Advanced Learning Articles
"If I know something you don't
know-I take your money."-Sklansky
Building
Your Bankroll in Micro-Limit Play (Part II)
In
the last article we dealt with defeating certain player types
that we are likely to
encounter at micro blind levels,
namely mousey and call stations. In this article I am
going
to deal with fighting off aggressive and overly aggressive
players.
There a recognizable degrees within
aggressive styles which change the way that you
are
going to want to respond to them. The easiest to deal with
is the maniac, who
thinks he's good, but is fishlike in
every sense. Maniacs of course play nearly every
hand
no matter what's going on, will raise pre-flop on some or most
of them, and
most often come out with a continuation
bet. So very simply the key to beating
them is to
isolate them with superior hands like A10 and take them to the
cleaners
with their inferior hands. Re-raise
pre-flop, and continue betting post flop with
superior hole
cards. There isn't much more that you need to do
against maniacs
than that. Their ranges are so
poor and their post-flop aggression so predictable
that it is
easy to gain control over hands against them with good
enough cards.
Any kind of predictability in poker is a
liability, or in your opponents, a source of
profits.
Among
aggressive players though, maniacs are the exception, not the
rule.
Somewhat more common than that are strict
tight-aggressive players. These types
are also often very
vulnerable in micro-rooms due to the fact that they are unable
to
be flexible in their playing habits to accommodate
changes in the room activity and
the various player styles-they
also show themselves to be predictable. There is no
one
style in itself that is going to suit every situation,
but strict tight-aggressive
players will persist in the mistaken
belief that this is the case, only raising pre-flop with
big
pairs, AK, or AQ, only making continuation bets when
they hit the flop, and so
on. They should do OK against call
stations and maniacs, but more advanced
players who recognize
their predictablilty will take advantage, and so should
you.
Since you know they are only aggressive from
both a pre and post-flop standpoint,
you know which hands to get
away from(the ones they are advertising "I have
something" by their predictable betting and raising). You
also know that you can
probably get them off hands if you are
holding nearly equivalent values, such as
middle pair
with different kickers. They are after all very sensibly
tight when their
hands are moderate, unless perhaps you have
shown your own table image to be
too aggressive.
Weak Tight Aggressive players, also known as red fish, or
knits, are generally afraid
to bet their hand after the
flop. They are afraid to make continuation bets, or in
other
words to bet a flop which hasn't agreed with a previous raise they
have made
pre-flop. They may have good pre-flop skills, but
their post-flop weakness makes
them break-even players at
best. Aggression should be used against these types of
players,
but not to a reckless degree. When they have really hit a hand
most likely
they will let you know, and you should respect
those signals. When they make a
pre-flop raise and
the flop comes junky, most likely they have missed it, and will fold
to
bets. But they differ from mousey players in the sense that if
they are calling
your own raises pre-flop, and the flop
comes strong, and you have missed, it will
often be harder
and riskier to get them off their hand with a continuation
bet.
Therefore you have to be more careful about raising
pre-flop with less than premium
hands, and when you do,
more careful about making continuation bets. Often their
timidity
will have them calling you down to the river with superior hands,
since their
unlikely to raise with a single pair.
Basically you have to feel these kinds of players
out in
order to gauge how much you can get away with.
The toughest aggressive players to deal with are the
ones who know how to vary
their play effectively,
read their opponents well, and are unafraid to use aggression in
combination
with their reads. This is pretty much the definition of a shark. Without a
basis
for being able to put your opponent on some kind of
range of hands he is likely
to be holding, you're
losing a lot of control over the hands you play because you
have
too little information, and information is the key
element involved with controlling
a hand. Fortunately
at micro-limits these types of players are fairly rare, since
this is
the type of player who could be making a lot
more money at bigger limits. If you do
encounter this type
however, I would just avoid confronting him unless I had a
strong hand. Otherwise get away from it, while
there is easier prey to be had
elsewhere.
What I've
tried to impress over the course of these two articles is that
your ability to
read the player types that you are
likely to come up against in micro-limit play, and
your ability
to change your own style of play based on them, is the key to
building
your bankroll at these lower stakes where such
predictability exists in relative
abundance. Of course
these strategies retain some validity for higher limits-the
difference is that they are especially useful here
where players are more likely to fall
into pre-set patterns of play,
and where certain pattern types are more likely to
influence the
style for the entire table. These follow the
leader tendencies at micro
-limits will enable you to apply a certain
style to an entire very often, and not just
individuals players.
Add to that the fact that a very small stake will allow
you to hold
a dominate position money wise, and other
perks such as player points and bonuses
of different kinds, and
you can see how making 50$ a day at micro-limit play is an
easy way to build your bankroll.
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