Essential Skills for Limit Hold’em Success

In this installment we will direct ourselves to the necessary skills required to excel at limit hold’em. Before we get to skills, let’s talk to a mindset that captures successful limit play. That mind set is the ability to be patient. Many winning players simply exercise the patience to wait for hands that they know have positive expectation and then play them aggressively. In a nutshell this strategy describes the selective, aggressive mantra that has been espoused by Sklansky, Malmuth, Caro and most all the other limit hold’em pundits of the last several decades. It has proven to be the backbone of a successful limit player’s strategy. The reason this approach is so successful is simple … the vast majority of the poker playing public are long term losers and do not have the discipline or knowledge to beat the game. If you have the patience to wait for hands that should have the best of it against weak players who struggle to release losing hands, you will make money at limit hold’em.

While this simplistic strategy alone will garner success in most low limit games, as you progress up in stakes, so does the understanding and cunning of your opposition. Even if you do not plan on moving up the “Stakes Ladder” you will need more than patience to be a long term winner. Many cardrooms use the must move concept to protect a game from breaking. For those not familiar with this concept, all it means is that once a second table of the same stake game is started, the floor man keeps a record of the names of the players and when they started so that if an opening occurs in the main game, one of these players must move to that game. What begins to occur is that the players in the main game, through survival of the fittest, become the cream of the crop. The main game is the toughest game at that stake level. What that also means is that you will not be able to beat those players by sitting like a “nit” and waiting for big hands. They will eat you alive and the floor man will have to call another player from the must move game. So let’s move on to a listing of key limit skills and how they are necessary in order to increase your bankroll.

Limit Hold’em Skills

Whether or not “skills” is the correct word to use could be in question. I spent some time above addressing patience and what a critical element that is to winning play. If you regard patience as a skill then it should be number one on the list. As we go through the following list you will see that some of what I refer to as skills are rooted in patience. So, with no further splitting of semantic hairs let’s review the required skills for playing limit hold’em.

Tight Play

This is by far the most successful skill to beat low limit games. If you only play hands that figure to be the best against opponents who play too many mediocre hands, it just makes sense that you will win the money. This critical skill is the foundation upon which other skills need to be added to make you a formidable player.

Mucking Losing Hands Early

This is the natural follow up to playing tight. Poker is a game of relative values. It doesn’t matter how good your hand is, it only matters if it is better than your opponent’s. Have you ever seen a player who was unable to fold his pocket Kings show down his hand against a flopped Ace looking for sympathy? This ability to get away from losing hands reminds me of a line from Rounders when Mike explains to Worm that, “I can’t lose money that I don’t put in the middle.” Sound advice – fold early! A chip saved spends just as well as a chip won.

Seeing Common Traps For What They Are

One might think this is very similar to the previous skill and many of these skills do have some commonality. Let me share an example of a common trap set by an aggressive player who raises preflop and gets a couple of callers. After the flop a very common occurrence is “checking to the raiser.” When that aggressive player now checks … what does that mean? To me it raises a major red flag. If you know he is aggressive and everyone checked, why would he not make a continuation bet hoping to pick up the pot right then and there? I believe the answer is that he caught so much of the flop and feels he is so far ahead that he doesn’t need to protect his hand but is hoping for someone to catch up slightly and lose more money. It amazes me how well this ploy works against weaker, more naïve players. Avoiding traps is a key skill that will serve you well. Always try and understand the reasoning behind an opponent’s actions.

Hand Reading

This is a skill that is essential to beat any form of poker except at the lowest level soft games where, if you wish to be a nit, you can still be successful. Have you ever witnessed a player seem to be able to “read” the backs of the cards and announce another player’s hand with seemingly total accuracy? How does he do it? It’s easy … let me rephrase that and say the answer as to how it is done is easy, the process is difficult. Becoming a good hand reader is rooted in paying careful attention, accumulating information about player tendencies, filing away that information as well as being able to retrieve it, reviewing the betting, understanding your opponents’ moods and position and presto, you will know his exact holding. Sounds simple enough don’t you think? If you’re just starting out you need to realize what thought process goes into the analyzing of an opponent’s holding and keep working at it. If you do your homework and pay attention, you will become proficient to the point of amazing yourself. Accurate hand reading is possibly the most difficult skill to master but it will pay the greatest dividends so the effort it requires is time well spent.

Identifying Situations

Good cards come and good cards go and hide but in the long run the distribution evens out. If your entire strategy consists of waiting for good cards and then pouncing, it will be a tough road to show a long term profit. While good cards come and go, situations present themselves all the time. One regularly occurring situation is the realization that often the flop doesn’t hit anyone. This knowledge is wasted on the faint of heart as they are paralyzed with fear and won’t take shots. Next time you see a scare card hit the board, don’t be scared, realize how scared your opponent might be and bet. Always be on the lookout for situations that can be exploited.

Playing the Players versus Your Cards

I think it was Doyle Brunson who said that he could beat a weak game without even looking at his cards, as long as no one realized he was playing blind, just by studying his opponents. Well, that’s a pretty strong statement but I don’t doubt that it is true. Observant players who have identified a weak, predictable player will often try and get them alone through isolation plays. Then they can exploit the observed weakness of that player whether it’s calling too often with weak holdings, folding too often to aggression, or bluffing too much on the river. The astute player then can simply value bet, raise to cause his opponent to fold or check on the end to induce a bluff.

Inducing Calls and Bluffs

Since limit hold’em places such an emphasis on winning or saving single bets in order to make your hourly rate, good players are always thinking about how to extract the maximum value each time they are involved in a hand. The difference between a novice and an accomplished player, playing the same winning hand, is the difference in a mind set of “Raise, bet, bet” for the novice and a thought pattern of “How can I maximize my win for this hand” for the accomplished player. Many times pot size is a key element as when the pot is smaller, it is more critical to attempt to win extra bets. If the pot becomes large, there is less reason to take any risk of losing as the odds being offered your opponent make it correct for him to call your bets most of the time.

Another application of this skill is being aware of players behind you when you have a monster hand. Raising is not always the best play if you will clear out all of the players yet to call. Of course making decisions that can increase your win rate may carry with them greater risk of losing in your attempt to gain an extra bet. However done over the long term, these moves will show a profit.

The skills we’ve reviewed build upon one another and have some commonality. Honing these skills is rooted in observation and hard work but the results will be worth the effort. In order to make the “One big bet per hour” working wage of limit hold’em at the middle limits, one must absolutely commit himself to acquiring these skills. In the next lesson we’ll look at some advanced strategic concepts for each of the betting rounds.

Next Lesson: Limit Hold’em Strategic Concepts