11 replies to this topic

[PocketAcesA5]

So I am playing a bit more live than online lately. I have been playing in this home game for a while and profit from it quite frequently. The only problem is, I feel that I could be profiting a ton from it. I may be missing spots to do so. It varys from 6-9 handed and runs unfortunately only once a week. It is .25 .50 and usually the buy in at the beginning of the night is $40. Some buy in for $20 but they usually go broke pretty fast and keep reloading. I have seen guys buy in for $20, 15 times. I have also seen people later on in the night buy in for a $100 [which is aloud usually about 4 hours into the game] and lose $1000 pretty fast. Usually the open raises start at about 6bb's and then an hour in become 10bb's just for an open raise and go 4 way. The average pot is probably $50, maybe higher. You can come into this game and play abc poker and walk out a winner unless you get coolered a few times. I usually go with about $300 which is 7 and a half buy ins. I never am usually stuck more than $200 at the very worst and most of the time just 2-3 buy ins. I bring that much money because of the swings of this game. I don't rebuy more than $40 each time just because it is easy to build from and allows me to play all sorts of styles. What would be ideal for a game like this to get maximum profit? You can't play too tight because you won't get much action so I have to play loose to start so I will get a lot of action later on. Some guys come in, play tight solid poker but then run jacks into aces and that's it for them. You have to play loose/passive in this game in my mind otherwise you will go broke and not have many chances to break even or profit, unless you're runing amazing and get hands. Usually you have to make hands in position. Most of the players in this game are just throwing paychecks at each other so you kind of have to just sit back and catch those paychecks. One more question. What are thoughts on running it just once, twice, three times, or four?

[FCP Bob]

PocketAcesA5, on Saturday, July 30th, 2011, 3:18 PM, said:

One more question. What are thoughts on running it just once, twice, three times, or four?

I'm only going to chime in on your last question.Your equity is the same whether you run it once or multiple times but running it more than once will decrease your variance which isn't a bad thing in a loose swingy game.This is a home game with loose players looking to gamble it up and have a good time. I would suggest doing whatever the donators to the game want, if they want to run it a couple times you should agree to keep them happy and if the action players hate wasting time and get annoyed when people want to run it multiple times then you shouldn't be the one pushing for it.One of the biggest skills when it comes to home games is keeping the bad players happy and making sure you get invited back to the game.

[KingJames]

As the preflop raises get larger, the stack-to-pot ratio goes down, so will your implied odds with small pairs and suited connectors. So play big pairs and big suited cards, flop some equity and get it in.

[KingJames]

I do think you should buy in for more than $40 when you can. Deeper stack allows you to be more creative etc. You need to pay attn to stack sizes and adjust your ranges accordingly. Big hands/cards vs shorter stacks and a wider range vs deeper villains Also loose/passive is almost never a winning strategy. You might be best served trying to see some flops so people don't think you're a huge nit but unless they are super aggressive passivity is prob not the best strat.

[XXEddie]

I totally disagree with your 'you can't play tight' statement. If the normal raise is 8x-10x most people won't even be paying attention to how tight you are playing. Plus, even if they do, they won't care cause even though they 'know' you have Aces they are gonna call with T9s to try to outdraw you.Simple answer - Nit it up, wait for a hand with good equity, get it in. Never slowplay.

[PocketAcesA5]

FCP Bob, on Saturday, July 30th, 2011, 4:37 PM, said:

Your equity is the same whether you run it once or multiple times but running it more than once will decrease your variance which isn't a bad thing in a loose swingy game.This is a home game with loose players looking to gamble it up and have a good time. I would suggest doing whatever the donators to the game want, if they want to run it a couple times you should agree to keep them happy and if the action players hate wasting time and get annoyed when people want to run it multiple times then you shouldn't be the one pushing for it.One of the biggest skills when it comes to home games is keeping the bad players happy and making sure you get invited back to the game.

Ok, I usually run it more than once because of the variance and I usually let others decide in the 60/40's and 70/30s. Should I still let them run it more when I'm ahead 80-90%? I will always get invited regardless because this game wouldn't exist without me introducing everyone together when it started. That won't be a factor. I guess in the end running in more times in this type of game is the best thing to do.

[PocketAcesA5]

KingJames, on Saturday, July 30th, 2011, 5:23 PM, said:

As the preflop raises get larger, the stack-to-pot ratio goes down, so will your implied odds with small pairs and suited connectors. So play big pairs and big suited cards, flop some equity and get it in.

So here's my question. With the small pairs and suited connectors, you can push people off of their hands maybe about 50% of the time depending on the person and what not but they'll run it multiple times if you're in a flip scenario. Wouldn't you're implied odds go up in that case as long as you're in that situation with someone you know has a decent chance of folding or willing to run it multiple times?

[PocketAcesA5]

KingJames, on Saturday, July 30th, 2011, 7:20 PM, said:

I do think you should buy in for more than $40 when you can. Deeper stack allows you to be more creative etc. You need to pay attn to stack sizes and adjust your ranges accordingly. Big hands/cards vs shorter stacks and a wider range vs deeper villains Also loose/passive is almost never a winning strategy. You might be best served trying to see some flops so people don't think you're a huge nit but unless they are super aggressive passivity is prob not the best strat.

Yeah true, with the buy in amount. I guess my style for this game is not specific to one. It would have to change depending on the person in the hand.

