Every now and then, I play in a game where someone decides the blinds for the table are too low - and so every hand they play, they raise the blinds.  It's usually no more than 3x bb, so it's not the most intimidating raise, but it can get rather annoying.  So, the question is, what do you do?

I was faced with such a situation tonight, and after a short while found myself up $20 at a NL50 table.  I was dominating the table, and it seemed as though everyone recognized it - everyone had left the table!  Anyways, here was my thought process through the short time I was at the table, and how I determined the best way to succeed.

I had to sit down for two hands before I posted my big blind, so I was able to see the raiser min-raise preflop twice - normally not something to think much about (other than the fact that he was min-raising preflop), but when I saw him flip over 54 on one of the hands I had a feeling I would be playing NL100 with a $50 stack.  I needed more information, though - so I folded the first couple hands I was dealt (some of which I would normally play) in order to see exactly what villain (who acted right after me) was doing.

Sure enough, villain continued to min-raise preflop each hand, and on each flop he would either follow up with a min-bet or a decent sized bet/raise, between 1/2 and the full size of the pot.  While I was never able to see a showdown when villain was betting half pot or more, I did see a number of mediocre holdings (and folds to raises) when villain min-bet.  And so it seemed a min-bet postflop meant crap, while a bigger bet meant he caught a decent piece of the pot.

Armed with a solid (and quite easy) read of villain, I started off playing the standard array of hands I would normally play - mid-high connectors, and any two cards 9 or over.  Simply limp-calling preflop, I would check the flop to villain, and depending on his bet, I had a rather easy decision of raise/fold to make.  The rest of the players at the table generally made a raise before me if they held something, so I didn't have to worry about one of them slowplaying.  This often resulted in a number of artificially inflated pots, as there was often 2 blinds from 3 or 4 players each preflop, and then one or two blinds from post-flop betting!

It got better from there, though.  Soon after, I realized I could limp-raise preflop as well.  At first, it was simply to protect hands such as JJ - I would let villain limp, grab a couple extra blinds, and raise to 8-10xbb.  Soon, though, I included any given hand I was dealt, at random intervals - This resulted in taking decent sized pots with hands such as J2s!

Okay, so what can be learned from my experience?

1) Reads become much more important than in a regular game.  Think of your cash game as the mid stages of a SnG.  You don't want to needlessly risk chips on hands which are gambles - you only want to get your chips in when you know you have a big advantage.

2) If you act behind this type of player, trapping becomes an essential part of your arsenal.  Everyone expects villain to raise, and they know he will have nothing - so they will call his preflop raises with anything half-decent, and then you can take the hand down with a large reraise.

3) If you act in front of a player like this, the rules change a little bit.  You no longer have position on the rest of the table, trapping is not an option - you need to essentially play a tighter game, and rely more on your cards.  While I was able to make ridiculous plays at my table, I wouldn't have been able to do them if I hadn't seen the rest of my table act.