By John Vorhaus

The low buy in no limit hold’em cash games of Southern California and elsewhere have become a happy hunting ground for aggressive players who have noticed and noted a certain flaw in their foes. I’m talking about the tendency to play too loose before the flop and too tight afterwards. If you fall victim to this tendency, you’re giving your money away. If you know how to spot it and exploit it, you can absolutely crush these games.

Here’s how it works. A player looks down at a hand like Q-9 suited and figures that if a couple of people limp in front of him, he’ll limp, too. Well, a couple of people do limp, but then someone puts in a modest raise. He still has the same Q-9 suited — it was a folding hand to begin with and it’s definitely a folding hand now — but since he’s loose, and since he had already decided to call an unraised bet, he goes ahead and calls the raised one just the same. This is the preflop loose part of the equation.

Now here comes a crucial fact of hold’em math: 2/3 of the time, the flop does not pair any two unpaired cards. In other words, 2/3 of the time, our preflop loosey will be looking at a flop that missed him completely. Yes, he might have a straight draw and yes, he might have a flush draw, but these are rare circumstances. Most of the time, he whiffs. Most of the time, then, his preflop looseness has been rewarded by a board that offers him no joy.

As it happens, the preflop raiser knows this bit of math. He knows that most of the time his foe missed the flop. He also knows that since he raised preflop, he’ll be credited with having some kind of hand. Therefore, if the flop comes high, with aces or kings, he’ll bet it, because of course he raised preflop with an ace or a king. If the flop comes low, he’ll bet it because of course he raised preflop with a big pocket pair and now dominates. If the flop comes orphan (9-9-2 offsuit, say), he’ll bet it because of course he didn’t hit that flop, but no one else did either, and being preflop loose/postflop tight, they have no stomach for a fight.

Interestingly, about the only flop the savvy aggressive player doesn’t bet is a “high-middle” flop — one rich in tens, jacks, queens — because he knows that these are the sort of cards that preflop loose players get involved with. In other words, the only hand our loosey can win is the one that his aggressive opponent won’t bet!

What usually happens, then, is that the aggressive player bets, and his foe folds. This is the postflop tight part of the equation, and look how good our loose player feels about his play. In his mind, he took a flier on a hand preflop and then “wisely” got away from the hand when he was beaten. That flier, and hundreds like it, will eventually cost him his stack. He’s pecking himself to death, with the aid of the strong, smart player who knows how to help him bleed.

So keep an eye peeled for this sort of preflop loose/postflop tight player. Find him and crush him. He presents a marvelous profit opportunity for you.

John Vorhaus is author of the KILLER POKER book series and News Ambassador for UltimateBet.com. You can find him online at vorza.com.

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