January 5, 2025 • 20 mins
Today’s episode is 7 axioms of low stakes poker that all winning low stakes crushers know.
Fans of the Pod get ad free, fluff free episode every single Sunday: https://lowlimitcashgames.com
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1- The bigger the effective stack the better hand you need to stack off
2- When playing low stakes and facing a large river bet, if you are down to trying to count blockers to justify a call, you should fold
3- If you think about poker in terms of how many hands you win rather than how much money you profit, then you are thinking about poker incorrectly.
4- Expect to be only marginally profitable long term from early positions. Even with good holdings. And knowing this, let that guide you as to what you should even be playing early.
5- Expect to be wildly profitable when playing in position. Even with marginal holdings. And knowing this, let that guide you as to what you should be playing late, particularly on the button.
6- Just because we play solid ranges which largely is made up of good preflop hands, we are not trying to make hands to win. Sure, at low stakes it a ton about best hand poker. But that’s what your opponents are also doing. We need to be doing more. Taking pots without hands when possible. Getting max value when we do make hands. Losing the minimum when boards become unfavorable. Folding when clearly beat. Etc
7- Suited connectors are pretty. They are not profitable from early position. And break even or slightly profitable from late position. Overall from all positions most likely break even or losing when played correctly by really good players. Not a really good player? Then you are losing with them.
More links and info
Targeted Low Stakes poker training with hundreds of hours of audio and video teaching exclusively how to crush 1/2 and 1/3 no limit: https://lowlimitcashgames.com
Save 10% when you choose the annual option.
Hate AK? How to Play AK Master Class
For only $49 get this 88 minute training video of me showing you exactly how to play AK, particularly when out of position.
https://www.patreon.com/lowlim...
The best way to ramp your game up and know how to play any hand in any spot by drilling it over and over again. This is the only product I endorses. Make sure to use my code for a 25% discount at checkout: https://advancedpokertraining....
Use code: lowlimit
Want more details on everything that is offered with the training package on Patreon? I go into great detail about it all here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/...
Fans of the Pod get ad free, fluff free episode every single Sunday: https://lowlimitcashgames.com
Save 10% when you choose the annual option
1- The bigger the effective stack the better hand you need to stack off
2- When playing low stakes and facing a large river bet, if you are down to trying to count blockers to justify a call, you should fold
3- If you think about poker in terms of how many hands you win rather than how much money you profit, then you are thinking about poker incorrectly.
4- Expect to be only marginally profitable long term from early positions. Even with good holdings. And knowing this, let that guide you as to what you should even be playing early.
5- Expect to be wildly profitable when playing in position. Even with marginal holdings. And knowing this, let that guide you as to what you should be playing late, particularly on the button.
6- Just because we play solid ranges which largely is made up of good preflop hands, we are not trying to make hands to win. Sure, at low stakes it a ton about best hand poker. But that’s what your opponents are also doing. We need to be doing more. Taking pots without hands when possible. Getting max value when we do make hands. Losing the minimum when boards become unfavorable. Folding when clearly beat. Etc
7- Suited connectors are pretty. They are not profitable from early position. And break even or slightly profitable from late position. Overall from all positions most likely break even or losing when played correctly by really good players. Not a really good player? Then you are losing with them.
More links and info
Targeted Low Stakes poker training with hundreds of hours of audio and video teaching exclusively how to crush 1/2 and 1/3 no limit: https://lowlimitcashgames.com
Save 10% when you choose the annual option.
Hate AK? How to Play AK Master Class
For only $49 get this 88 minute training video of me showing you exactly how to play AK, particularly when out of position.
https://www.patreon.com/lowlim...
The best way to ramp your game up and know how to play any hand in any spot by drilling it over and over again. This is the only product I endorses. Make sure to use my code for a 25% discount at checkout: https://advancedpokertraining....
Use code: lowlimit
Want more details on everything that is offered with the training package on Patreon? I go into great detail about it all here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/...
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hello, welcome in to another episode of the Little mccash
Games podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. We
are kicking off a brand new year, twenty twenty five,
so I've already done my annual recap. That was the
annual New Year's episode, and I guess that was officially
the New Year podcast episode. But this is going to
(00:23):
be the first strategy talking about things episode, and so
just let me reiterate, Happy New Year to you. I'm
so glad that you are a subscriber, so glad that
you're here. And we'll talk about ways you can get
more content at the end of the pod. But right
now we're going to jump into seven seven things that
(00:46):
winning players know that you may not. Seven things that
winning players know that you may not. So let me
say up front, I'm not going to get into the
minutia of x's and o's, but these are super important.
They will make things crystal clear for you and if
(01:08):
you will, I mean you, you literally should probably take
a note on this, like you should have this handy
you should refer to as often anytime you're feeling frustrated
by your poker results, anytime you're feeling like maybe you
oh god, do I even know what I'm doing? Like
if if By the way, if you never have thoughts
of that, you haven't played poker for it for very long.
