Limit Game Monthly Discussion - May, LHE

I noticed that there are several newer members who play LHE, and of course there are some long term members who play - thought it'd be fun to see if a discussion thread goes anywhere.

fwiw, I'm playing some LHE now - the idea was to get better at HORSE, but I'm actually enjoying playing LHE by itself, so...

At any rate, if you have thoughts, discussion topics, questions, whatever related to LHE, share them here!

yo dudes, new to LHE like sly, what's a general number for cbet % IP + OOP?

Heh, originally I wanted this thread to be a revolving limit game thread, focusing on a new game each month. Not specific to tourney or cash. For the following reasons:

1) The group of players who play limit games usually play more than one.
2) A lot of the softest limit games are mixed games or tournaments (or better yet, mixed game tournaments).
3) Diluting the player base with just cash or just tourney players would make for a thread with less people who post.
4) Focusing on a new game every month will keep the discussion fresh, and teach everyone new skeelz.


But then I was lazy and didn't poast the thread, so here we are :P.

As for the c-betting question, it really depends. C-bet more in large pots, against opponents who fold a lot (31%+) and on drier flop textures obviously. But I think general procedure is to c-bet more playing LHE, since your c-bet has to work less often to be profitable. And that 31% number comes from the fold percentage you need in the smallest possible pot you can play to be profitable (You raise, get called from the BB). So if an opponent folds more than 31% of the time to flop c-bets, he's really exploitable and we should be c-betting close to 90%+.

Thread title can be changed lol, still like that idea a lot - or we can just create a new thread in the Learning forum rather than Cash...

what about cbetting in multiway pots 2/3 way on a really dry flop like K44 and your holding AQ say are we still cbetting 90% here?

Ya cuz like a lot of the time we're holding the best hand.

What about hand selection. I play 6-Max so should i be be raising from the cutoff with hands like 89s, and A9s to an unopened pot?

pf hand selection is going to be pretty table conditions dependent - there are a bunch of charts available on the internet. A9s is an MP open on every chart I've seen, 98s is marginal.

But table conditions dictate your opening ranges. A 3bet happy btn will lead you to be tighter in CO than you might be otherwise for example. A SB who calls pf alot and folds to cbets alot might lead you to be looser.

Yeah, and with LHE, big card value is a lot more important than implied odds, especially playing 6-max. So hands like 45s that are solid starting hands playing NLHE can be a bit of a trap hand playing LHE.

Spew or no spew? Villain is a 52/29/52% over 21 hands, has 3-bet 1 out of 5 times.

Absolute Poker $2.00/$4 Limit Hold'em - 3 players
The Official 2+2 Hand Converter Powered By DeucesCracked.com

Pre Flop: (1.5 SB) Hero is BTN with Q♥ 2♣
Hero raises, 1 fold, BB calls

Flop: (4.5 SB) 6♣ 4♠ 5♥ (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB raises, Hero calls

Turn: (4.25 BB) 6♥ (2 players)
BB bets, Hero calls

River: (6.25 BB) A♠ (2 players)
BB bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 8.25 BB
Hero shows Q♥ 2♣
BB shows 7♠ J♠
Hero wins 7.875 BB
(Rake: $1.50)

LHE NOOB, but his flop c/r doesnt really make sense unless he has like a weak draw a 3x or 7x type hand as I assume all pairs above 88 3bet pre. I dont think he c/r flop with a 6x all that often, maybe to get value from 3x,7x hands himself plus overcards.
On turn it takes out combos of 6x which also could remove some like 67,68,63s type combos for the straight draw so his hand doesnt really make sesnse by the river and it looks like a bluff. unless his A3,A2,A7 got there but it's a great river card to continue barrelling for him, how ofte do we have to be correct on the call? If we looked at it combo wise there isnt an awful lot he can have on the river IMO but this maybe standard line with a 6 as i m new to lhe lol

In 20/20 hindsight though, I think I like a river raise more than a call on the river. There are still a lot of queen highs and king highs that beat me, and I may be able to get a pair of 4's or 22-33 to fold. Since raising costs us 2 bets when we're wrong instead of 1 like calling, I'm not sure how many more combos I have to fold to make it better, but it seems like there'd be a ton of Q8 type hands that he'd fold to a river raise that would play this way.

