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Bart hansen's poker with your pants on series talks preety much about anything you need to know about live poker.Watch the series play some poker, tilt less and you eventually gonna nail them.

1/2 Live is the equivalent to online micros in my opinion. However I have played in some 1/2 Live games in Vegas where you could sit with c notes and chips in front of you. I don't think California allows you to have cash in play on the table.

So, what would you say is "too many hands in early position"? Like would opening KJo from the first 3 positions be too loose? KJs? AJo etc.? What's a solid opening range?

I tend to limp small pp's like 99 and lower especially from EP since:
A) it's really hard to get the pot heads up and even harder to get it heads up and in position, and cbetting multiway oop with 2 outs when you don't flop a set and are usually overcarded on the flop is just not a great spot.
B) it induces more players to come into the pot, making it more likely you can get value when you flop a set since it's more likely that someone flops some goofy 2pair or something.
C) if the pot does get raised, you are almost always getting sufficient odds to set mine.
D) Pretty much no one notices that you are only limping small pp's. Their projection bias makes them put all kinds of garbage like SC's, J5s, etc. into your range, if they are even trying to assign ranges at all.

Does anyone see any problem with this logic for limping this range from EP?

hands like ATo KJo QJo need to be folded as well as hands like 87s. Its fine to open these hands at 6m, but at a 9 handed table you end up OOP way too much with a hand that plays really poorly oop.

I rarely open limp in a live game game TBH. In early positions i'm folding 22-55 and opening 66. The problem with open limping is that you're cutting down on your ability to win the hand UI and you're not stacking people very often in a limped pot anyway especially if people start catching on. Also people will be playing more hands that make random straights and flushes and that somewhat cuts down on your implied odds.

hands like ATo KJo QJo need to be folded as well as hands like 87s. Its fine to open these hands at 6m, but at a 9 handed table you end up OOP way too much with a hand that plays really poorly oop.

I rarely open limp in a live game game TBH. In early positions i'm folding 22-55 and opening 66. The problem with open limping is that you're cutting down on your ability to win the hand UI and you're not stacking people very often in a limped pot anyway especially if people start catching on. Also people will be playing more hands that make random straights and flushes and that somewhat cuts down on your implied odds.

I'm somewhat new to live myself but limping small PPs seems very profitable in the game that runs here. You usually either see like a 7-way flop, or someone raises to 7bbs or so and you can call and see a 4+-way flop with huge implied odds. People heavily overplay flushes and straights so full houses have very high implied odds, and simply valuebetting your set when they're drawing is also great. Also since there are so many players to the flop, it's much more likely that someone has a top pair or something that you can get lots of value from.

1/2 Live is the equivalent to online micros in my opinion. However I have played in some 1/2 Live games in Vegas where you could sit with c notes and chips in front of you. I don't think California allows you to have cash in play on the table.

Skillwise maybe, but it plays very different from online microstakes in my experience.

I'm not sure what the best strategy is with re: to limping, but I've been doing a fair amount, even in EP. My range gets tighter obv the closer I get to utg, but I think that seeing a cheap flop with the likely massive skill edge postflop is very profitable. We can barrel limped pots w/ equity when ranges are weak, we can valuebet better than our opponents, and we can simply muck when we whiff. It just seems like in a game where people's biggest leak is being too loose and calling too much that we should capitalize by playing many cheap pots w/ potential hands and raising big pre with good hands.

I've been playing a lot of live myself and go back and forth on the whole to limp or not to limp thing. I play with a lot of the same people every day, and even if my entire limping range in early position is small pocket pairs and all of a sudden I'm firing away on a 249 rainbow board, I still get paid if someone has anything. Very few players seem capable of hand reading at the lower limits and are just playing the cards in front of them. The ones that are capable aren't the stacks you're targeting anyways. I also like limping suited aces so that you can get a crack at over flushing those guys that will play pretty much any suited garbage and they can generally withstand a raise.

Lots of other good advice on the thread. Someone mentioned playing TPNK from the blinds and no one addressed that. How do you all play it? For me, it depends on who and how many are in the pot, but in general, on something like a king high board where most turn cards aren't too threatening I may take a bet/fold line whereas on a ten high or a wet board texture I'm more likely to just check/fold since it's hard to get very good run outs. Of course if it checks through I'll take a stab on harmless looking turn cards.

