I first started playing poker on a whim. Like many, I saw the World Series of Poker on television, thought it was interesting, and decided to see what I could find out about the game. After an internet search, I found an online poker room, something I had never heard of before, and joined the ranks of the play money fish.
I began to figure things out and learned basic strategy. Like many beginning players, I went from playing just about any two cards to playing overly tight and leaning on starting hand charts to help make my decisions. But, problems resulted from that. When I was playing against scads of loose players, nobody respected my raises, I kept facing at least half the table post-flop, and inevitably, there were many times when someone sucked out on me.
I still run into these situations all the time and I’m sure many of you do too. Thus, I thought this would be a good time to present some basic tips on how to deal with a crazy table when you seem to be the only sane one playing. I’m not reinventing the wheel here, but for me, getting back to basics is a good thing to do every now and then to help simplify the game if it starts to feel too hectic.
Don’t Panic
If you’re playing tight and most of your opponents continue to feel that it is appropriate to call every raise you make pre-flop, it can be disconcerting. Many players in this situation start freaking out and get away from their game usually by joining the crowd and donking it up. Don’t do this. Don’t panic. Take a deep breath. If you need to sit out an orbit to evaluate the table a bit better, go ahead. The key is to relax and continue to think straight.
Understand
While it can be frustrating to get sucked out on left and right, understand that this is just the result of something that will benefit you in the long-run. It is good to play against bad players. You want them to call your aces with 6-4 offsuit. You want them to chase silly draws. Sure, they will nail you sometimes, but remember, if they continue to call your premium hands with inferior ones, you will be a big favorite every time. Luck may hurt you in the short-term, but in the long-term, you will come out on top.
Adjust
Say your standard three times or four times the big blind pre-flop raise is drawing five, six, or even seven callers. What to do? Well, try raising even more. Find that sweet spot that weeds out enough players so that the chances of a suckout are lower, but doesn’t force everyone out of the pot pre-flop. Increasing your pre-flop raises means that you are going to have to buy-in for more than just the minimum. I always recommend buying-in for the maximum, but I understand that some people like using strategies that lend themselves to buy-in short.
You also may want to consider different tactics pre-flop such as a limp re-raise from early position. Now, this assumes that the entire table isn’t completely full of loose-passive calling stations and that somebody will actually raise pre-flop.
Limping early with a premium hand and then re-raising when the action comes back around can be an effective way to narrow the field down to just you and the raiser. At the same time, it puts a lot of dead money in the pot, making the heads-up match even juicier. There’s a chance too that the original raiser might still fold to your re-raise, so now you have won the hand and grabbed the bets from all of the loose limpers.
If, after everything, you are still having problems against a wild pack of players or are just plain uncomfortable, there is nothing wrong with leaving the table. There will always be another game to join.