Results 1 to 9 of 9

Thread: Pot Limit Hold'em Tips

  1. #1
    Platinum Jayjami's Avatar
    Reputation
    879
    Join Date
    Feb 2014
    Location
    South Lake Tahoe
    Posts
    3,164
    Load Metric
    65714005

    Pot Limit Hold'em Tips

    Druff asked me to post some tips on pot limit hold'em. Caveat: I am not a pro. I consider myself a solid amateur who has shown a modest profit from 20 years at the tables. Anyone who wants to critique my advice is welcome to do so. Hopefully, I can learn something too.

    First: Buy and read TJ Cloutier's and Tom McAvoy's "Championship Hold'em". It covers limit and pot limit tourneys and cash games. The strategies are ancient (especially the limit sections), but it is the only decent book out there and will help you understand "what you should be thinking about" at the table. Trust me, you played like they advise, you will already be playing better than 50% of the field.

    Rule 1: Always make pot sized bets or raises (or if you are the opener make it 3.5x the big blind). Why?

    First, it will make your decisions a lot easier (fold, call or raise the max).

    Second, your opponents will never be able to put you on a hand due to your betting patterns.

    Third, and most importantly, in a pot limit tournament you want to play big pots (preferably in position). You are not going to get many big hands. You have to make the most of them. Unlike no limit, where you can set someone all in and win their entire stack, no one is likely to build your pot. You have to do it yourself. This is the "art" of pot limit. This is why raising trying to steal blinds with the conventional no limit raise of 2.3 BBs is a mistake. Let's say you have A-10 in mid-late position and open with less than a maximum raise. Now I pot it behind you. You are in a really tough spot. If you call (or reraise and I call), you are now in a big pot, out of position against a solid player and you have no idea where I am at (remember, I always bet the max). Good luck, you are going to need it. If you had raised the max, there are many, many more hands I would have folded.

    Let's say you bet 2.3 BBs with that A-10, I call and the blinds now call. You flop an ace with 2 suited cards. You are probably in the lead and should bet the pot. Now you get called by one player. That player could have anything. Here is the key difference between NL and pot limit: You can never shut out a 2-1 draw on the flop in pot limit. If you don't understand why, stop reading and go buy Sklansky's "Theory of Poker". You need help. I am not saying you should call on the flop with every draw you get. In fact, that is a recepie for disaster in a tournament. However, in a cash game you can play a lot of them. Hands like 9-8 suited go up in value. Especially in position. It is just too easy for people (especially the blinds) to slip in to the pot and see a flop cheaply if you don't max bet it.

    In a tournament you generally do not want to be drawing, you want to be in the lead, betting, and building your pot. Since a lot of players are going to call with their draws, you need to charge them for it. How? By max betting before the flop. Since the pot size has increased because of your pre-flop raise, your opponent must risk more of his chips. In a cash game your pot sized bet on the flop will get called, but in a tournament your opponents will start considering the size of their stacks as the blinds increase. If they are insta-calling every draw be happy, they are dead money.

    I bring up A-10, because I had a memorable hand with it last year. It was near the end day 1 and I got moved to a new table. Two seats to the right of Phil Ivey. I opened the max and Ivey flatted me on the button. The flop was an ace with 2 spades. I bet the pot and he called. A spade came on the turn. I checked, knowing he would bet with anything, which he did. I folded. He was probably bluffing, but I didn't care. I did not want to risk my healthy stack against a good player out of position with just a pair. In a cash game I might have played it differently. I was also hoping that he would think I was intimated by him. If I got big hand, I was going to check twice and come over the top, but never had the opportunity.

    The last reason you want to always bet the max is simply intimidation. My attitude is: "You want to play a pot with me? Out of position? After I have come over the top of your shitty little 2.3 raise? OK then, get your chips in there." You don't ever want your opponents to think they can play cheap pots against you.

    Hope this was thought provoking. Let the flaming and trolling begin.
    Last edited by Jayjami; 02-06-2015 at 11:55 AM.

  2. #2
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
    Reputation
    10110
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    54,627
    Blog Entries
    2
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Thanks for these tips.

    I am confused about something, though.

    Once a big pot is built, isn't it just like NL, to where everyone with a reasonable hand or draw is pot committed?

    Couldn't your don't raise 2.3x advice apply to NL tournaments, too? I'm not seeing the difference here.

    To me, NL and PL only differ in that you can't go all-in or make a huge overbet until the pot has already been built.

    So are you trying to say that the basic strategy in PL tournies is to build pots with premium hands and then force speculative hands to overpay?

    Truthfully in most NL tournaments, people aren't folding flush draws or open ended straight draws, no matter what the odds.

     
    Comments
      
      Jayjami: I will follow up when I have time.

  3. #3
    Gold abrown83's Avatar
    Reputation
    430
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    1,972
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Thanks for these tips.

    I am confused about something, though.

    Once a big pot is built, isn't it just like NL, to where everyone with a reasonable hand or draw is pot committed?

    Couldn't your don't raise 2.3x advice apply to NL tournaments, too? I'm not seeing the difference here.

    To me, NL and PL only differ in that you can't go all-in or make a huge overbet until the pot has already been built.

    So are you trying to say that the basic strategy in PL tournies is to build pots with premium hands and then force speculative hands to overpay?

