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Forums Podcast – Sticky Players on My Left
Finally, the podcast I’ve been waiting for! These are the players I play live $1-$2 cash (very few tournaments near me) against at my local card room, only there aren’t two at the table, there are 4, 5 and occasionally 6 of them. I kept track for 3 hours one night, and every hand but one went to showdown. When I was a “less studied” player I played tighter and won money. As I became, in theory, a “better” player from all the learning we do here, I started losing by trying to apply everything I’ve learned. I basically fell victim to the “fancy play syndrome” and would get frustrated when they would show up with just the most random cards you could imagine. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of dollars I’ve lost convincing myself that no one would limp call a 6X open from OOP with 35 off, only to have them hit a wheel on the river and stack me!
I’ve finally finessed my play back to winning, but in some ways I’ve had to “digress” from what I’m learning. First, I’ve raised my opening range by one pip up. Secondly, I’m doing a lot more over limping rather than opening, unless I am in the top half of my range. I’m virtually never bluffing (unless against one of the other 3 or 4 players). And I am value betting huge when I hit a big hand.
I was losing money in two ways. I’d open anywhere from 6x to 8x and get 4-5 callers. I’d miss the flop 2/3rds of the time. With 5 people in the hand, someone is almost guaranteed to hit the flop. So I’d be losing $12 to $16 each time I missed the flop. And of course, sometimes when I did hit the flop, someone hit it harder. So now with a slightly tighter range, if i do hit the flop I’m in a little better position. And if I don’t hit, I just let it go. I don’t fight for it because I’m not going to get them to fold second or even third pair. And there really is no reasonable threshold. I’ve seen some one open raise to 16X ($32) and get called by 2 people who limped ahead of him, one with garbage, the other with AA. So if I do hold a premium hand, I’m opening larger than normal to weed out a couple players and still get called by a couple.
The only downside to this is that it can get very boring, especially if you are card dead. Since almost every hand goes to showdown, you have to hit a big hand to win. I do still try and use strategy against the few thinking players that are there, but have to account for the fact that others could literally be holding any to cards at any given time. (26o in MP in a preflop raised pot is another hand I lost big to).
I have found these players to be inelastic to any bet size up to half pot. Some will start to fold above that. But in a multiway pot more than half pot can be a big portion of your stack, so you’ve got to have a hand to get to showdown with.
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