The best poker players in the world go through phases
(01:29):
where they're like, Wow, do I even really know what
I'm doing? Keep this handy? I don't know. Bookmark this episode.
You can come back to it. Like all this stuff is.
It's simple, it's kind of mandatory to know, and it
should become a part of your poker DNA. In other words,
this should reside within you as something I just instinctively know.
(01:51):
As poker players, these seven things, if you want to
be a consistent, long term winning player, they're axioms, if
you will, they're tidbits of knowledge, their fundamental truths of
low stakes poker. And so let's jump right into them.
Shollowing Number one. The bigger the effective stack, the better
(02:14):
the hands you need to have to stack off with it.
And I get asked this question a lot. People will
send me hands and they'll say, hey, wait, you think
about this hand, and it'll be ace king and you know,
somebody will raise, they'll three bet with it, the other
person will shove, and let's say it's a one to
two game, right, So it's a one to two game,
(02:36):
and they started the hand with one hundred and eighty dollars,
so it's one hundred and eighty dollars effective, which isn't
even a hundred big blinds, right, it's a little less
than one hundred big blinds. And they'll go, I didn't
know if I should have put it all in with
my ace king. Here, should I fold it? Or what? Well? One,
you have less than one hundred big blinds, and then two,
(02:57):
I would say, who is your opponent? Now, if your
opponent is one of these omc's knits, these several different
types of players that are only going all in with
aces and maybe kings, then no, you shouldn't put it
all in. But if you have an opponent that'll put
it in with ace king, that'll put it in with
ace queen suited, that'll put it in with pocket queens,
(03:19):
that'll put it in with pocket jacks. Yeah, less than
one hundred big blinds, probably not that big a mistake
to get it all in with ace king. Now again,
you got to use some judgment. You got to use
what you know about the opponent. You know information that
you picked up during the game. Now, same situation. Right,
(03:40):
you're playing a one to two game and you're five
hundred effective deep. You got a five hundred dollars stack,
and an opponent raises. Let's just say, an opponent raises,
and now another opponent calls, and now you three bets.
So your three BET's even larger because right you're having
a three bet to a size that accounts for a
you know, a caller in the middle. Then it gets
(04:04):
back to the villain, who now puts in another raise.
Because you're so deep, it's not a shove, right, because
you're both your five hundred effective. They put in another raise,
and then that other person in the middle folds, and
then it gets back to you. And the question is
should I shove now with the ace King? Well, I
mean no, one year at low Steaks, most people putting
(04:24):
in an extra bed at low Steaks, you know have
queens at worst. And do you really want to put
two hundred and fifty big mines in pre fought with
Ace King and stack off with it. The answer is no, first,
no one, no. Now Again, if you're in the game
with some kind of maniac that just loves shoving money,
(04:46):
in with seven six suited and pocket fours and Ace
five offsuit and you've seen them do that, then of
course you're gonna gamble with them with Ace King. But
barring that specific situation, the stack is just too big
to be stacking off with Ace King. And so the
bigger the effective stack. And if you don't know what
the effective stack is, it is the shortest stack between
(05:07):
the players involved. So if you have five hundred and
your opponent has a thousand, you only have five hundred, Like,
you can't lose a thousand to him, you don't have
a thousand. He can't win a thousand from you, you
don't have a thousand. So the effective stack is the
shortest stack in the hand. So you know, five hundred
dollars effective in a one to two game probably shouldn't
be stacking off very hardly. Ever, with Ace King with
(05:30):
one hundred and eighty dollars, Yeah, I don't think that
can be that big of an error under again, normal circumstances.
I'm using preflop as an example because preflop is easiest
to understand because it's just bam bam bam, and there
it is. But this applies to flop This applies to
being on the flop. This applies to being on the turn.
It especially applies to being on the river. You know,
(05:51):
somebody's putting you in for a reasonable amount of money
on the river, and you just got top pair bear
of kings will a jack kicker, You probably shouldn't be
putting one hundred big blinds in on the river with
that hand. On the other hand, if you have top set,
you know, yeah, probably put in another hundred big blinds
(06:13):
on the river. Okay. So the bigger the effect of stack,
the better the hand you need to stack off with.
