Toward A Basic Strategy For
Low Limit No Limit Hold Em:
Pre-Flop, Early Position

BY: Ashley Adams
Contact at: (Asha34@aol.com)
Author of Winning 7-Card Stud

It's easier to pick a piece of the whole and write about it than to write about the whole of Low Limit No Limit Hold Em (LLNLHE) and try to devise an overall strategy. Each situation seems so dependent on the type of players at the table and the specifics of the moment. Even so, it's important for inexperienced players to have some general guidelines to follow until they can incorporate all of the necessary ingredients for truly excellent play.

Accordingly, I'm going to give you a step-by-step guide for your play of this relatively new form of the great game of No Limit Texas Hold Em. This is not meant as the be all and end all of No Limit strategy. In fact, after you've mastered the basics and have played a few hundred hours or so you will surely want to tinker with this basic strategy based on the types of players you're against and the specifics of the situation you're in. But this should be your fundamental strategy -something you can consider your default, absent strong reasons to the contract.

What I'll endeavor to do in the next few articles is provide the rudiments of a winning strategy for the LLNLHE game - to provide an outline for how to play in these games filled largely with beginning or otherwise bad opponents.

I'll divide the strategy up in a few ways. I'll start with play pre-flop - that is to say on your starting two-card hand before the flop. I'll take it from early position, then middle position, then late position and finally from the blinds. I'll then proceed to play on the flop, again looking at position. I'll conclude with play on the Turn and then play on the River - in heads up competition and multi-way competition.

This article starts with pre-flop play from early position. Let's start at the beginning. Assume a $1/2 No Limit game with a $100 maximum buy-in. You can expand this somewhat to include similar games with a $200 maximum buy ins and $2/4 No Limit games. These are the games that are typically found in card rooms and in living rooms, on college campuses and in offices all over the country these days. They also include, though not precisely, those low limit low buy-in games that are found on line - with $.25/.50 blinds or so and $50 maximum buys and the like.

Recognize some basic terminology that is useful in limit and no limit hold em.

"Position" refers to your seat relative to the dealer. "Early position" includes the two seats after the big blind - that is to say the three and four seat at a typical ten-person table. "Middle position" are the next three seats: the five six and seven seat. "Late position" are the final three seats, with the ninth seat being the cutoff seat and the tenth seat called the "Button" or the "Dealer". Seat one is, of course, the Small Blind. Seat two is the Big Blind.

PRE-FLOP, EARLY POSITION-CALLING THE BIG BLIND

If you're in early position be very selective. But you don't have to be as selective as you would be in limit Hold Em. You're getting much greater implied odds. In other words, unlike limit poker, you can double or triple your stack in one hand. So a bet of $2.00 is often worth a call if there's a good chance that the bet won't be raised and you have any kind of hand at all. If you hit a perfect flop, you can make a couple of hundred dollars from that initial $2.00 call. But don't go crazy with this notion.

My minimum calling hand is about the same or a little higher as my standard for calling the Big Blind when I'm the small blind if everyone else has folded in a limit Hold Em game. I'll generally call with Q-10 suited or Q-J unsuited. I toss the smaller suited connectors beginning with 8-7 suited and J-9 suited and worse. And I fold the non-suited hands like J-10 and Q-10. I call with Ace suited. I fold Ace-medium or Ace-small unsuited. Anything worse I pitch. My theory is that I want to limit the "trap hands" on the flop that often end up making the second best hand, but I want to give myself an ample opportunity to take advantage of bad players who will misplay their hands after the flop. These starting standards strike that balance for me.

EARLY POSITION - RAISING THE BIG BLIND

I am more aggressive in my early position raises with some hands and less aggressive than many with others. Most of the time I'll raise with any pair. I'll raise about three or four times the Big Blind, depending on what I believe the threshold needs to be to get my opponents to fold their mediocre hands. If possible, I'd like to buy the button for this raise. Some of this depends on what has been established as the initial raise in the game I'm in. Some of this depends on the players in the game. Usually a raise of just the Big Blind (making the $2 $4 for example) is not enough. Sometimes making it $6.00 to go is sufficient. Usually making it $8.00 to go is enough to make the timid bad players fold their mediocre or worse starting hands. That's what I want, to clear out as many passive players as possible without committing too much of my stack to the effort. I don't want a lot of people drawing against me.

(One note of moderation. If, for whatever reason, my image has ceased to be that of a tight/aggressive player - if I believe that the other players seem to think of me as loose aggressive (perhaps I've gotten a string of raising hands recently) then I will slow down and just call with those medium and small pairs. This is because my raise will cease to have the desired affect of getting many mediocre or worse hands to fold. I don't want three or four callers after me. I want at most one or two. But I don't mind a whole table calling the Big Blind along with my small pair and me.)

EARLY POSITION WHEN THERE'S A RAISE IN FRONT

If there is a raise in front of me by a typical low limit no limit player I will raise with Jacks, Queens, Kings and with Aces. This assumes that the raise is roughly three times the big blind - a real raise. If it is, then I will make it nine times the big blind or so with any of the raising hands I've listed. If, on the other hand, the player raises by doubling the bet to $4.00 or so then I will include Tens in my list and make it six times the Big Blind. What I am trying to do is isolate the raiser or even get him to fold. He usually won't, unless for some inexplicable reason he was raising as a bluff and has enough self-control to fold.

I will fold all lesser hands except A-K (suited or unsuited) to a real raise, in which case I will call. I will fold a pair of 9s to a raise of three times the big blind if I am in early position. I will fold A-Q suited just as quickly. I make exceptions for players whom I have determined raise with little. If I've thus categorized the raiser, I will call with A-Q and A-J suited and re-raise with a pair of 9s or higher. I also treat a small raise differently. I will call with my big Aces, call with my suited Aces, and raise with my pairs - making it six times the big blind or so.

Some players make plunging raises - of many times the Big Blind. Sometimes they go all in. Sometimes, in a $1/2 game they make it $10-20 or so to go. Against these kinds of raises I am very select in the hands I play. If they go all in I'll fold everything but Aces. If they make it something less than half of my stack I'll play with Aces or Kings. I'll play them for a raise, going all in. I will fold AK suited and less. I will not play Queens or less. Just Aces and Kings.

If I am raised back by the original raiser or if someone before the initial raiser re-raises me then I will fold all hands except Aces or Kings. I will call with Kings and re-raise all in with Aces.

Similarly, if I judge the initial raiser to be an atypically good, tight aggressive player then I will fold all hands after his initial raise except Aces and Kings, in which case I will call with Kings and reraise all-in with Aces. If, for example, a good aggressive player raises in early position I will fold a pair of Queens. I don't want to go all in with a toss-up hand. If he "only" has Ace-King and raises I don't want to take the chance of losing my entire stack for a 55% favorite. If he's good and aggressive I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and wait for another situation to make a stand.

But if I have Aces or Kings I am re-raising all in because I want the good player to think that I am overplaying a lesser hand (so he will call me). And I want the lesser player, who will see my all-in bet as a challenge to his manhood, to call me with a lesser hand to prove that he won't be intimidated. In any event, I want as much money in the pot right there, when I am clearly the overwhelming favorite. At this level I do not want to seduce a call out of any other players. I want it heads up with all our money in the pot.

NEXT: Pre-Flop Middle Position

© The Poker Forum.com, all rights reserved