The game at my local casino is $2/$3 with a $180 max buy-in.

It regularly plays loose passive - i.e. not unusual to see 4 or 5 callers to a $15 to $20 raise with no re-raising.

I have been wondering about the best type of pre-flop play at this sort of table in 2 situations:

1. Given that we know that there is a risk that even a decent raise is not going to greatly reduce the number of players who see the flop, how good a holding do I want to raise in early position? Is it correct to tighten up a bit more in early position and only raise super premium hands like high pairs, or do I want to build a pot here with a hand like, say, A-J off?

2. Assume our stack is around the buy in mark and we are on the button or in the blinds. A player UTG raises to 20. 4 callers so there is $100 odd in the pot. How good a hand do we want before we just push to try to pick up the pot? Do our cards even matter?

All thoughts greatly appreciated!

Please note:
I normally only play 10c/25c or 25c/50c Blinds real money.
The following advice stems from my experience at the Full Tilt Playmoney tables (Blinds: 1000/2000 Full-Ring, Blinds 3000/6000 6max) which seem to play equivalently in terms of players seeing flops. But which are still miles away in terms of playing quality from the lowest play money tables (5/10).

There may be more insights to this and probably a lot of good players from this forum will advocate you to value-raise preflop and strong with your normal range here. The reasoning would be to make them pay for there loose selection.
But my feel is that this has a huge downside. You will still get an insane amount of callers and your first bet will almost always commit you, without knowing where you stand.

Suppose you raise with and get 4 callers. Think of the type of flop you want to see where you will truly be happy getting your stack in.
(And ask yourself if you will likely get paid on this kind of flop even by the loosest of players).

Now suppose you raise 5 BB with and get 3 callers. The pot will thus be around 20-23 BB...
Think on which type of flop you would want to c-bet and are really happy when you get called... try thinking about seemingly harmless flops where your KK "must be good" because of the nature of the board. Can you get away on a board, after one flop call?


I know it’s probably non-standard (and can be considered boring as well), but I suggest tightening your preflop range and actually limping a great deal of hands and then playing your monsters very fast. Most people won’t have a HUD live and only realize what you are doing when it’s too late.
With regard to your second question: AA and KK… but I consider myself to be a nit =)

Yeah, fold the AJo in EP. You don't want to build a pot with AJ in a tight full-ring game, either.


I wouldn't be reraising with any two cards here, because we're playing short stacks. (If UTG is playing a sensible range, he should be paying of our bluffs a lot.) Squeezing is a good thought, though. You just need to be particularly aware of UTG's style.

No, we can't get away. I think that's OK at this stack depth. Sometimes we felt on overpair and they stack us. A lot of times we bet for value.

I'd definitely tighten up and start raising more. About $40 or 50 if I get AQ+ or TT+ to isolate a little more. I wouldn't want to be calling too often with that many players with AJo or really many hands. I think I'm either raising or folding unless I get the urge to get fancy and try a slow play every once in a while.

As far as #2 is concerned, I would be shoving all in with Jacks or better, AKs or AKo, and AQs. You should never be in too bad a spot even if you do get called by someone there.

I'd tighten up pre-flop, and make bigger raises when you do want to raise, to get more hands heads up to the flop rather than 4 or 5 ways. But, i'd love to limp-call alot in this game and see alot of flops. So idk, I guess I value post-flop play more here than pre-flop.

Tom.