And I see people stacking off all the time with
one pair in spots where they should never be stacking
off with one pair, all right. Number two, When playing
low stakes and facing a large river bet, if you're
down to trying to count blockers to justify a call,
(06:35):
you should just fold. Now, if you're playing two hundred
four hundred no limit against the best players in the
world and you wind up on the river and one
of the best players in the world shoves on you,
and you're like, well, I mean, he's either really nutted
or he doesn't have anything, And it's a bluff Because
(06:58):
stuff like that can happen at high steaks. And now
you start figuring out, well, how many combos of nuts
does he have? And you're counting combos, and you can
only come up with two combos of nuts and everything
else you're ahead of. Or you've got the blocker to
the nuts, right, so you have pocket tens, which is
two ten blockers to a straight. Let's say the jack
(07:21):
nine would make the straight, or I'm sorry, let's say
jack tin would make the straight. But you've got two
of the tens, and so now that makes combos of
eight's going from assuming suited would be only you know,
you know again you're against a good player, so you
know they probably just only have suited jack Tin here
to make the straight. And you know you have two tens. Well,
(07:43):
you block two of the suited jack tin. So now
instead of having four combos of the nuts, they only
have two combos of the nuts because you have two blockers.
And now you figure out all the combos of bluffs
Steak could have, and there's three three amounts of bluffs
to one amounts of blockers, and then you got the
pot size laying you the odds so that you should
be calling. Then yeah, but at low steaks. Hold them
(08:06):
at one two no limit and one three to no
limit with the yahoos that mostly play this game. And
you're on the river and somebody shoves for a lot
of money, and you're sitting here going, well, I got
the blocker to the If you're sitting down and at
the call and it's that close to where you're trying
to figure out some blockers and stuff, just fold. You're
just beat. Like your hand ads not nearly good enough
(08:28):
to call. If you're down to trying to justify a
call by coming up with blockers, your hand is not
good enough to call on the river. Just fold. That's
just low stakes. Hold them number three. If you're thinking
about poker in terms of how many hands you win
rather than how much money you're profiting, then you're thinking
(08:49):
about poker incorrectly. If you're thinking about poker in terms
of how many hands you win rather than how much
money you're profiting, then you're thinking about poker incorrectly. And
I see this all the time. People are trying to
win the hand, trying to force themselves to win a
(09:09):
hand they just can't win because you got to win
the hand. That's not the secret to poker. The secret
to poker is maximizing the amount of money you make
with the hands that you can maximize it with. So
which would you rather? Which would you rather do? Would
you rather win eighty percent of the hands you play
(09:31):
eighty percent of the hands and have a net profit
of one hundred dollars? Or would you rather win forty
eight percent of the hands you play and have a
net profit of two hundred dollars? Which would you rather? Now,
winning eighty percent of hands is pretty sweet because you're
not losing very often. Man, that's the pretty stress free
poker life right there. And you're winning one hundred dollars.
(09:54):
That's fine, it's all good. It's all gravy, right, or
forty eight percent of hands, which means you're losing more
than half the time. You're losing fifty two percent of
the time. But in the forty eight percent of the
hands that you won, you had a net profit of
two hundred dollars. In other words, you made twice as
much money winning half about half as many hands. Which
(10:14):
one of those you think is better? Now, I'm not
getting into the x's and those of this this can
be if you don't understand this or you don't know
why I'd be talking about it. You can do a
deep dive on it yourself. But you are thinking about
poker wrong. If you're thinking about trying to win every
hand or winning at a high percentage of hands, and
(10:35):
that's your goal. On to the next one. Expect to
be only marginally profitable long term from early positions, even
with good holdings. And knowing this, let that guide you
as to what you should even be playing from early position.
(11:00):
I'm talking about under the gun. Under the gun one,
I guess primarily, and then in extreme examples, I see
where you have these games with the button straddle and
the small blind has to go first. I mean, you
don't get any earlier position than small blind. And I
see people in these games with button straddles playing some
of the most garbageest hands you've ever seen. And I know,
garbia just isn't a word, some of those garbage hands
(11:22):
you've ever seen from the small blind. Like, you're in
literally the worst position you could ever be an impoker.
The odds of you winning this hand, even with pocket
aces is pretty slim. What I got aces and it's
gonna be slim. Yes, you gotta fight dollar straddle you're
gonna raise with aces, you're getting called by four or
five callers. Now try to navigate that minefield and if
(11:44):
you do win again, it's not about winning, it's about
how much money you make when you had aces in position,
when you have perfect information, you can maximize how much
money gets into the pot because you have information, you
know what's going on with people, have got how much
you combat what it can call when you're out of
position with a gaggle of people to act after you like,
you're so limited in how much you can bet when
you can bet, do you have to check a street
(12:04):
back like You're just not going to maximize and so
expect only to be marginally profitable long term from early positions,
and even when you have good holdings and knowing this information,
let that guide you as to what you should even
be playing from early position. Now, the flip side of
(12:26):
that is the next axiom that I will share with you.
Expect to be wildly profitable when playing in position, even
with marginal holdings and knowing this, let that guide you
as to what you should be playing late, particularly on
the button. It would be hard to do well. If
you're an online player, you can run a database andcy
(12:48):
but being a live player, we just don't have that
kind of data. It's hard to know, but I would
expect that probably jacked in suited from the button by
a competent player is either as profitable or more profitable
than that same player when he has aces under the gun.
