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Anyway. I learned to read hands at micro-limits. It can definitely be done. I didn't always know exactly what my opponents had, but I certainly knew when they were strong, or at least when they thought they were strong.
Here is the plan for destroying these tables. It involves a lot of hard work taking notes and then READING your notes later. But it's worth it: these players are bad, and they are usually bad in consistent ways, and you can clobber them.
Step 1: make notes of who has more than 2x the maximum buy-in at any time. (I would type in the notes box: "$5.50 at $2nl") These people may not know what they're doing, but they're more likely to than everybody else. Watch their play. They may turn out to be decent, in which case it's much easier to put them on hands -- just use normal procedures.
Step 2: pay attention to the cards people show down. Again, make notes. There are a LOT of showdowns at these tables, so use that information. I just type 73, T7, K3, or whatever sub-normal hands I see someone play, every time I see it. (Make sure it wasn't from the blinds before you write it down though.) Eventually on some people I might have a row that looks like K3 K8 K5 K7 K3. Well, I know how to play that guy when a K hits the board and he bets out! (I didn't even bother to write down Ax hands: just about everybody at micro-limits plays any ace from any place.)
Step 3: Unless you have notes on a player, your hand reading has to begin from the assumption that if they limped preflop, they can have any two cards. Yes, for some players, that includes 72o. This makes things trickier. But you can still cut things down a little bit as the play proceeds. If they're making strong bets, you should believe them, because most people at these tables are very passive.
If somebody raised preflop, that cuts down the possibilities some, but not nearly as much as it should. Could be any pair, any high A, sometimes any A at all, sometimes any two broadway cards. Again, make notes of what you see from a preflop raiser. My notes look like this: "2x->KT." That means they made a raise to 2x the BB, and then showed down KTo. Don't be surprised to see "8x->55" or "5x->A8."
If they're all-in preflop, especially if they have less than 50c left, and nobody has raised in front of them, they could have literally any hand at all. Most of the time they have at least a pair or two broadway cards, but not always. Still, don't call unless you have AA or KK unless you really like gambling. Make a note of what they went all-in with, just for fun.
With your notes on players, you're ready to go to work.
At Ultimate Bet, probably 2/3 of the bets made were of two kinds: minimum bets and livepokerforums. Why? Because those two types of bets are available as one-click bets: no sliding bar, no muss, no fuss. A minbet means only "I feel like I have a better than average chance to win this hand." It can be a very strong hand, a decent draw, top pair, middle pair, even bottom pair. People love to make minbets, and they love to call minbets -- what the hell, it's only 2 cents! If they call a minbet, that usually tells you that they do not have very much -- either a draw or maybe middle pair, bottom pair, or overcards. (Sometimes they'll stick around with literally nothing, just on a wing and a prayer.) If they had very much, they would raise -- usually either a minraise (tiny) or a livepokerforum raise (very large). The minraise and livepokerforum raise usually both mean the same thing: I have a pretty good hand. (Rarely, but occasionally, the livepokerforum raise is a bluff.)
What you want to watch out for is the raise that is in between a minraise and a livepokerforum raise. This means that the player has actually thought about his hand, thought about what kind of bet is likely to be called and how much he can extract from people. This is the guy who really has a good hand (or thinks he does).
A lot of the money I made at the micro-limits came as I learned the kinds of board that would make people think they were stronger than they were. For instance, a lot of people will think that when their single 8 hits an 88 on the board, they are good. If you have a straight, flush, or boat, they will pay you off, maybe even bet into you and re-raise your raises. They just can't imagine that their 3 of a kind isn't good.
Almost nobody check-raises. When they do, they have a hand AND they are a good player (relative to these limits). Make a note of that (I just typed "CR!!" in their box).
With all that, you should have a decent sense of what people have. Do note, however, that the number of tricky plays at the micro-limits can be amazing. People will check-call the flop and then bet the turn regularly. (I was really confused when I heard Iceman and others say that this was an unusual betting pattern; I saw it all the time at the UB $2 tables!) They will re-raise with nothing, all-in with nothing, all-in massive overbet with the nuts, check-call all streets with the nuts. (Do they even realize they have the nuts?) So sometimes you will be shocked by what gets showed down. But most of the time you won't.
The last thing to say is that people say to play ABC poker at these levels. I did that for a while and did fine, but I found that I made much more BB/hr playing rather loose, and then aggressive post-flop. These players are making mistakes on every street -- calling too much, overrating their hands, bluffing too much. I wanted to be in as many hands as possible. So I too played any ace, K9, Q8, J8, T7, 97, and 86 -- offsuit, even from MP (not EP though). 76o 65o 54o in LP.Suited further down than that, sometimes 3-gappers. Kx suited, sometimes Qx suited were OK too. I would complete the SB (unraised pot) with any J or better and any two cards that could make a straight or a flush. Any suited ace from any place was my favorite hand in the world -- I made piles of, err, pennies with it.
Be ready to lay your hand down when you are beaten! But when you have a good hand, you are taking somebody's stack so often it's amazing.
Statistics: Posted by k3nt — Thu Feb 03, 2005 10:23 am
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