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First of all, I should explain some things. I just cashed in a tournament at this casino and decided I would take my winnings to a cash game and see what I could do. Up till now, I've only played online microlimit cash games, but I figured my game was solid enough to give this a go. So I bought in for $180 into a 100min/200max NL game with blinds of $2/$5. Big difference! But I was able to adjust! With the BB being $5 and the max buyin $200, you could blow through a stack in 2 hands. I'm used to online games where the max buyin is 100x the BB. This was 40x.

After losing about a third of my buyin within the first half hour, I realized that the size of the blinds and the looseness/aggressiveness of some players meant that I would need to take tighten up some. One player in particular was extremely loose and aggressive. I quickly noticed how he would literally limp in on EVERY hand and usually call ANY raise thereafter as long as it wasn't more than about $30. I quickly remembered what you said about these kinds of people, and I just started praying that I could get this guy's money before someone else does.

Well a couple hours went by and my solid play had got me back into the game. I was hovering about $240 thanks mostly to playing some decent cards against Mr. Calling Station. My tight play did not go entirely unnoticed since a couple of times I was able to push some of the other better players off their preflop limps by making a good sized raise.

Anyway, to the point. I had made some money off the Calling Station, but I was hoping for something bigger. The cards had kind of dried up for me after a couple hours, so I decided this would be my last round. I'll leave with a small profit. We'll once the BB got to the person on my right, I pickup AQs under the gun in my last hand.

Okay, up till now I had raised with cards like this. I decided to limp in, observe the action behind me, and make a decision. Maybe see a flop. But I don't want to blow a bunch on my last hand. Well the guy to my left raises to $20. He's been a little loose, so I'm not too scared at this point. The calling station, as expected, calls the $20 and it gets folded back to me. Since the calling station could literally have any two cards and the guy to my right has raised before with stuff worse than AQ, I call. The flop.... AA9. Bingo! I CHECK! The preflop raiser comes in for $50 or $60. The calling station, who will call with any pair or ANY draw, calls.

I think for a minute, ask for a count of the player's stacks, see that I've got them covered by more than $120, and push it All-in. Seeing as how there is only once Ace left in the deck, I figure one of them has it. Probably the guy to my left. I'm just praying its not AK, but I think my read was right. To my surprise, they both call. Uh Oh, does somebody have pocket 9's? Nope the player to my left turns over JJ.(was married to his hand!)

The calling station who I've been just dying to get into a big pot with, turns over A6. Aaaawwww Yaaaaahhh! So there's almost $400 in the pot and I'm way out in front. The turn... 9! River.... blank. The calling station manages to chop the pot when the board paired on the turn. So we end up splitting the other guy's $120. Real Bummer! Oh well, I still walked away with about $350. I think I played the hand pretty well given the types of players I was up against. None of the tighter players at the table gave any action. What do you think?

Aaron

Answer:

I think you played the hand really well. My only concern would be that you wouldn't get called if you raised that much on the flop round, but you correctly deduced that the other two players would call, and they did, so it was perfect. What you did here too was to show some advanced thinking by adjusting your play based on that of your opponent's.

This is really important against all types of opponents -- loose, aggressive, tight, solid, etc. Perfect reads, perfect accuracy isn't possible in games like this, but the next best thing is to take into account all the information; it isn't correct to base your hand strength solely on how it ranks up against all possible hands; one needs to put the hand into a context that includes the opponent's play. Again, AQ may not be a good hand against a rock who raises only with hands that do well against AQ, but against 90% of other players, AQ is definitely a playable hand. Against a player like the loose one above, AQ is a monster.

Also, I want to mention something else about this article and no limit holdem. In limit holdem, a day is made up of many pots. Most pots are lost and at the end of the day, your win comes from grinding out enough wins to make a profit. No limit holdem isn't like that. In no limit holdem, the player who wins the most isn't grinding small pots. Usually your day is made up of a couple or few key pots. This story above includes one of those key pots. The tip here is to not get frustrated or despair when the day seems like it was a wash. Things turn around really quickly in no limit, you just have to be ready.

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