(13:11):
That's I can't prove it. I don't you know. I
don't have absolute proof of this, but I suspect it's
probably true. And maybe some of these online players that
can run a database and pull up all their aces
under the gun and compare it with all their jacktann
suitage on the button could confirm that for me. I
don't know, but if it's not one hundred percent true,
it's pretty close to true, and it's it's enough that
(13:33):
it demonstrates a huge point, and that is that you
should be playing and playing aggressively and trying to build
pots and stuff when you're in position with playable hands.
Next axiom, just because we play solid ranges pre flop,
(13:54):
which is largely made up of good hands, we are
not trying to make hands to win. That's not why
we start with, fundamentally appropriately a tight ranges of hands
pre flop that's not why. It's not because we're trying
to make the best hand to win. That's not why
we're doing it. Sure, at low stakes, it's a ton
(14:17):
about best hand poker. And I even made an episode
of the podcast called best Hand Poker. I believe it's
a public episode. It may be over on the Patreon
feed up. I'm not sure off the top of my head,
but you can search for it. Best Hand Poker one two,
one three doero limit is a lot about just showing
up with the best hand and getting people to pay
you for it. Sure, but but that's what your opponents
(14:40):
are also doing, trying to make hands. That's what one
two one three they're playing. They're getting it in there
with a hand and they're hoping to make a hand
and they're hoping to win. That's their complete strategy. So
if your strategy is identical to their strategy, you're not
gonna come out any better than them. It's gonna take
more than that. We need to be doing a lots more.
We need to be taking pots when we don't have
a hand when possible. Not saying that's a ton of
(15:01):
the game at low stakes, it still is a part
of the game. Though, we need to be getting max
value when we do make hands. We need to be
able to get our opponents to put more money in
against us when we have the best hand than they're
able to do when they do it. We need to
be losing the minimum with boards become unfavorable. We need
to understand when we can only go for two streets
(15:22):
of value instead of three. We need to understand when
we can only go for one street of value instead
of two or three. We need to understand these things
which causes us to lose the minimum and unfavorable potentially
in favorable situations or unlikely winning combination of situations. And
then we need to learn to fold when we clearly beat.
Folding when we clearly beat is another way we gain
an edge. It's not because we're trying to play good
(15:43):
ranges to just have the best hand. That's the foundations
that's laid. But we got to be doing a lot
more than that if we want to be making the
maximum amount that we can play, or that we can
make when we're playing low stakes poker. And I save
the best for because Lord knows people love some suited connectors.
(16:03):
And so this is my last axiom for you today.
This is the last secret that winning players know that
you should know. Suded connectors are so pretty, but they're
not profitable from early position, and they're only break even
or slightly profitable from late positions. Overall, from all positions
(16:26):
most likely break even or losing. And that's when played
correctly by really good players. If you're not a really
good player, I imagine how poorly you're doing with suited connectors.
So I love suited connectors much as the next guy.
I've evolved in how I've played them through the years.
(16:47):
I tend to now stick more with them in later
positions than early. I've come up with favorite suits so
that I have a means of randomizing some just not
getting it in there all the live long day. Every
time a suited connector comes up, I've learned to try
to find spots where I can likely win with them,
pre flop with aggression in terms of three bets, et cetera.
I've formulated several strategies I think most really good players
(17:10):
have formulated to try to make suited connectors profitable, because
they for sure can be a great part of an
overall strategy right and one of the things they do
and you can get into theory and stuff. But one
of the things planned pseuded connectors does theoretically is it
makes you get more when you have aces. And that's
where the value from pseuded connectors comes from, because when
you're putting money in a pot, and if a guy
thinks you can have pseudo connectors, he will be willing
(17:32):
to put more in the pot with you when you
can't only have aces. And this is why omcs and
stuff don't make the maximum because they're never in there
with the pseudo connector getting crazy, right, it's always the
aces with them are nearly always and so this is
how suited connectors have value. But I would say this
against the low estates, they don't have that much value.
(17:52):
Against better players, pseudo connectors do make the amount of
money you collect when you have aces go higher against
really good opponents because they're thinking about the hand, and
they're thinking about your range of hands, and they're gonna
include connectors and your range of hands. When you're playing
against the worst opponents one two, one three, no limit plug,
all they're every thinking about is here's the cards I got,
and there's what the board is. That's the extent of
(18:14):
their thinking, they're not thinking about nothing else. Here's the
hands I got, and there's what the board is. I'm
gonna put this much money in with this hand on
this board. They're not thinking about your range. So you're
not really gaining that much from playing suit to connectors
in terms of deception and adding value to your premium
hands by showing them down sometimes, and so you should
(18:35):
play them in a very structured, well formulated strategy. All
of that, of course too much to go into here.
