best strategy against bullies at ring games

[|~|ypermegachi]

so far i've been playing pretty solid poker and have been making money consistently....except for when there are 2 or 3 big stacks in the ring.

i just recently moved up the limits, but i'm sure the lower limits i used to play apply to higher limits as well. since i'm more familiar with the lower limits i'll use those to explain my problem.

the max bring in is 5 bucks, blinds are 5/10 cents. now, most people would expect the average stack is 5 bucks. well on the prima network is is very common for 2 or more people to have $20+.

how should i play against these bullies. raises don't work as well against them. and when they raise at us usually everyone folds because the raises don't give good pot odds at all. (after all, a 10% raise from them is pretty much putting one of the average stacks all in).

any takers? thanks in advance.

[Les_Worm]

Pick a table without those big stacks. Thats whats so great about online, you have a great table selection. Pick your tables wisely.

[SteveO]

If you want to play with big stack/bully get position on him. Sit to his right so he acts after you and let him raise the pots for you and then you can reraise and isolate him with your big hands. If he acts before you don't let the bully push you around, play tight and play agressive to isolate him.

I like to look at a big stack as an opportunity to double up. They can afford to call your big bets and raises when you have a good hand. The trade off is you can't bluff too much or too hard. Even better is the big stack that is a poor player and nothing more than a bully. They will call your big bets and raises with marginal hands. So you can loosen up a bit against them TPTK can bust a poor player like that.

Be very wary of the big stack that shows down solid hands. They may not be a bully after all just solid aggressive and catching cards.

[|~|ypermegachi]

the prima network only has 3 NL tables with 5 bucks max bring in, which is what i normally play. so i don't really have much choice. usually every table has at least one person over 20 bucks.

omaha's even worse. there's only 2 NL tables with 10/20 blinds, 10 buck max buy in. usually only 1 table is full and the other is empty. wow the difference between good players and bad players is astonishing. the good players have stacks of like 80 bucks!!! and the crappier players keep reloading that 10 bucks (like me ).

in fact, there was this one time where this guy had 20 bucks, everyone else had 10 bucks. he went all in preflop every time in good position, so he would steal like 2 bucks in callers every time. pissed me off. i left cuz there was no way i could make money there (instead i went to the other table and got pw0ned by the omaha experts).

[brian1175]

Try limit.....

[|~|ypermegachi]

your goal is 1 BB an hour with fixed. i'm not spending an hour to win 40 cents.

plus when it's so low everyone chases with everything, you can't win anything.

[vulturesrow]

Hyper,

I started out on those tables at Prima and am currently playing the .25/.5 tables. Some good advice has already been given. Basically if someone is bullying, one thing is you are going to have pick a hand and go with it. Due to the nature of those games, you start off short money (50xBB). Once you double up, you can start being more selective. But Ive found that often with these "bullies" you have to get in there with marginal hands. Youd be amazed what they show down with. Like someone else said, it could be a good player catching cards, but it doesnt take long to figure out who the good players are. I am vulturesrow on prima as well.

[Fnord]

your goal is 1 BB an hour with fixed. i'm not spending an hour to win 40 cents.

plus when it's so low everyone chases with everything, you can't win anything.

1) You're over-estimating your long-term win rate at big bet games. Limit has it's short-commings vs a comperable big bet game. Long-term win-rate is not one of them. The front page is dead wrong on this one.

2) Chase better than them and check/raise when you're ahead. The comment about the beatability of limit games is just plain ignorant.

[stevedonel]

your goal is 1 BB an hour with fixed. i'm not spending an hour to win 40 cents.

plus when it's so low everyone chases with everything, you can't win anything.

1) You're over-estimating your long-term win rate at big bet games. Limit has it's short-commings vs a comperable big bet game. Long-term win-rate is not one of them. The front page is dead wrong on this one.

2) Chase better than them and check/raise when you're ahead. The comment about the beatability of limit games is just plain ignorant.

I definately found this to be true. When I first started playing limit, I'd get outdrawn all the time, or I was dominated from the start but didnt know it because the raiser could only raise the same amount every time. Play hands other than premium, when in position; post-flop, follow pot odds and reads on their playing styles

Read some books (sklansky, ect) hunt though the better players hand histrories on here. Combine those with playing ~100 hand a night and you will start to notice patterns and develop a better feel for the game. Dont play to much when (not if) on the downswing while your still learning it, this will only put you on tilt, and make it harder to learn. Dont play to long, while learning; I found this to cause probelms for me at limit tables.

[|~|ypermegachi]

yeah i probably am ignorant...but at the tables i play at...5/10cent blinds, i think most of you would agree that even the best fixed limit player in the world would have the hardest time doubling up in an hour (which is a feat very easily attained by expert holdem players in NL)

[lonnie]

I disagree whole heartedly - it is very easy to double up on a nickel limit game.

Remember - a big pair is NOTHING when there are 4-5 people still in the hand at showdown.

The good thing about these tables is when you do make a big hand, which you probably will once an hour, these people WILL PAY YOU OFF.

Be careful with the mediocre hands, and maximize your profit on big hands. Remember that suited connectors play better against many opponents than the big cards do because of the pot odds.

ALSO - preflop raising is highly ineffective in these games, unless you do it from an early position. Once a nickel player has a nickel in the pot, he/she will almost always call a PFR. Preflop raise because of the power of your hand, not to thin out the field. Nickel players love to see the flop and it is hard to convince them otherwise.

Don't assume because you have trouble with these games that there is something wrong with the game. You should be able to adjust your play to beat 5 cent games. If not, then you definitely have some studying to do.

My guess is that it would be pretty easy to sustain a win rate of 5-10 big bets/hour on a nickel game. I don't have stats to back it up, but that has been my experience.

[|~|ypermegachi]

young grasshopper has much to learn

[|~|ypermegachi]

young grasshopper has proved himself wrong!

i had 2.21 left this morning, went to a 2/5 cent table, and doubled to 4.71 in 20 minutes.

i'm not sure if i played it well, but here's what happened.

get delt AKo, raise preflop early position. get reraised, so i reraise back at them. everyone calls. raise on the flop cuz i hit my A, get reraised again, so again i reraise. the only thing that scared me was 2 flush cards on the board, so flush chasers would screwed me over. the turn didn't help, but now there's 2 different flush draws. i kept raising and reraising. river comes and is of no help. the only thing that could beat me is if someone had pockets and hit their set, or a 2 pair. i had TPTK, so i reraised again. called, and took down a nice $2 pot.

[wuarhg]

I have played my bankroll from $1.5 to $200 starting from 0.05/0.10 limit at Prima. Believe me, I've lost my small bankroll that I won from freerolls many times before it all clicked. Just try to make the +EV play, don't focus on how much you win or how much you lose, focus on the decisions. If you keep making right decisions you KNOW you will be ahead and they will give you their money.

I am almost immune to the bad beats at the limits I play now ($0.5/1). There's really nothing you can do other than make the right calls/raises/check-raises 8-) Anyway, something that helped me was keeping notes on ALL players, who is a LAG? who raises with the nuts, who is a calling station. You have to know when to value bet and when to reraise or even fold (not always easy but you have to try).

The loose passive people are easy, when they raise you know you are drawing, the LAGs, well... just try to isolate the worst ones and take it down. It's really not that hard, just keep grinding and you will succeed.

Cheers