Sloe Times

So HDouble made his well received post How to beat Low-Limit No-Limit a couple of days ago and after taking some time to digest his points I have the following thoughts.

First off, a lot of (if not all of) these tips are covered in the various book readings. This is nothing to take away from the post, in fact if you're too lazy to crack a book, do yourself a favor and at least read his post. I guess the other thing I'm saying is that this isn't crack pot advise, especially when it's coming from multiple sources so I wouldn't discount it as blogger-rhea. So, on the off chance that you have not yet, go read his post.

On the topic of underbetting, I think the only thing I would add is that another option rather than betting the pot can be just checking. Especially in early and mid position. In the follow-up RDub covers one reason why, getting yourself pot committed, but from my perspective unless you have the nuts it doesn't hurt to check the flop and see how the other players react. This gives you an opportunity to apply what you know about the other players to their bets, or checks/calls. If you lead off, the players who call may not really tell you anything other than they're in for a pot sized bet to see another card. While NL isn't quite as bad as the limit "any two cards" fish, as HDouble pointed out, some folks make terrible calls and I've seen that turn rags into gold.

Limping in. At a passive table, with lots of limpers, there's almost no two cards that you can't see the flop with. HDouble asserts you want to maintain some discipline in the cards you play, and I would agree with this though I guess I would take it a little farther. In big family pots that you catch something like top pair in with your Ace-any, or two gappers that make the straight for you and one of your cards makes the low end, you're asking for kicker problems. I would probably still limit my play to middle cards or better at the least when limping in.

Draws are over-rated. While I agree that you shouldn't be going all-in on a draw, I think it's ok to represent some strength on open ended or double belly buster straights, and four flushes that would give you the nuts on the flop. If someone comes back over the top of you, you have to respect that and determine what kind of odds you have now in terms of calling the current bet and maybe the next bet if you don't catch on the turn. Representing strength here is generally better for late position (raising over someone's min/small bet) since if you miss the turn, many times it will get checked around to you and you have the opportunity for the free card by checking to see the river. In early position this is a tougher thing, I would generally check-call any bet that kept the pot favorable.

I guess the last thing I would mention is that there is such a thing as too conservative. You need to have opportunities to make money on your winning hands and if you're only playing the nuts you'll find that you're not able to maximize your winnings since after awhile the other players will figure this out and get out of your way when you're in a pot. Something else Texas Dolly said is that you have to give action to get action. Look for opportunities (which abound on passive tables) to get in a hand cheap and if possible go all the way to the showdown with not the best hand as cheap as possible. After you've played for awhile, you'll notice once in awhile where the flop misses everyone along with the turn and the river. When you're in a situation like that the pot is generally made up of the pre-flop betting and nothing else. Make a play at the pot on the river with a small or min bet and hope to get called. Showing down a bad hand cheaply can pay multiples on your good hands later.