I hope that these seven strategies, these seven secrets that
long term winning players know that you should know and
apply to your game, have been helpful to you. I
encourage you to not take this episode lightly, that everything
(18:58):
that I've said in this that you take it very
deep into your poker soul and value it and try
to move forward accordingly in your poker game as it
applies to your strategy, as it terms to how you
play and formulate strategies and tactics based around these universal
truths of winning poker. And finally, if you want to
get into the X and o's, you want to get
(19:18):
in depth, you want to find a site with videos
and just I think we're up to thousands of hours
of podcasts. Now, I don't want to speak incorrectly, but
I know for sure hundreds of hours of video. We've
got the discord where we've got a thriving community of
profitable and aspiring, profitable players, where there's a free flow
exchange of ideas and encouragement and of course access to me.
(19:41):
All that's over on the Patreon and it is by
far the cheapest quote unquote training for poker you'll find anywhere.
That's number one at twenty five bucks and number two.
It's the only one out there that's targeted exclusively to
people playing one too. Now you'll find some other sites
to have content where they talk about one to two.
Sometimes they talk about twenty five fifty, one, two hundred
(20:03):
a lot too, and I ain't ever talking about that.
I want you to crush one, two, one three. That's
my one goal in life. After that, you can, you know,
go to the appropriate place to teach you how to
crush twenty five to fifty. I'm probably not that guy.
You want to crush one, two, one three, though, and
you want the most affordable way to train possible. I
would love for you to come join us over on
(20:24):
the Patreon. It's cap as to how many members we allow,
so we keep the community rather small love for you
to be a part of it. Low Limit Cashgames dot
Com is the address Low Limit Cash Games dot com.
And every single thing I've ever talked about that you
might want to know need link to read up on
and stuff is all linked down in the information section
of this pod, so you can go down and find
links and click on them, and we will see you
(20:47):
in the next episode.
Hello, welcome in to another episode of the Little mccash
Games podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. We
are kicking off a brand new year, twenty twenty five,
so I've already done my annual recap. That was the
annual New Year's episode, and I guess that was officially
the New Year podcast episode. But this is going to
(00:23):
be the first strategy talking about things episode, and so
just let me reiterate, Happy New Year to you. I'm
so glad that you are a subscriber, so glad that
you're here. And we'll talk about ways you can get
more content at the end of the pod. But right
now we're going to jump into seven seven things that
(00:46):
winning players know that you may not. Seven things that
winning players know that you may not. So let me
say up front, I'm not going to get into the
minutia of x's and o's, but these are super important.
They will make things crystal clear for you and if
(01:08):
you will, I mean you, you literally should probably take
a note on this, like you should have this handy
you should refer to as often anytime you're feeling frustrated
by your poker results, anytime you're feeling like maybe you
oh god, do I even know what I'm doing? Like
if if By the way, if you never have thoughts
of that, you haven't played poker for it for very long.
The best poker players in the world go through phases
(01:29):
where they're like, Wow, do I even really know what
I'm doing? Keep this handy? I don't know. Bookmark this episode.
You can come back to it. Like all this stuff is.
It's simple, it's kind of mandatory to know, and it
should become a part of your poker DNA. In other words,
this should reside within you as something I just instinctively know.
(01:51):
As poker players, these seven things, if you want to
be a consistent, long term winning player, they're axioms, if
you will, they're tidbits of knowledge, their fundamental truths of
low stakes poker. And so let's jump right into them.
Shollowing Number one. The bigger the effective stack, the better
(02:14):
the hands you need to have to stack off with it.
And I get asked this question a lot. People will
send me hands and they'll say, hey, wait, you think
about this hand, and it'll be ace king and you know,
somebody will raise, they'll three bet with it, the other
person will shove, and let's say it's a one to
two game, right, So it's a one to two game,
(02:36):
and they started the hand with one hundred and eighty dollars,
so it's one hundred and eighty dollars effective, which isn't
even a hundred big blinds, right, it's a little less
than one hundred big blinds. And they'll go, I didn't
know if I should have put it all in with
my ace king. Here, should I fold it? Or what? Well? One,
you have less than one hundred big blinds, and then two,
(02:57):
I would say, who is your opponent? Now, if your
opponent is one of these omc's knits, these several different
types of players that are only going all in with
aces and maybe kings, then no, you shouldn't put it
all in. But if you have an opponent that'll put
it in with ace king, that'll put it in with
ace queen suited, that'll put it in with pocket queens,
(03:19):
that'll put it in with pocket jacks. Yeah, less than
one hundred big blinds, probably not that big a mistake
to get it all in with ace king. Now again,
you got to use some judgment. You got to use
what you know about the opponent. You know information that
you picked up during the game. Now, same situation. Right,
(03:40):
you're playing a one to two game and you're five
hundred effective deep. You got a five hundred dollars stack,
and an opponent raises. Let's just say, an opponent raises,
and now another opponent calls, and now you three bets.
