A Few Tips

Here's just a few tips for playing low limit cash games. So take what you will from it, it's just my two cents of advice. I may not be the best player or the biggest name, but I have found a few of these things to be 100% accurate.

First, don't try to bluff through a lot of players. I have seen a lot of the low limit players willing to call two and three barrel bluffs with top pair/weak kicker, or second or third pair. So you have to know what kind of player you are up against and their tendencies. Second, don't overvalue marginal hands out of position. If you are in early position, you should pretty much play just the strongest hands, and loosen up as you get closer to the button. Again, it's pretty standard poker theory. However, what you should be looking to do, is exploit any weakness you see before the flop. You are looking to pick up as much dead money before the flop as possible. Then play, pretty much, ABC poker after the flop. You can make a few moves and some more intricate plays. But you have to remember, that you are going to be facing a lot of weak or bad players that are going to either chase or push with some weak hands and draws.

Finally, you want to re-examine your hand with each street and each bet or raise. You want to try to put your opponent on a hand and play it accordingly. I have noticed that some players will minimum raise marginal aces, small pairs and broadway hands. If I know that they are not that fond of their hand, I will usually try to either squeeze them, or three bet them in position. If my pre-flop play doesn't work, then I try to re-evaluate my hand after the flop and whether or not the flop might have helped my opponent. For instance, I'm sitting on the button with 89 off. A weak player opens the pot for the minimum. I repop it to $4.50, the big blind and he both call. The flop comes 7-4-3. This is a pretty dry flop for just calling a three bet before the flop. They both check it to me, I c-bet the flop and take it down. If I get check-raised or if somebody bet into me, I would have to re-evaluate my hand and go from there. So these are just a few tips, I'll be writing more tips in a later blog.

On a side note, I have been doing well so far in the cash games, even though I haven't had a lot of quality hands. I made a dumb move with AK to lose a buy-in, but other than that, I have pretty much stayed out of trouble. I have won pots when I sensed weakness and made some pretty decent laydowns when I thought I was beat. So I'm going to try to keep the train rolling. Good luck at the tables.