Anyone play Limit Hold Em? Quick Question

OK, I think I left my copy of Super System at a friend's house and this is driving me nuts. I was splashing around in the micro limit games yesterday, playing Limit Hold Em. I'm a pretty tight player, very patient, but here's what happened. I lost twice with pocket aces, twice with pocket kings, and twice with pocket queens. I didn't win a single hand with premium pairs all day. I figured it must be beacuse I usually play No Limit, and I'm missing some key strategy that is Limit specific. So here's the question: What are the premium hands in Limit? Are suited connectors a better bet than high pairs, since you see more flushes and straights as you get to the river most hands? Or did I just have a really funky day at the table?

Thanks and take care.

HollyGo

Holly, your experience yesterday is not a reflection of Limit strategy. It's a reflection of playing Limit at the micro level. Inexperienced players will stay in a hand until the bitter end because they know they can't be pushed to a decision for all their chips on a single bet. I don't play micro Limit for that very reason. There always seems to be two or three players who will play every single hand, and who will raise to the limit each betting round regardless of what they're holding.

Tight players usually do well at Limit because they understand that they lose most of the capacity to bluff with weak hands. They will toss marginal cards. Chances are, at a higher limit table, or surrounded by experienced Limit players, you'd have won a lot more of those hands than you lost yesterday.

To answer your question on opening cards in Limit, it's a matter of position at the table, but you probably want to forget about many of the starting hands that you routinely employ in No Limit. Small suited connectors and small pairs, for example, are probably not going to hold up. Trouble hands in No Limit like KJ, QJ, KT, QT, JT weaken even more at the Limit table.

My personal strategy, for what it's worth, is not to play anything smaller than 99, and be ready to muck immediately if I don't like the flop. Most of the time, a Limit hand will showdown to the larger of two big hands. Don't bring a baseball bat to a gunfight.

Thank you RammerJammer! You are the awsome-est! (I know that's not technically a real word, but it sums up my appreciation pretty well! )

HollyGo

As usual, Rammer is spot on. I play limit almost entirely and I'm usually playing .25/.50 or .50/1

The micro tables are like a freeroll in that some folks will call anything with anything. I play position and read the table to determine how I'll play. At a very tight table (on one at Noble a few days ago) I stole a lot of pots by being aggressive. I rarely see a turn much less a river unless I have a very good hand. I have more luck with suited connectors than I do with any pocket pair - especially on Noble. I can't count the number of times my set has lost to a flush or str8...

Ed Miller wrote a book on low limit play. It varies drastically from Jennifer Harmon's Limit Hold 'em section of Super System 2.
Jennifer plays huge, deep stack limit games.

In lower limit play, remember to punish early, and play very fast. High pairs are a made hand, and lose value with callers. (In other wordes they play better heads up). Drawing hands gain equity with multiple callers.

So if you play no-limit, slightly and I mean slightly, decrease the value of big pairs, play them for as much as you can get into the pot preflop, and be prepared to bail, when the board tells you to.

Again comparing no-limit, increase the value of middle suited connectors and drawing hands. They play well in this type of game.

After the flop, remeber that your opponents may be getting the right price to draw to almost anything. So punish them early, while you still have the best hand. In the long run it will pay off.

Bill

A main strategy point in limit is to raise and re-raise as much as you can preflop with premium hands (AA, KK, AK, QQ, and even hands like JJ and 10-10 or occasionally AQ).


At the micro-limit levels, work on playing basic straight-up ABC poker. DO NOT attempt to bluff multi-way pots!!! If you are heads-up against a player who WILL fold a hand in a certain situation, then you can attempt a bluff, but you must be almost certain you can make him fold.

Don't try to check-raise bluff or semi-bluff raise...almost every player at the micro-limits has no idea that you are trying to trap him or bluff him, etc...

Just play solid poker and you will see a profit in the long run.

O, and if many pots are not getting raised preflop, be more inclined to limp with suited connectors above 67 and see some flops cheaply... These hands do better in multi-way pots.