Party Poker | Watch Your Opponents

Always make sure you’re paying attention to what’s going on at the poker table. The micro stakes cash ring games are an absolute treasure trove of money making opportunities if you’re alert and know what to look for.

I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about by using a hand that took place last night while I was playing on a $5 NLHE cash ring table at Party Poker.

I had already folded out of this hand, by the way.

Pre-flop betting had seen 2 limpers enter the pot before the button min. raised and everyone called including the small blind. At this table we’re talking microscopic stakes - .04 to limp, .08 constitutes a minimum raise.

Anyway, there are 4 in the pot and the flop lands A A K.

SB immediately plonks down .24 which is enough to chase the 2 limpers away. The button then doubles the bet to .48 and the SB folds. So far, so boring. Then the button shows the table his cards – pocket A A.

My interest was immediately piqued. The guy on the button had just made the dumbest raise in poker, won himself the minimum pot possible and then was stupid enough to show us what he’d done.

Watching him further I noticed he was entering a lot of pots, so I checked my PokerTracker stats and sure enough, he’d Voluntarily Put Money in the Pot (VP$IP) over 80% of the time, but raised pre-flop (PFR) only 5%.

Regular as clockwork this guy would limp into a hand and then bet big after the flop or turn, invariably chasing off his opponents. He was taking a lot of small pots and there was some serious daylight robbery going on. It was bound to end badly for him and it did when he ran into someone who flopped an Ace-high flush. This particular person was a little more savvy and simply called every one of our friend's extravagant bets before raising after the river. With any luck he didn’t learn from it and he’ll be back tonight. (They usually don’t learn).

The point I’m labouring to make is this. Watch what’s going on even when you’re not in a hand. At the micro cash tables there are a huge number of inexperienced players who play far too many hands and are going to set themselves up as easy targets in the long term. PokerTracker is very useful for highlighting these people but if you don’t have any poker software, keep a notebook open in front of you and make note of the number of hands people are playing.

I’ve said it before and it’s worth repeating, there are endless opportunities for making money at the micro stakes poker table. You just have to know what to look for, exercise some patience and then strike.