Something strange is happening to middle limit poker. Players have stopped respecting raises.

Some players have always been happy to call with inadequate values, but it has not become an epidemic. In Las Vegas, where 30-60 and 40-80 games used to be at least fairly tight, now five players in a ten-handed game is no longer cause for comment. Last week, all ten of us were in for three bets pre-flop! And it wasn’t a case of being trapped…it was raise under the gun, reraise but the next player, all call).

Once in a while, a few years ago, a player would call a raise with KQ and we would realize he wasn’t very good. Now K9o and 10-8o seem like fine hands for calling early raises to several players.

I do not know why, but I have at least a theory. Poker is a pendulum game, and players respond to what they see. If nobody is calling early raises, players will start making them with weaker hands. Opponents notice and start calling and reraising with weaker hands as well. Sooner or later, the weak early raisers figure out that they are not scaring anyone and go back to sound raises. Now calling starts to fall back (maybe).

I also suspect Internet poker has had a hand in this, as has the predominance of six-handed on-line play. Players are not making adjustments for tight raisers.

I don’t mind this, since I am still a tight raiser in early position and getting called by bad hands. While it increases my volatility, also increases my long-term earn since I have way the best of it. And, while I do liberally call and reraise bad players who raise in later positions, I am still a bit more careful about early raises. Maybe too much so on occasion.

Another oddity happened at the table recently…I had never seen this situation before. Four players (I am not in the hand) check the turn of TT64. A 9 hits on the river, and the first player checks. The next player bets and gets two callers. Now the first player folds.

The bettor turns over pocket threes. They win! The next caller had pocket deuces and the over caller had AK (what was he thinking?). The folder now complains that she held a 4 and folded the best hand. She is wondering how she could have made the second overcall. (She can’t, of course).

Notice that the 33 guy could not have won any other way. And he won the max. Anyway, for those who think 30-60 play is good these days, here is yet another example.

Which reminds me, I read sometimes that limit hold’em is dying, and that all the players (and certainly all of the bad ones) are rushing to no limit. Nothing could be further from the truth. The middle limit games are softer now than ever, and it’s not even close how much better they are than 5 years ago when there was no poker boom and no NL at all in Las Vegas.