Great idea for a thread! Don't have much time to read all the posts or offer much substance, but I will be back when I do.

Since coming back to the game in Oct, my main focus has been on LHE so I think this is great to have a place to discuss those concepts specific to it.

Continuing with the c-bet topic... what does everyone think a good c-bet % is for flop and turn?...and how does the c-bet success % play a role in this.

My flop c-bet % runs >90 and turn runs around 80 or a little above. Flop c-bet success rate is about 20. I've read so much about continuing on with the c-bet and staying the agressor, but now I wonder if I've gone overboard and am wasting bets..or whether I am in fact in line with solid play. I've compared to some other players I respect in my database and it seems they're stats are roughly similar, but just figured I'd see what others thought.


(I play full ring btw)

OK so i just started to play LHE and have put in roughly 3k in hands but seems that i win some but lose most of it back. To be honest its on hands that turn 2 pair but odd 2 pairs like T3 or J3. It seems that in limit at least the limit i play ppl just completely call u down wit any pair. I have some stats that i have taken screen shots of and was hoping if i could get some help with maybe understanding where my leaks are at. I have uploaded my position stats, overall stats, and my overall graph for LHE. IF u need anymore stats let me kno and i will get screen shots up. I am currently playing .02/.04 limit.

Attached Images

position.jpg (23.0 KB, 115 views)

overall.jpg (18.4 KB, 116 views)

Graph.jpg (29.0 KB, 116 views)

General thoughts - keep in mind I'm new to the game, so huge grain of salt:

1. You're defending the SB more than you're defending the BB - that's odd - are you completing alot? If so, is it when it's limped to you, or are you completing in raised pots? Are you completing when it's folded to you?

2. You're cold calling too much I think - you should be coming in for a raise, esp in position, more often I think.

3. You're pretty passive postflop. Are you playing a fit or fold strategy? What types of situations are you c/r'ing in? How are you playing good draws? Are you ending up in tons of multiway pots, so that you have to play passively?

4. Why are you folding to 3bets so often? You're priced in to call.

I had to completely re-think postflop play in limit - I swore the first few times someone "sucked out" on me w a rivered gutshot, until I figured out that they actually were receiving the correct odds to call the turn to hit their rivered gutshot. Same for the weird 2pr rivers. I do take notes on people who call without proper odds, I want to make sure I'm value betting the turn all the time against them.

Jesus. Can you at least move up to 50c/$1 where the rake isn't absolutely destroying your face?

Also, shouldn't our fold to 3-bet percentage be zero?

Right i thought this at the time with the Qx + Kx hands that beat us and didnt think of raising the river which would fold them out hopefully, cheers dude never came across my mind raising lol

what about the rake at .25/50? obvs the higher the better but is it cool to learn the game there or is .5/1 better?tbh I still think that .5/1 was terrible standard.

At 25c/50c, the rake is capped at 40c (80% of a big bet). At 50c/$1, its capped at 50c (50%) (at least on pokerstars anyways). That's a huge difference. And anywhere below $1/$2 the play is going to be really bad.

1/2 where we start seeing some decent players then dude?

Hard for me to say about pokerstars, but at UB, they start using props to keep the games going. And there's usually 1-2 of them at every table. So yeah, you start seeing some reggish players pop up, but its still soft.

Why would this be considered a dry flop?

cant fold out better + our equity is reduced with more villians in the pot, plus drawing hands like gutshots/back door FDs get odds to draw on like K34 say if its multiway.

I think thats why anyway lol

My game of choice these days is Stud 8, and I made the mistake of buying into a game way way above my br according to standard brm. Thing is I'm killing (ok, limited sample) these and am wondering what I should do. I look at the limits I was playing, and they now bore me, and I was only a marginally profitable player there.

What should I do?

Try to evaluate why you're a marginal winner at the lower limit, and how well you're running at the higher limit imo. For example, is the rake hitting your winrate so hard at the lower limit that it's eating into your "true" winrate. Be aware of the sample size at the lower limit as well.