    Truthfully in most NL tournaments, people aren't folding flush draws or open ended straight draws, no matter what the odds.
    I think with the massive shift to small ball poker in tournaments it offsets some of the traditional differences.

    It seems to me the two biggest moves you lose some value on are 3 bet isolations because people after you know where they are cost wise on the flop and check/shoving on a flop or turn where you are setting a trap.

    It would also appear that you would want to open up your 4-Bet range a bit on premium hands just to insure maximum value since you could be somewhat limited post flop.
    Last edited by abrown83; 02-08-2015 at 07:36 AM.

  4. #4
    Platinum duped_samaritan's Avatar
    Reputation
    689
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    3,680
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Seems like pretty ridiculous advice to only ever make pot sized raises.

    Preflop for example.

    With ~20 BB effective stacks your basically just committing your stack.

    Post flop, there will be tons of situations where pot sized bet as only option eliminates bet/folding.



    There are tons of situations where making a less than pot bet is optimal.

    I could go on and on about situations where betting pot or not betting are both very wrong.

  5. #5
    Platinum duped_samaritan's Avatar
    Reputation
    689
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    3,680
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Not to mention how exploitable only ever potting is.

  6. #6
    Serial Blogger BeerAndPoker's Avatar
    Reputation
    1402
    Join Date
    Mar 2012
    Posts
    10,114
    Blog Entries
    20
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Small ball was created in tournaments for a reason and that is to eliminate the bingo aspect of the game for good players who want several options available to them such as being able to cbet effectively taking down hands when they don't have it on the flop, being able to fire another barrel without it getting too pot committing, and also getting value when they do have good hands.

    The key in big bet poker tournaments is to have several gears. You want to be able to bet the minimum you can on any bluff/semi-bluff that will get the job done which you have to formulate that plan as you are playing raising the size a bit if it's not working and lowering it if your cbets are always working to see what you can get away with. It's true your opponents will have it sometimes either way so it might take a bit of time and tweaking to get the best game plan but this is important also because in order to get value on made hands you don't want to over price it or cut yourself short as getting the maximum is of course the objective with your quality hands.

    If all you do is bet pot on any hand especially ones you raised preflop that missed and now fire pot as a cbet bluff trying to win the hand there you're just going to bleed chips away when you don't take it down then and there.

    If you don't cbet any of the hands you miss the flop then you will get exploited when you maybe could have stole them blinds preflop for less then pot or even if you raised smaller pre and potted many flops it wouldn't be as bloated as pot pre then pot on flop,etc...

    Early on in the tournament when everyone is deep and you are trying to pump money into the pot when you hit big this strategy of betting pot often might be okay for the few levels especially if the rest of the table is pot betting away since opponents will just think this is the standard betting trend but as the blind levels go up only potting is a recipe for disaster.

    With anything in poker it's all situational and pot betting will be okay in certain situations but will be terrible in many others.

    A bit off topic but PLO cash is a pain to play in a lot of live venues as well if they only let you buyin for 100bbs. I've played in several pot limit omaha games where it becomes a put 30% of your money in preflop and see what happens on the flop type of game because people just pot and re pot pre,etc... Some even straddle and then the true BB is whatever the straddle amount is. Their are other options then pot in that game yet recreational players don't know it or just enjoy being able to say POT all the time. You've got to be willing to play bingo, get stacked a few times, or even do what a lot of people don't like to see in games which is buying in short then commit yourself preflop with a super strong hand. The key is you can rebuy in pot cash games but you can't in tournaments.

     
    Comments
      
      duped_samaritan: Well put, agree 100%
    Last edited by BeerAndPoker; 02-09-2015 at 01:52 AM.

  7. #7
    Platinum duped_samaritan's Avatar
    Reputation
    689
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    3,680
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Also, only ever pot betting will make betting river for thin value ip impossible. Your only option would be to check (lose value), or pot (which will usually result in getting folds from everything worse, and calls only from better hand-turnibg your hand into a bluff at best)


    One more thing, you do not need to bet more than a pot size bet on flop to "price your opponents out" of any draws.

  8. #8
    Master of Props Daly's Avatar
    Reputation
    2671
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    10,306
    Load Metric
    65714005
    In my experience with PLO you pot in early position, you check in posistion.

  9. #9
    Platinum duped_samaritan's Avatar
    Reputation
    689
    Join Date
    May 2012
    Location
    New York City
    Posts
    3,680
    Load Metric
    65714005
    Quote Originally Posted by Daly View Post
    In my experience with PLO you pot in early position, you check in posistion.
    Huh?

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Similar Threads

  1. Ask me questions about limit hold 'em
    By Dan Druff in forum Casinos & Las Vegas
    Replies: 28
    Last Post: 07-05-2018, 05:58 PM
  2. How to handle a maniac in limit hold 'em
    By Dan Druff in forum Casinos & Las Vegas
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 07-22-2015, 08:46 PM
  3. Replies: 2
    Last Post: 09-07-2013, 09:32 AM
  4. General Strategy Tips- WSOP Circuit Turbo NL Hold Em
    By Chuck Person in forum Poker Community Discussion
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 10-03-2012, 08:42 AM
  5. Event #3 May 29 $3000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em / Pot-Limit Omaha
    By Dan Druff in forum 2012 World Series of Poker
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 06-01-2012, 09:21 PM