Back to Limit

Despite my earlier praise of no-limit, I'm back at low-stakes limit. Although I'm convinced the skill level, and therefore level of reward, is higher in no-limit, limit is just less volatile. Limit is about the little things, and it's good to pay attention to those.

The strategy I've settled upon is to have low standard for limping, but very high standards for raising or calling raises. I haven't yet gotten to the point of folding AQo to a pre-flop raise, although many players will tell you that is a correct play (the logic may apply more to no-limit because of potentially high losses to hands like AK).

From no-limit, I imported a (ostensibly good) habit of never completing in the blind with junk. However, in limit I've found that since your potential losses per hand are finite, it's often a good idea to complete with almost anything if:

a) you're getting 7:1 or better (big blind + your small blind + 2 limpers = 3.5 big bets, and you only need to call half a bet)

b) you don't fear a raise from behind. Although raising from the blinds should be rare, low stakes games are full of maniacs who will re-raise from anywhere with any two face cards from anywhere. In this situation you're paying 1.5 bets and the odds go down from 7:1 to around 4:1. Trash hands like J6 are really only worth it at super bargain prices, where the implied odds of flopping a random two pair or three-of-a-kind make it worthwhile.

I also played a little heads up with only marginal success. The need to constantly push it with marginal hands and call with 2nd pair just doesn't appeal to me. Neither does folding the blinds. Although it's fun to be involved in ever hand, there isn't much room to maneuver. It's very difficult to either read hands or bluff effectively. While a true expert might disagree with me, I sometimes feel there's little strategy to heads up besides "hope you flop something, then bet it."

Additionally, there just isn't much money on the table, sometimes 5 dollars or less total. Each player is one lucky flop away from cleaning out the other.