Be very careful w playing outside your br (or simply don't do it is the safer reply).

I like LH and slowly progressing into the 7 stud variations with the overall goal to learn to play HORSE by the end of the year. Currently reading 2 books on stud, "Ken Warren Teaches 7 Card Stud", and "How to beat low limit 7 card stud by Paul Kammen". there is also alot of what seems to be great information on line at 7cardstudstategy.com and at poker.org. Just contributing. Enjoy the evening

Cross posting May Stud, Stud Hi-Low, and Razz hands discussion

Ran across this idea recently in a vid, it may be basic to everyone else, but... Relative position.

Say we're BB. UTG folds, MP folds, CO limps, BTN raises, SB folds. We're getting 4.5:1 to call, and given that CO is going to call the vast majority of the time (assume for the moment you have a read that he's unlikely to 3bet), we're really getting 5.5:1. Not too shabby.

Let's change the scenario a bit. We're in BB again, but the action this time is CO opens, BTN calls, SB folds. We're getting the same odds as before, 5.5:1, again not too shabby.

However, the two situations are not equivalent. The second scenario is far superior for us to call in. Our relative position to the raiser is much better in the second scenario than the first.

In the first scenario, say we catch a reasonable flop that we want to continue on, but we're not keen on c/r'ing. We check, CO checks, BTN bets, we call - do you see the problem? We don't know what CO is doing, if he c/r's, we've got a bit of a problem.

In the second scenario, we catch the same flop, we check, CO cbets - and now we get to see exactly what BTN is going to do before we put any more money in the pot.

So, our position relative to the pfr is an important consideration in the playability of our hand postflop - we should be more willing to call when we have good relative position, and less willing when we have bad relative position.

Again, sorry if this is basic - it wasn't something I'd been thinking about in NLHE, since I rarely call in the BB in NLHE...

Lets discuss blind defense.

Given a button raise from an opponent who steals ~40-60%, what are our calling & 3-betting ranges going to look like for the following player types:

1) LHE Reg
2) Maniacal Fish
3) Weak-Tight HORSE player whose weakest game is LHE

I'll get us started with the following:

Poor players
Sklansky advocates playing hands in groups 1-8 against poor opponents, re-raising with the best 25% of those hands. So this gives us a range of:

Call Sklansky Group 5-8 (30% of hands), and 3-bet Group 1-4 (10% of hands). And we call 40% of the time total, leaving our fold to steal at 60%.

Sklansky however, puts a lot of emphasis on being suited and connected. For example, ATs is in group 4, while ATo is in group 6. This is likely due to this book being written when limit hold'em was a softer, more passive & limpy game, with many flops being multi-way. In today's games where most play is at 6-max tables, and more flops are heads up, I believe his rankings may not be exactly optimal. But nonetheless, they provide a a very solid starting point.

Other resources that might help:
MEbenhoe's Shorthanded LHE hand chart
EV by starting hand

fwiw, if you haven't checked out the last two links in c9's post, you may want to, it's really interesting.

Note in the Ev by starting hand the difference that being suited makes - unsuited connectors are marginal at best. Also note that small pp's are trash.

I have to digest the hands chart still, but interesting model - esp since it accounts some for table conditions...

Hmm, hand chart - notice that when facing a raise, the chart creator only lists one of two options for any hand - re-raise or fold. And overlimping is reserved for very few hands. Interesting.

The next DTB video will be from Paul (Giant Buddha) - so we will post the link here for you guys once we get it set up. (That will probably be tomorrow)

Awesome - look forward to watching it. Thanks

Here's the link to the new DTB vid from Paul - it's very good, enjoy!!!

http://www.cardschat.com/f53/giantbu...nd-lhe-176459/ (http://www.cardschat.com/f53/giantbuddha-analyzes-hand-lhe-176459/)

i know this was a long time ago, but you need to be much more aggressive. your agg. factor is at about 1, try to get it up to 2.5 or 3. this will bring up your money won without show down and on the hands you win you will win much more. i had the same problem as you but since i started being more aggressive i have had much more success