So your three BET's even larger because right you're having
a three bet to a size that accounts for a
you know, a caller in the middle. Then it gets
(04:04):
back to the villain, who now puts in another raise.
Because you're so deep, it's not a shove, right, because
you're both your five hundred effective. They put in another raise,
and then that other person in the middle folds, and
then it gets back to you. And the question is
should I shove now with the ace King? Well, I
mean no, one year at low Steaks, most people putting
(04:24):
in an extra bed at low Steaks, you know have
queens at worst. And do you really want to put
two hundred and fifty big mines in pre fought with
Ace King and stack off with it. The answer is no, first,
no one, no. Now Again, if you're in the game
with some kind of maniac that just loves shoving money,
(04:46):
in with seven six suited and pocket fours and Ace
five offsuit and you've seen them do that, then of
course you're gonna gamble with them with Ace King. But
barring that specific situation, the stack is just too big
to be stacking off with Ace King. And so the
bigger the effective stack. And if you don't know what
the effective stack is, it is the shortest stack between
(05:07):
the players involved. So if you have five hundred and
your opponent has a thousand, you only have five hundred, Like,
you can't lose a thousand to him, you don't have
a thousand. He can't win a thousand from you, you
don't have a thousand. So the effective stack is the
shortest stack in the hand. So you know, five hundred
dollars effective in a one to two game probably shouldn't
be stacking off very hardly. Ever, with Ace King with
(05:30):
one hundred and eighty dollars, Yeah, I don't think that
can be that big of an error under again, normal circumstances.
I'm using preflop as an example because preflop is easiest
to understand because it's just bam bam bam, and there
it is. But this applies to flop This applies to
being on the flop. This applies to being on the turn.
It especially applies to being on the river. You know,
(05:51):
somebody's putting you in for a reasonable amount of money
on the river, and you just got top pair bear
of kings will a jack kicker, You probably shouldn't be
putting one hundred big blinds in on the river with
that hand. On the other hand, if you have top set,
you know, yeah, probably put in another hundred big blinds
(06:13):
on the river. Okay. So the bigger the effect of stack,
the better the hand you need to stack off with.
And I see people stacking off all the time with
one pair in spots where they should never be stacking
off with one pair, all right. Number two, When playing
low stakes and facing a large river bet, if you're
down to trying to count blockers to justify a call,
(06:35):
you should just fold. Now, if you're playing two hundred
four hundred no limit against the best players in the
world and you wind up on the river and one
of the best players in the world shoves on you,
and you're like, well, I mean, he's either really nutted
or he doesn't have anything, And it's a bluff Because
(06:58):
stuff like that can happen at high steaks. And now
you start figuring out, well, how many combos of nuts
does he have? And you're counting combos, and you can
only come up with two combos of nuts and everything
else you're ahead of. Or you've got the blocker to
the nuts, right, so you have pocket tens, which is
two ten blockers to a straight. Let's say the jack
(07:21):
nine would make the straight, or I'm sorry, let's say
jack tin would make the straight. But you've got two
of the tens, and so now that makes combos of
eight's going from assuming suited would be only you know,
you know again you're against a good player, so you
know they probably just only have suited jack Tin here
to make the straight. And you know you have two tens. Well,
(07:43):
you block two of the suited jack tin. So now
instead of having four combos of the nuts, they only
have two combos of the nuts because you have two blockers.
And now you figure out all the combos of bluffs
Steak could have, and there's three three amounts of bluffs
to one amounts of blockers, and then you got the
pot size laying you the odds so that you should
be calling. Then yeah, but at low steaks. Hold them
(08:06):
at one two no limit and one three to no
limit with the yahoos that mostly play this game. And
you're on the river and somebody shoves for a lot
of money, and you're sitting here going, well, I got
the blocker to the If you're sitting down and at
the call and it's that close to where you're trying
to figure out some blockers and stuff, just fold. You're
just beat. Like your hand ads not nearly good enough
(08:28):
to call. If you're down to trying to justify a
call by coming up with blockers, your hand is not
good enough to call on the river. Just fold. That's
just low stakes. Hold them number three. If you're thinking
about poker in terms of how many hands you win
rather than how much money you're profiting, then you're thinking
(08:49):
about poker incorrectly. If you're thinking about poker in terms
of how many hands you win rather than how much
money you're profiting, then you're thinking about poker incorrectly. And
I see this all the time. People are trying to
win the hand, trying to force themselves to win a
(09:09):
hand they just can't win because you got to win
the hand. That's not the secret to poker. The secret
to poker is maximizing the amount of money you make
with the hands that you can maximize it with. So
which would you rather? Which would you rather do? Would
you rather win eighty percent of the hands you play
(09:31):
eighty percent of the hands and have a net profit
of one hundred dollars? Or would you rather win forty
eight percent of the hands you play and have a
net profit of two hundred dollars? Which would you rather? Now,
winning eighty percent of hands is pretty sweet because you're
not losing very often. Man, that's the pretty stress free
poker life right there. And you're winning one hundred dollars.
