Low Bet Poker Strategy!

Sitting with a few poker buddies and drinking cocktails one night at my apartment, a discussion came up on the proper ways for how to apply low ball or low bet poker strategy. First of all, let me give you the definition of low bet poker strategy: essentially, low ball poker involves playing a wider range of starting hands more aggressively, but only using small bets and raises to save you from losing too much money when certain plays do not work out. And of course, when you play low ball poker correctly, in the long run the amount you win from opponents when they call you down with sub standard hands should outweigh the amount you lose from making consistent raises and bets without a strong hand. This is a reason why it is important to make small raises and bets instead of large, stronger bets, giving you good bet ratio-odds later in the hand.

There were many different versions or opinions that came out of the discussion that were interesting. First I explained; this type of style would create a loose table image that you in turn could use to exploit extra chips from players that you usually would not be able to win. With this table image, you have created two things, your opponents are now guessing hand strengths and they are calling more often with weaker sub standard hands than they normally do. Now for the big kicker or big daddy of them all, when you do hold a large or big hand, it’s time to get paid off. Players have now made a big crucial mistake and put you in a category of being an over aggressive loose player and you can collect big time. They now call you down with mediocre hands because they do not give you credit for holding a strong hand. Sounds like gravy does it not! HAHA!

When applying this strategy you have to keep bets to minimum, raising bet should be about 2 to 2-1/2 times the big blind. This gives you mobility and option to escape from a hand very easy when your competition is making a play back at you (re-raising or moving all-in). Position in this strategy is also a strong potential factor as it usually is anyways; it is not going to be an effective style of playing if you are raising 2.5BB from any early position on a regular basis. The chances are that you are going to get multi-callers and be out of position in a pot with a hand that is probably marginal. Save yourself some grief and make those bets closer to the button and against a small field of players.

The turning point for making this work is playing good post flop poker as you are entering twice as many pots that you would normally do and also letting opponents in at a cheap rate on top it. It is going to be far easier to outplay your opponents if there are less of them in the hand and if you have position, so keep this in mind. Although we are raising with less than premium hands, it does not necessarily mean that we’re trying to take down the blinds alone on every hand. There is a high chance that we are going to get a caller because our raises are relatively small, and so we are going to need a hand that we can work with after the flop. This means to play hands for example: 5-7suited, 8-10, A-7 and so on, so many of them to mention. But the opportunity to flop potential hands as top pair, a pair of aces, straight or flush makes it a much more valuable play.

(Image courtesy of Bayne’s Poker Blog)

Low bet poker strategy is going to be most effective in situations where the blinds are small relative to the size of the stacks. So early tournament play is a perfect time to go for it. Toward the end of tournaments the blinds will usually be too large in relation to the size of players stack to play low bet poker strategy. Do not over do it, the last thing you want to be doing in a tournament is committing a 20% or more of your stack into a pot with a marginal hand before the flop.

Remember a few good tips from this discussion, play as many hands in position as you can, play a good post-flop game, use good starting hand selection and when playing weaker starting hands, play hands that have drawing potential. I have found that low bet poker strategy is one of the coolest strategies I have used under specific circumstances.