP vs LP? What open size you'd recommend?
What would be your C-bet frequency after you made the pre-flop adjustments?

What's open range would you use in EP?
What's your range if you are at CO or BU when facing 3 limpers?

Say you open 12 EP and get 4 callers, what's your strategy post flop?
1. You hit TP+
2. You have some draw
3. Only two high cards
4. Two over cards to your middle pair

I will sometimes increase my raise size in EP, and use a smaller size in LP.

In a heavily raked game, I'd size up with my raise sizes. In a loose-splashy game, I'd size up some more. The usual RFI open size in the 1/3 games I play is around $12-$15, where the rake is only taken post-flop, 10% up to $5, once the pot is over $10, plus $2 for promo drops. Its not unusual to see some guys opening bigger if the game is splashy.

In your game, with this rake structure, I might start out raising $18, and see what happens. If we're still going multi-way to the flop every time, I might increase that to $20. I've played in some insane games where nothing less than a $25 open gets any respect.

I don't really have a c-bet frequency. I'm generally checking my entire range from OOP as the PFR, and c-betting my entire range when I'm IP. There are some times when I'll deviate and c-bet from OOP or check-back from IP, but I need a reason to deviate that isn't just "muh hand needs protekshun".

When I'm OOP, I'm going to be doing some check-folding, some check-calling, and some check-raising. When I'm IP, I'll be doing some bet-folding, some bet-calling, and some bet-3B'ing, but mostly, I'm just betting, and they're just folding or calling. When your image is that you're just always betting, opponents drop their check-raise frequency down to almost zero.

Are we first to act, last to act, or somewhere in the middle?

First to act or in the middle, I'm generally just checking my entire range, no matter what I have on the flop. But if we've only got one opponent behind, I'll sometimes go ahead and c-bet as if I was last to act.

Last to act, I'm still going to mostly be c-betting, but I'm going really small this multi-way, less than 1/3 pot. Even lower if the board is monotone.

Checking from OOP or c-betting small from IP on the flop is mostly meant to define opponents' ranges. We're expecting them to raise with their strong hands, and call with their weak hands. Once we know what sort of hands we're up against, we can decide what to do depending on what the turn card is.

If they flat call and the turn is a brick, I'm sizing up and barreling. If they check-raise and I don't have enough equity to continue, I'm just giving up and folding. If they check-raise and we do continue, I'll mostly be betting when they check again, or folding / calling depending on my equity and how I'm ranging them if they bet out. If they flat call and the turn changes the nuts, I'll barrel, but size down.

Your opponents in this game are mostly flatting pre in the hopes they'll make a monster post-flop, and stack you. The way to adjust is to make them pay an exorbitant price just to see a flop, and then nickel-and-dime them on the flop, forcing them to either tip the strength of their hand or let us realize our equity without committing too much to the pot with the weaker parts of our range.

To move the conversation to at least 2014, I'm not all that concerned about the right size pf bet. The reality is that like most LLSNL players, they are making the classic mistake of playing way too many hands. Their dilemma is that before the river, they have to decide what to do with all of these crap hands. What you want to do identify what their basic strategy is. Do they fold on the flop if they don't hit? Or do they peel a card no matter what hoping that the pfr will give up after the flop? Or do they bluff their way through? Once you know this, you can play along to exploit their tendencies.

If you called by 4 or more villains, just check fold if you have nothing. Whoever bet most likely has something, because they will get crushed in that situation quickly by bluffing into that many villains, one of which will have a real hand. And people don't go to the poker room to fold good hands.

1. x/evaluate
2. Depends on the draw.
3. x/fold
4. likely x/fold, might depend on who bets