Different Mentality

I’ve been getting a little frustrated with $3/$6 lately and so I decided to play a couple of $5/$10 tables last night. I ended up playing at three different Paradise $5/$10 tables (1 broke up after a couple of hours) and I made a nice chunk of change. For me the glaring difference between $3/$6 and $5/$10 was:

1. There’s zero chat at the $5/$10 tables. At $3/$6 (and lower limits) it’s like a talk radio program. Everybody is asking where you’re from, what’s your favorite sports team, etc. At $5/$10, you’re lucky to get a
“thank you” (or “tx”) from someone after you message “nice hand” when they land quads.

2. Players finally tighten up! . . . a bit. I’ve noticed only the smallest difference between $2/$4 and $3/$6 in terms of how tight people play. The VP$IP might go from 35% to 30% but you don’t see a lot of rocks at those limits. At $5/$10 you rarely see more than two people at the showdown. In fact, if there’s a raise pre-flop you’re lucky to see three people in the hand.

3. The hands play a lot, lot faster. Of course, there are less people in each hand at $5/$10 but they aren’t chatting with each other either which makes the hand go faster. There’s nothing more frustrating than waiting for some jackass to type in four paragraphs of chat before he mucks his hand pre-flop.

4. There’s (minimal) respect for raises. At lower limits there’s almost zero respect for a pre-flop raise from EP. Guys are calling with 72o to a raise and if they catch of 7 on a flop of K97 they’re calling raises post-flop too. Not so much at $5/$10. Perhaps it’s losing too much money doing something that stupid that stops them. Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not one of those people who bitches and moans that my raise didn’t drive out JTo. I know JTo isn’t going to fold and if he catches a second jack or a ten to beat me . . . that’s poker. I’m talking about people who will play any two cards for any raise. Not so much at $5/$10.

5. Reading players is much easier when they play with some sort of method to thier madness. I once watched a hand where Daniel Negreanu sat there and thought outloud. An ace came on the river and he said to his opponent (I’m paraphrasing), “You would have raised with AT or higher pre-flop and I don’t think you would have played A7 or A8 or lower so I’m thinking you have A9 but I’ll pay to see it.” And damn if his opponent didn’t have A9. I deduced my opponent’s hands with far great accuracy at $5/$10 than I am usually able to do in any other game other than tournaments and NL games. There’s some logic to how people play for real money that doesn’t carry over into low limits. You can at least put people on draws and who just hit a set/straight/flush with pretty good confidence.

So is my point here to say how great $5/$10 is over lower limits? Nope. Just pointing out some differences. I know a lot of micro-limits folks frustrated by 72o suckouts will think many of the things above will mean that these higher limit games are easier but that’s not what I’m saying. It’s like saying you don’t want the Lakers to beat you anymore so you’re going to play golf. These are simply two different games and my observations. Follow them at your own risk. :-)

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