(09:54):
That's fine, it's all good. It's all gravy, right, or
forty eight percent of hands, which means you're losing more
than half the time. You're losing fifty two percent of
the time. But in the forty eight percent of the
hands that you won, you had a net profit of
two hundred dollars. In other words, you made twice as
much money winning half about half as many hands. Which
(10:14):
one of those you think is better? Now, I'm not
getting into the x's and those of this this can
be if you don't understand this or you don't know
why I'd be talking about it. You can do a
deep dive on it yourself. But you are thinking about
poker wrong. If you're thinking about trying to win every
hand or winning at a high percentage of hands, and
(10:35):
that's your goal. On to the next one. Expect to
be only marginally profitable long term from early positions, even
with good holdings. And knowing this, let that guide you
as to what you should even be playing from early position.
(11:00):
I'm talking about under the gun. Under the gun one,
I guess primarily, and then in extreme examples, I see
where you have these games with the button straddle and
the small blind has to go first. I mean, you
don't get any earlier position than small blind. And I
see people in these games with button straddles playing some
of the most garbageest hands you've ever seen. And I know,
garbia just isn't a word, some of those garbage hands
(11:22):
you've ever seen from the small blind. Like, you're in
literally the worst position you could ever be an impoker.
The odds of you winning this hand, even with pocket
aces is pretty slim. What I got aces and it's
gonna be slim. Yes, you gotta fight dollar straddle you're
gonna raise with aces, you're getting called by four or
five callers. Now try to navigate that minefield and if
(11:44):
you do win again, it's not about winning, it's about
how much money you make when you had aces in position,
when you have perfect information, you can maximize how much
money gets into the pot because you have information, you
know what's going on with people, have got how much
you combat what it can call when you're out of
position with a gaggle of people to act after you like,
you're so limited in how much you can bet when
you can bet, do you have to check a street
(12:04):
back like You're just not going to maximize and so
expect only to be marginally profitable long term from early positions,
and even when you have good holdings and knowing this information,
let that guide you as to what you should even
be playing from early position. Now, the flip side of
(12:26):
that is the next axiom that I will share with you.
Expect to be wildly profitable when playing in position, even
with marginal holdings and knowing this, let that guide you
as to what you should be playing late, particularly on
the button. It would be hard to do well. If
you're an online player, you can run a database andcy
(12:48):
but being a live player, we just don't have that
kind of data. It's hard to know, but I would
expect that probably jacked in suited from the button by
a competent player is either as profitable or more profitable
than that same player when he has aces under the gun.
(13:11):
That's I can't prove it. I don't you know. I
don't have absolute proof of this, but I suspect it's
probably true. And maybe some of these online players that
can run a database and pull up all their aces
under the gun and compare it with all their jacktann
suitage on the button could confirm that for me. I
don't know, but if it's not one hundred percent true,
it's pretty close to true, and it's it's enough that
(13:33):
it demonstrates a huge point, and that is that you
should be playing and playing aggressively and trying to build
pots and stuff when you're in position with playable hands.
Next axiom, just because we play solid ranges pre flop,
(13:54):
which is largely made up of good hands, we are
not trying to make hands to win. That's not why
we start with, fundamentally appropriately a tight ranges of hands
pre flop that's not why. It's not because we're trying
to make the best hand to win. That's not why
we're doing it. Sure, at low stakes, it's a ton
(14:17):
about best hand poker. And I even made an episode
of the podcast called best Hand Poker. I believe it's
a public episode. It may be over on the Patreon
feed up. I'm not sure off the top of my head,
but you can search for it. Best Hand Poker one two,
one three doero limit is a lot about just showing
up with the best hand and getting people to pay
you for it. Sure, but but that's what your opponents
(14:40):
are also doing, trying to make hands. That's what one
two one three they're playing. They're getting it in there
with a hand and they're hoping to make a hand
and they're hoping to win. That's their complete strategy. So
if your strategy is identical to their strategy, you're not
gonna come out any better than them. It's gonna take
more than that. We need to be doing a lots more.
