Playing Loose Limit Texas Hold'em Games

If you are a limit Texas Holdem player, one of the situations you will probably encounter is one where you are sitting at a very loose table. What does it mean to be sitting in a loose poker game, and how should this affect your play? Read on to find out.

Most people who consider themselves strong poker players think a loose table, where many players are putting in chips on every hand, is a dream. Players often rate how "good" a game is by how many loose players are sitting in it. Fortunately, due to the popularity of poker, there are many loose games to be found. Online poker players are notoriously loose, as it is even harder to conceptualize digital chips as real money than it is real ones. Plenty of casinos are filled with loose players who learned poker by watching Gus Hansen on television. Unfortunately, most of the players eager to find these games do not know how to handle loose games as well as they should.

In reality, the best type of game for the strong poker player is one with a mix of loose and tight players, and it is more important that the players be predictable than that they adhere to a certain type of style. Players who consider themselves strong and see a game where players are going to the river with J 5 unsuited on a board of A K 5 K Q likely begin licking their chops right away. However, when this "strong" player is betting his 9 9 and continues to bet all the way on a board of 2 4 5 6 8 and loses to 8 4 suited, he quickly becomes frustrated. The problem with very loose limit games is you often find many players seeing the hand all the way to the river, and if the best hand pre flop does not improve, it is very likely that it will be run down.

So how do you handle this situation? You must remain tight and disciplined at all times, and try to avoid making mistakes. You should play only the very premium hands. This means you will be throwing away a lot of playable hands (in fact, you will see your opponents win big pots with much worse hands). You will wait patiently for many hands to get something big, and on more than one occasion, that big hand will lose. You must not let this cause you to lose focus. When you have a big hand, you must bet it aggressively until it is clear you are beaten. When you don't, you must fold.

As a part of your limit Texas Holdem strategy, you must also be able to fold a big hand if you are beaten, even if you have been waiting a long time for it. If you raise before the flop with Ah As and get called in three places, the flop comes 8h 3h 9c, you bet and everyone calls, and the turn is the 6h, you bet, are raised, and someone else calls, I'm sorry, but your hand is no good. Someone could be bluff representing (see bluffing) the flush but in a loose game, with a raise and a call, it is far more likely that one of those players is going to show you 4h 7h and take the pot. Your value in these games comes from the fact that when you have a great hand, everyone is going to pay you off. When they do, if you have been tight and disciplined, you will come out ahead.