Small Stakes Limit Hold’em

“I try not to think with my gut. If I’m serious about understanding the world, thinking with anything besides my brain, as tempting as that might be, is likely to get me into trouble.”

-Carl Sagan

That is one of my favorite quotes.  I often recite it to myself, to remind myself not to think with my gut at the poker table; that will almost always get me into trouble.  I’ve been thinking about a couple of things lately and decided to post an entry to the blog.

First,  I want to say that I love playing at The Caribbean in Kirkland, WA.  The staff are probably the friendliest around, and the food is great.  Almost all of the players are friendly and entertaining.  As evidenced by this blog, I’ve learned a lot about poker, and have received more than a few healthy doses of humility while playing at The Caribbean.  I find myself going to The Caribbean often – not necessarily because of the great 3/6 & 4/8 action, but because I enjoy the game more when playing there.

Second, it’s been interesting coming back to The Caribbean.  I took a break, played online while away, but for a few months I hadn’t gone back to any local poker rooms.  Coming back I realized that things had changed a little bit.  Last week, I think on Thursday and Friday nights I found myself talking with another player about how small the pots were, that there was no action.  A few times players asked if the other players were willing to participate in a round of live-straddles.  Each time at least one player refused.  The level of play has changed, so that I think especially during week nights, there are more serious, tight/aggressive players – and when there are 2,3, or even 4 of them at the same table there just isn’t enough action to build big pots and beat the rake.  Even more important, when you do find yourself in a hand, it’s fun, but not always profitable, to find yourself up against a good player who is willing to play tricky and try to exploit your weaknesses.

One of the players commented during a game a couple of weeks ago that he believed the biggest pot of the night would probably be between him and I, and it would likely be over a hand where we’re playing middle or bottom pair.

It’s difficult to beat 3/6 & 4/8 – not impossible, but definitely difficult.  Throw in a few tight/aggressive players and the pots just don’t get big enough.

This brings me to the last thought I wanted to mention tonight.  The topic was brought up again tonight about winning consistently at 3/6 & 4/8.  Just about everyone who plays with me knows my thoughts (and probably disagrees with me) about winning at 3/6 & 4/8.  What’s interesting is that they point at the rake – which can be substantial at 3/6 & 4/8 when playing with tight/aggressive players where the pots don’t get very big.  The other point they mention doesn’t actually support their position, in my opinion.  They talk about the long-shot draws and bad beats they’ve experienced at small stakes hold’em.

I looked, but couldn’t find one of my posts on the 2+2 forums, where I mentioned some difficulties I was having protecting my big pocket pairs.  I think it was “Leo Doc” – one of the people who regularly responded to my posts, who made a great point – he basically said to enjoy the action at small stakes because when you move up to higher stakes and play against better players, you don’t get the action you get at small stakes hold’em.

This is the reason I believe that most 3/6 & 4/8 games are not only beatable, but I maintain that if you can’t beat a typical 3/6 and 4/8 game, you won’t be able to beat the higher stakes games where you’re fighting over smaller pots (in terms of # of bets).

I believe the action more than makes up for the rake.  Of course my 2nd point in this post was that the action has changed at The Caribbean lately, and the pots just aren’t as big as they used to be – but there are nights, like tonight, where there’s still plenty of action.  Of course tonight was a Saturday night/Sunday morning, when people are likely to drink more and it stands to reason that there will probably be more action and bigger pots on weekend nights.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.  The freeroll tournament is tomorrow so I had better get to bed and get some sleep.