We need to be taking pots when we don't have
a hand when possible. Not saying that's a ton of
(15:01):
the game at low stakes, it still is a part
of the game. Though, we need to be getting max
value when we do make hands. We need to be
able to get our opponents to put more money in
against us when we have the best hand than they're
able to do when they do it. We need to
be losing the minimum with boards become unfavorable. We need
to understand when we can only go for two streets
(15:22):
of value instead of three. We need to understand when
we can only go for one street of value instead
of two or three. We need to understand these things
which causes us to lose the minimum and unfavorable potentially
in favorable situations or unlikely winning combination of situations. And
then we need to learn to fold when we clearly beat.
Folding when we clearly beat is another way we gain
an edge. It's not because we're trying to play good
(15:43):
ranges to just have the best hand. That's the foundations
that's laid. But we got to be doing a lot
more than that if we want to be making the
maximum amount that we can play, or that we can
make when we're playing low stakes poker. And I save
the best for because Lord knows people love some suited connectors.
(16:03):
And so this is my last axiom for you today.
This is the last secret that winning players know that
you should know. Suded connectors are so pretty, but they're
not profitable from early position, and they're only break even
or slightly profitable from late positions. Overall, from all positions
(16:26):
most likely break even or losing. And that's when played
correctly by really good players. If you're not a really
good player, I imagine how poorly you're doing with suited connectors.
So I love suited connectors much as the next guy.
I've evolved in how I've played them through the years.
(16:47):
I tend to now stick more with them in later
positions than early. I've come up with favorite suits so
that I have a means of randomizing some just not
getting it in there all the live long day. Every
time a suited connector comes up, I've learned to try
to find spots where I can likely win with them,
pre flop with aggression in terms of three bets, et cetera.
I've formulated several strategies I think most really good players
(17:10):
have formulated to try to make suited connectors profitable, because
they for sure can be a great part of an
overall strategy right and one of the things they do
and you can get into theory and stuff. But one
of the things planned pseuded connectors does theoretically is it
makes you get more when you have aces. And that's
where the value from pseuded connectors comes from, because when
you're putting money in a pot, and if a guy
thinks you can have pseudo connectors, he will be willing
(17:32):
to put more in the pot with you when you
can't only have aces. And this is why omcs and
stuff don't make the maximum because they're never in there
with the pseudo connector getting crazy, right, it's always the
aces with them are nearly always and so this is
how suited connectors have value. But I would say this
against the low estates, they don't have that much value.
(17:52):
Against better players, pseudo connectors do make the amount of
money you collect when you have aces go higher against
really good opponents because they're thinking about the hand, and
they're thinking about your range of hands, and they're gonna
include connectors and your range of hands. When you're playing
against the worst opponents one two, one three, no limit plug,
all they're every thinking about is here's the cards I got,
and there's what the board is. That's the extent of
(18:14):
their thinking, they're not thinking about nothing else. Here's the
hands I got, and there's what the board is. I'm
gonna put this much money in with this hand on
this board. They're not thinking about your range. So you're
not really gaining that much from playing suit to connectors
in terms of deception and adding value to your premium
hands by showing them down sometimes, and so you should
(18:35):
play them in a very structured, well formulated strategy. All
of that, of course too much to go into here.
I hope that these seven strategies, these seven secrets that
long term winning players know that you should know and
apply to your game, have been helpful to you. I
encourage you to not take this episode lightly, that everything
(18:58):
that I've said in this that you take it very
deep into your poker soul and value it and try
to move forward accordingly in your poker game as it
applies to your strategy, as it terms to how you
play and formulate strategies and tactics based around these universal
truths of winning poker. And finally, if you want to
get into the X and o's, you want to get
(19:18):
in depth, you want to find a site with videos
and just I think we're up to thousands of hours
of podcasts. Now, I don't want to speak incorrectly, but
I know for sure hundreds of hours of video. We've
got the discord where we've got a thriving community of
profitable and aspiring, profitable players, where there's a free flow
exchange of ideas and encouragement and of course access to me.
(19:41):
All that's over on the Patreon and it is by
far the cheapest quote unquote training for poker you'll find anywhere.
That's number one at twenty five bucks and number two.
It's the only one out there that's targeted exclusively to
people playing one too. Now you'll find some other sites
to have content where they talk about one to two.
Sometimes they talk about twenty five fifty, one, two hundred
(20:03):
a lot too, and I ain't ever talking about that.
I want you to crush one, two, one three. That's
my one goal in life. After that, you can, you know,
go to the appropriate place to teach you how to
crush twenty five to fifty. I'm probably not that guy.
You want to crush one, two, one three, though, and
you want the most affordable way to train possible. I
would love for you to come join us over on
(20:24):
the Patreon. It's cap as to how many members we allow,
so we keep the community rather small love for you
to be a part of it. Low Limit Cashgames dot
Com is the address Low Limit Cash Games dot com.
And every single thing I've ever talked about that you
might want to know need link to read up on
and stuff is all linked down in the information section
of this pod, so you can go down and find
links and click on them, and we will see you
(20:47):
in the next episode.
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