Live games: limpers, straddles and bigger raises

Live cash games play differently from online ones. Players see fewer hands an hour, call more, limp more and fold less before the flop. Stacks are often deep. The sizes that work online get too many callers live, so everything gets bigger.

A limper calls the big blind instead of raising, and in a live game there are often one or two before the action reaches you. Limpers usually hold weaker hands, since most strong hands would have raised. You have three choices.

• Iso-raise: raise to get heads-up with the limper, ideally in position. Do this with strong hands.
• Over-limp, or limp behind: call as well, with hands that like a cheap flop against several players, such as small pairs and suited hands. From the small blind this is called completing.
• Fold: everything else.

Each limper puts another big blind in the pot and is another player who might call, so an iso-raise grows with each one.

Online, PokerIQ’s opens stay at 2.5 bb, or 3 bb from the small blind, and an iso-raise adds 1 bb per limper.

A straddle is an optional extra blind, usually twice the big blind, posted before the cards are dealt by the player under the gun. It works as a third blind. The action starts with the player to the straddler’s left, and the straddler acts last before the flop, with the option to raise if everyone just calls.

A straddle doubles the stakes for that hand. Every raise is measured from it, and every stack is half as deep. With £200 in a £1/£2 game and a £4 straddle, you are 100 bb deep but only 50 straddles deep, and should play like it.

It also shifts the seats. With a third blind in, each seat has one more forced bet behind it, so it plays the range of the seat one place earlier: under the gun +1 opens like under the gun, and the button like the cutoff.

Deep stacks and players who won’t fold top pair make live games the natural home of set-mining: calling a raise with a small pocket pair to hit a set and win a big pot.

The catch is how rarely it hits. You flop a set or better 11.8% of the time, about 1 in 8.5, so most of the time you will fold on the flop. Set-mining only pays when you can win a lot when you hit, compared with the call. A common guide is 15 to 20 times the call behind.

Tip: Count what villain has behind, not just you. If they only have 30 bb, that is the most your set can win from them.

Card rooms charge in one of two ways. The drop is rake taken from each pot, usually a percentage up to a cap, often with no flop, no drop. A time charge is a fee for your seat, for example every half hour, and takes nothing from the pot.

The drop raises the equity every call needs. A time charge doesn’t change the maths of a hand at all, though it still comes off your results.

Tick Live game in the Analyser’s game setup to use live sizes and limpers by default, and Straddle from the first seat, at a table of four or more, for 2 to 5 bb. Choose Limped in as villain’s line and set your seat: the recommendation then follows your style’s plan against limpers, rule R12, and the set-mining rule, R11, for pairs from 22 to 66.

For the rake, choose My card room’s rake and enter its percentage and cap, or No rake (time charge). The Ranges page shows the iso-raise plans and the straddled opens under Live full ring.

Tip: Most card rooms don’t allow devices to be used during a hand. Enter your hands after the session and study them then.

LimpIso-raiseOver-limpSmall blindLive sizesStraddleUnder the gunEffective stackSet-miningPocket pairSet and tripsImplied oddsTop pairDropTime chargeRakeFull ringRules R1 to R12Line