From earlier:
Lowball, like any other variant of poker, is a game of plays. Old-timers know all the plays; newcomers often learn the plays painfully by experience. I can save those of you just starting out in the game a little trouble by describing certain plays that come up regularly, though maybe not often enough for newbies to know how to react.
Let's watch a few pots. You do keep track of what players do in various situations, right?
Loose Jerry limps, Solid Sam calls, and Tight Old Tom raises. No one else comes in. Jerry draws two cards, Solid Sam draws one, and Tom stands pat. Jerry bets, Solid Sam raises, Tight Old Tom calls, and Jerry calls. At the showdown, Jerry has 8-7-3-2-A, Solid Sam has a 6-4, and Tight Old Tom has 6-5-3-2-A. You have now pegged Jerry. He's very loose – and probably clueless. And you're thinking that Tight Old Tom seems to have cleverly escaped losing two more bets with his third-best hand – or does he just live up to his name?
Later, Solid Sam raise-opens, the next player calls, and so does Tight Old Tom. Sam is pat, the first caller takes one card, and so does Tight Old Tom. Sam bets, the next player folds, and Tight Old Tom calls. Sam has a 7-4, and Tight Old Tom takes the pot with his 6-5-4-2-A.
A bit later, Solid Sam and Tight Old Tom have another confrontation. On Sam's big blind, Tom comes in for a raise. No one else comes in, and Sam raises. Tom calls. Sam stands pat, and Tom is pat right behind him. Sam bets, and Tom calls. Sam has a straight 7 (7-6-5-4-3) and Tom has 7-6-3-2-A. Sam looks disgusted, but says nothing. You're thinking that if you'd had Tom's hand, you'd've gotten at least two more bets in before the draw.
You now have pegged Tight Old Tom: He doesn't raise before the draw with an excellent drawing hand, he's not willing to put in a lot of action before the draw on a pat 7, and he doesn't raise after the draw with a hand that has a small chance of being beat. Or you think you have him pegged.
A few hands later, three players limp in, and Tight Old Tom limps along. Speedy Sue, someone you have observed to be an action player, raises from the big blind. Everyone calls. Sue draws one card, the others draw one each, and Tight Old Tom draws two. Aha. Now you've got it. Tight Old Tom's calling requirements may sometimes be liberal, but his betting requirements are tight.
Pay attention on this next pot. It's a situation that comes up frequently in lowball with players like Tight Old Tom. Play it wrong, and you'll lose several bets. Play it right, and you might win a good pot. You will at least save some money, and remember, money not lost spends just as well as money won.
OK, in this pot, Loose Jerry limps in from under the gun. Tight Old Tom calls. Another player calls. You have a pat 8-4 on the button, and, naturally, raise. The blinds fold, Jerry calls, and Tight Old Tom raises. The other player folds, muttering something like, "I'm not putting in another two bets to draw to a rough 8." What's going on here? Well, it should be pretty clear.
Tight Old Tom hardly ever raises on the come, and certainly not out of position. He doesn't put in much action on a pat 7, so his hand cannot be worse than yours. What's left? As Sherlock Holmes told Watson in The Sign of the Four, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." Yes, the odds against a particular player having a pat 6 or better are about 286-to-1, but a pat 6 or better is all that's possible here. A poor player, even someone who has been playing lowball for years, misplays the 8-4 in this situation most of the time. The action has now returned to you. Some players might reraise in this spot. If you do, you'll be sorry. If Tom has a good 6 or better, he will reraise. If he has a rough 6, he will just call, which will further encourage you to make a big mistake, and that is to stand pat on your 8-4.
What you must do here is just call that reraise. Loose Jerry will call, also. When it comes time to draw cards, it will go this way: Loose Jerry will probably draw two cards. Tight Old Tom will stand pat. Then, it will be your turn. If you have been paying attention and do this correctly, you will, without hesitation, toss the 8 and draw to your wheel. If you're lucky, you will catch a 5 or a 6. If you're unlucky, you will catch a higher card.
After the draw, if Jerry bets, Tom will raise; if Jerry checks, Tom will bet. If you catch an 8 or higher, you should dump the hand. Many poor players would at this point call, figuring they had to see Tom's hand "for the size of the pot." Why bother? Tight Old Tom didn't suddenly change his modus operandi for this one hand. If you catch a 7, you can torture yourself and call to see if Tom just this once slow-played a 7, but you shouldn't be surprised to see that he didn't. He might play a 7-5 this way, but probably not. A player like Tight Old Tom gets tricky only with very good hands.