Skillwise maybe, but it plays very different from online microstakes in my experience.

yeah this. the players are bad, but the games play a lot differently.

hands like ATo KJo QJo need to be folded as well as hands like 87s. Its fine to open these hands at 6m, but at a 9 handed table you end up OOP way too much with a hand that plays really poorly oop.

yeah, I've probably been opening a bit too light. Should have been folding KJo/ATo/ maybe even AJo from early position.

I rarely open limp in a live game game TBH. In early positions i'm folding 22-55 and opening 66. The problem with open limping is that you're cutting down on your ability to win the hand UI and you're not stacking people very often in a limped pot anyway especially if people start catching on. Also people will be playing more hands that make random straights and flushes and that somewhat cuts down on your implied odds.

For 1bb where a lot of ppl are sitting 150bb+, I don't even think you need to stack people that often to make it worth it. You just need to get some decent value the times you hit, and you will still likely stack people more often than you get stacked. And like GC said, when someone does raise, it's usually a reasonably strong hand and you still usually get a few other callers, making a bloated multiway pot in which flopping a set has real nice implied odds.

Lots of other good advice on the thread. Someone mentioned playing TPNK from the blinds and no one addressed that. How do you all play it? For me, it depends on who and how many are in the pot, but in general, on something like a king high board where most turn cards aren't too threatening I may take a bet/fold line whereas on a ten high or a wet board texture I'm more likely to just check/fold since it's hard to get very good run outs. Of course if it checks through I'll take a stab on harmless looking turn cards.

yeah, but looking back I did make the question seem like a retarded "how to I play poker?" question - obviously it depends on the players in the pot and your reads on them. But I was just sort of asking what a default/standard line would be assuming no great reads. I usually just check/fold the flop with middle pair and re-evaluate the turn if it checks through, since playing check/guess oop is tough, but playing TP like that just seems dirty.

Don't fire too many c bets with complete air even on good board like Kxxr. People just do not fold enough its there biggest leak and by firing c bets with air your exploiting yourself. One and done would be burning money so you would have to fire multiple barrells which imo is never a good idea vs people who dont fold. Honestly you might think oh well i wont get action when i c bet my value hands, trust me i though that too, its not true.
One of my first sessions live i played super tight and i honestly didnt open a hand for 1 and a half hours. I didnt limp any hands either because i read it was fishy (total bs btw) a girl a the table actually called me out asking if i was just going to sit and wait for AA all night. 10 hands later i got AA in late position, MP+1 opened MP+2 called. I debated wether to 3 bet or call, i wasnt experianced live and was affraied of played a bloated MW pot so i 3 bet to keep things simple. To my suprise the girl who called me out cold 4 bet jammed, MP+1 snap called and obviously i called too, she showed AQ off and MP+1 showed 88.

+1 to having a low cb %. And when you do cb, you should do so with hands that you can barrel if need be. They call too much so that is exploited by betting a wide range for value, not by bluffing generally.

I play 100nl online but I've put in a ton of volume at live 200nl in Vegas where I live. Basically just bet for value, that's all there is to it.

The leaks you see out of the other players are obvious. Some are nits, some are stations, etc.

There's not too many tough spots, and if you run into a tough spot it's usually a cooler. Chances are if you win online and you're losing live you just haven't put in enough volume.

+1 to having a low cb %. And when you do cb, you should do so with hands that you can barrel if need be. They call too much so that is exploited by betting a wide range for value, not by bluffing generally.

my cbet % goes way up live. Mostly due to the fact that people don't attack cbets very often.

My cbet % goes way up too and I think it should. People are generally calling opens with all kinds of weird hands to "try and hit a flop". Most of the time they don't and a cbet will take it down. I also generally vary my cbet size depending on my hand strength and the tendencies of the people who still have cards. Is this unbalanced? Absolutely! Does anyone pay attention? Nope

I guess I should clarify that my cb % is still pretty high if it's 2 or 3 handed. However, as often is the case, 4+ people see the flop a fair amount of the time. I think cbetting into this many people is not smart.