[PocketAcesA5]

XXEddie, on Sunday, July 31st, 2011, 1:38 AM, said:

I totally disagree with your 'you can't play tight' statement. If the normal raise is 8x-10x most people won't even be paying attention to how tight you are playing. Plus, even if they do, they won't care cause even though they 'know' you have Aces they are gonna call with T9s to try to outdraw you.Simple answer - Nit it up, wait for a hand with good equity, get it in. Never slowplay.

You can play tight and you will profit from doing so, but you won't profit much. I see people come in all of the time and play tight then bust, maybe buy in again, bust and leave. They do pay attention to people, they're not completely stupid. i.e. They are capable of folding AQo pre flop sometimes. Like if you're dealt Jacks in the small blind in this game and there's a raise to $3 or $4 from .25 .50. You have to shove your stack depending on how much you have. If you make it $15 for example which is a decent re raise in LP in this game, you will get 4 callers on average. Then how the hell do you play it post flop? I'll stick to jacks for now but if you're dealt Jacks in this game you have to either set mine/slow play them until the flop at least or shove pre flop to profit long term in this game.

[KingJames]

PocketAcesA5, on Monday, August 1st, 2011, 8:40 AM, said:

So here's my question. With the small pairs and suited connectors, you can push people off of their hands maybe about 50% of the time depending on the person and what not but they'll run it multiple times if you're in a flip scenario. Wouldn't you're implied odds go up in that case as long as you're in that situation with someone you know has a decent chance of folding or willing to run it multiple times?

You're going to need to elaborate more here. I am unsure what you mean that "you can push them off their hands about 50% of the time...". Vs a villain who has a shorter stack, say $20-$40 in this game, I assume you won't be able to push them off of their hands very much at all. I suspect they will be getting it in with 99+ and AQ, AK and maybe some KQ and other suited broadway (espec AJs ATs) type hands. You will have some fold equity if you raise a wider range, including SC's and small pairs, and cbet when they miss with their wide range, but that is the case with almost any player and stack size.SC's and small pairs do very poorly vs that type of range. Vs a shorter stack (hopefully closer to $40 and not $20) SC's have almost no value bc it's hard to make a flush or straight. And small pairs are alright bc if you can get to see the flop for $3 on average, you will have ~12-1 ($40-$3=$37/$3= 12.3 implied odds when you make a set. I would advise against trying to move people off of hands at a 50nl home game. I would remove the SC's and small pairs, 22-77 from my range when there are short stacks in the hand and focus entirely on playing big suited cards and obv teh big pairs.

PocketAcesA5, on Monday, August 1st, 2011, 8:56 AM, said:

1) You can play tight and you will profit from doing so, but you won't profit much. 2) I see people come in all of the time and play tight then bust, maybe buy in again, bust and leave. They do pay attention to people, they're not completely stupid. i.e. They are capable of folding AQo pre flop sometimes. 3) Like if you're dealt Jacks in the small blind in this game and there's a raise to $3 or $4 from .25 .50. You have to shove your stack depending on how much you have. If you make it $15 for example which is a decent re raise in LP in this game, you will get 4 callers on average. Then how the hell do you play it post flop? 4) I'll stick to jacks for now but if you're dealt Jacks in this game you have to either set mine/slow play them until the flop at least or shove pre flop to profit long term in this game.

1) If playing tight won't profit you much, then this game probably isn't as good as you think. In a "good" game, you should be able to patiently wait for a good hand, bet bet bet and expect to get called down exceptionally light. I do believe this is probably the case in the game you play in, and short term variance is effecting your outlook. 2) This is probably some of that short term variance. Also, just because a player plays tight pre-flop doesn't mean they are good at poker. I know lots of live players who nit it up and wait for big suited AX and broadway hands, and pairs but have no idea how to play post-flop so they constantly lose. They also bitch a lot about how their AK never wins when in fact they often butcher the hand bc they don't take into account stack sizes, player types, game flow etc.3) If there was a raise to $3 and a few calls and I had JJ and a $40 stack, I'd cram it in just about every time. If a tight player made the initial raise, I'd call and set mine, check/folding most flops. The other option is to raise to $15-$19 like you said and then just cram it in on just about any flop. It's high variance but definitely profitable. If you 3bet to $15 and get 2-3 callers, the pot will be between $45 and $60 with a $25 stack, so you can shove almost any flop with some fold equity and a great chance of getting it in as a huge favorite. If you 3bet and the flop comes 268, you will get able to get action from 8x, 99, TT and maybe even some naked over cards or draws. You're crushing that range and it more than makes up for the times you get it in vs a set, slow played over pair or the times you jam a K high board and lose to KT (bc if he calls the 3b with KT, he's stacking off that T high flop too.4) The biggest thing I'm noting in your posts is that you are looking for a cookie-cutter, ABC way to beat this game when this won't be the case. The way you beat this game isn't by having a rigid game plan for how to play JJ or AQ (trouble hands for sure), but by being attentive and tailoring your plan (with any hand) to the player type and stack size and loads of other things.

[fighter]

PocketAcesA5, on Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011, 12:35 AM, said:

Ok, I usually run it more than once because of the variance and I usually let others decide in the 60/40's and 70/30s. Should I still let them run it more when I'm ahead 80-90%? I will always get invited regardless because this game wouldn't exist without me introducing everyone together when it started. That won't be a factor. I guess in the end running in more times in this type of game is the best thing to do.

If you can handle the swings then run it once. It might put them on tilt and it allows you to get more hands in (since it takes less time)

[XXEddie]

For more input you could try posting hands instead of looking for help on the game in general. I use the notes function of my phone to jot down interesting hands because the next day you'll be surprised how off you can be on some details.