If you're real lucky and catch a 5 or 6, of course, you raise. If Tight Old Tom has a wheel, he will reraise. With any other hand, he will just call – and, yes, he will call (as opposed to throwing it away) with any 6. He will not reraise, even with a 6-4. Why not? Well, where do you think he got the name Tight Old Tom?
If your hand was an 8-7, by the way, you could probably safely throw it away for the one extra bet. You'd be getting 14-to-1 for your call. That includes Jerry's three bets, Tom's three, your two, plus the blinds, and then an extra implied four small bets. That is, at the double limit, Tom would bet after the draw and you would raise. But the odds against beating a pat 6 with a two-card draw are about 24-to-1; 14-to-1 is far short of what you should be getting. Some players, even those who are aware of how Tight Old Tom plays, would call, and, when Tom stood pat, throw the 8 to draw one card to the 7. When he bet after the draw, they would call if they made the 7, and lose with the hand. They'd show down a hand like 7-4 and say something like, "I knew better than to raise him with a 7-4." Maybe, but they apparently didn't know enough to save three small bets by not calling the reraise in the first place.
They might also utter that line you should love to hear in a poker game: "I made a 7; I hadda call."
When the hand is over and Tom wins, which should happen about 90 percent of the time when this particular situation comes up, he seems proud of himself for trapping extra bets in this pot. In reality, though, he cost himself money, and he'll probably never know it. If he had played his hand straightforwardly, by raising Jerry's limp open, you might well have put in the third bet with your 8-4. Jerry would have called two more bets. Tom then could have put in one more bet, and you and Jerry would have called both of those bets. Jerry would still draw his two cards, Tom would stand pat, and you might well stand behind him. This would guarantee him a call after the draw, and, furthermore, lower the risk of you breaking the 8 to draw against him. By slow-playing the hand, the pot contains 11 bets before the draw (including the blinds); by raising, though, it contains 14. Now, had your hand been a smooth 7, he would have won a pot containing at least four more bets than that, since you would have raised again, and then called his reraise.
His slow play alerted you to the likelihood of his having a big hand. Not only did that slow you down before the draw, it also caused you to break an 8 – a play you might not otherwise have made had he not telegraphed his hand.
Watch for this situation. You'll see it from time to time, particularly in a double-limit Southern California-type game. You'll see it less often in a single-limit Northern California-type game, but you will still see it sometimes. When the hand is over, and no one fell into the slow-player's "trap," sometimes the loser of the pot says, "I'm glad you didn't raise before the draw; I was drawing pretty good." The slow-player then says, "I didn't want to raise just one player." Or, even worse for the slow-player, the opener has something like a pat 6 himself and might have gone five or six bets. Many lowball players use this reasoning (not raising just one player), and so you have to watch out for them when they have just called the opener, particularly if they and the opener are both in early positions. Sometimes players do this with a 7 or even an 8, so you have to know who is likely to do what. But the Tight Old Toms are legion in lowball, particularly in Southern California. They don't deserve any action, and they won't get yours if you pay attention and are aware of this play.
And, tangentially, when you cleverly dump that 8 from your hand to draw for the wheel, do not succumb to the temptation of showing how "smart" you are, as do many longtime lowball players, by turning the 8 faceup. And don't agonize over your decision, or everyone will know you're breaking a pat hand as opposed to having been drawing all along. There are several reasons for this. One is that you never want to give the other players information they're not entitled to. Another is that you don't want players to know you're capable of breaking an 8. This might inspire someone to take a shot against you. The ideal opponent for you is someone who, when he has a pat hand, calls your raise and stands pat, and checks and calls after the draw with any hand worse than yours, but reraises with any hand better. But if you've shown that you're capable of breaking an 8, such a player might get stubborn sometime with a worse hand than yours and reraise, hoping that when he stands pat ahead of you, you will break your hand. This would be a disaster, of course, causing you to lose three bets instead of winning six (including the blinds and the double bet after the draw) whenever you miss your draw. That's a difference of nine bets, a lot when you consider that top pros hope to win two small bets an hour. So, think fast: Discard quickly and be careful not to expose your discard, and others will automatically assume that you were drawing all the time and classify you as an action player, a reputation you'd much rather have than that of a Tight Old Tom.
Be very sure you know what you're doing, of course. Don't react so quickly that you make a mistake and break the best hand. But if you're as observant as I suggested, you'll know the right thing to do in this situation.