Crush 8 Game Poker: 3 Tips for 8-Game Domination
Playing your regular game day in and day out gets boring. I know—I’ve been grinding Holdem for years. If you’re a brick and mortar player confined to the casinos, this kind of boredom can lead to ruin. The only outlets a lot of casino players have are the craps games or the roulette tables, and we all know how those diversions end. Luckily for us online folk, there are profitable ways to let off some steam—like 8 Game Poker. This 8-Game Poker strategy guide will teach you how to crush the competition. 8-Game Poker is available exclusively at Pokerstars in 2012. Read this Poker Stars review to learn about the three 100% match bonuses.
Since most players specialize in one or two games only, most have no idea how to play the rest of ‘em. Exploiting this fact will pretty much be your key to winning at an 8 Game table. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be an expert player in all 8 games—far from it. It just means you’ve got to recognize where other players suck, and learn to exploit the hell out of them there. Here are some tips on how to get an edge in 8 Game Poker:
8 Game Poker Tip #1: Abuse Full-Ring Nits
8 Game Poker is a 6-max game. A lot of Limit poker players shy away from 6-max games in general, and as such have no idea how to play them. Use this to your advantage.
Preflop hand values go up in 6-max games. This means you can profitably play a pretty wide variety of hands. This is especially true if you’re up against a bunch of players who’ve no clue as to how 6-max works. Open up your range and play better postflop poker than your opponents, and you’ll see your winrate skyrocket.
Pay attention to how your opponents utilize aggression. If you notice somebody limping in NL Holdem or PL Omaha, you can be pretty sure they are naÔve as to the dynamics of those games. NL Holdem and PL Omaha are both games of aggression; limping, obviously, is a really bad use of aggression, especially in a 6-max game. Thus spot players who limp and absolutely punish them for it, even with marginal hands. It will pay off.
8 Game Poker Tip #2: Bet On Your Opponent’s Mistakes
As stated earlier, you don’t need to be an expert in all 8 of the 8 Game Poker games. You just need to have a basic working knowledge of how they operate. And this is more a matter of knowing general poker fundamentals than anything. Even if you’re a NL Holdem player, you could probably recognize blatant mistakes in a game of Razz right away—even if you don’t know winning Razz strategy.
Look for spots where your opponents make really obvious mistakes, and use them to your advantage. If an opponent is pushing a 9-high on fifth street in Razz, for example, that’s a huge mistake. If you’ve got any 4 cards lower than a 9, you’re actually ahead. You can afford to absolutely punish this player, even though you don’t necessarily have a made hand. The odds are in your favor to hit your low draw, and that’s a matter of knowing odds, not Razz. Look for other player’s terrible moves and use them to sway the odds in your favor.
8 Game Poker Tip #3: If You’re Useless, Don’t Get Involved!
This is frank but sound advice. If you know that you really suck at a particular game, just don’t bother playing it when it comes around. Sure, you’ll be giving up a bit of profit; but not as much as you’d give up donating stacks with terrible play.
Socrates was a really smart dude. I think he played poker too, but don’t quote me on that. He must have been sitting at an 8 Game Poker table when he said: “Know thyself”. It’s sage advice. By simply identifying situations where you’re an overall loser, and then avoiding those situations, you can save (win) a lot of money. And that’s what 8 Game Poker is all about.
