AI PF lowering my chances

I play a number of loose home games every month. It seems to me a lot of the players at these games like to go AI preflop. It's like they just don't want to play their cards. I realized tonight that if I could only get these guys to want to see a flop and play a bit, I would have a better chance of winning these games. My question is, how do I get these AI-happy players to be not-so-AI-happy?

Online I see the same thing at lower limit sngs sometimes, just not quite as much. Either way, how do you combat it and not leave your chances at low PP vs AJ?

I tried just not calling them, but they keep doing it every few hands. If I raise with AK, they move in sometimes. They aren't very good players mostly, and I guess this is a defensive move, whether they know it or not.

The only way that they will learn is the hard way. Pick your spots and stick your chips in! If it was me I would call with AK (maybe AQ) or any PP 88 or higher. Yes sometimes you will lose, but more often than not you will double up and once they see that you are not afraid to gamble with them they might be a bit more hesitant about just pushing.

You play in a high variance loose game. Some games are like that. You shouldn't complain. It can be insanely profitable. You need to be able to get in there and mix it up. Basically how it works is loose games inflate the swing to that of a higher stake. If it's a push happy 20 dollar buy in, then you need to come with 100 bucks in hopes of leaving with 180-200.

You need to be comfortable with losing 5-6 buy ins trying to "double up" to 10-12 buy ins. If you're uncomfortable with that, then that game at that stake is actually too high for you and out of your comfort zone.

Hypothetically speaking, at this game you call an all in while holding AK, because 2 out of 3 times your friend Jimmy pushes with hands like AJ, KQ, or small PP. You see? It becomes proper to gamble against unknown holdings (maybe he has AA Oh no!), when you know the player and his tendancy to push with weaker hands makes it proper to pay off his occassional AA. You say good hand, because 30 minutes from now you'll double up with AQ against his KQ. Get comfortable and learn how money is made in this loose game. It isn't by grinding your way through postflop brilliance. That's another game.

I play in a game like this every week, and I love it.

Raise AK AQ, AA-TT, big preflop

and look for good post flop hands to push with (2pair, straight, whatever)

If you're playing in home games then eventually you should start getting reads on these guys. I can't imagine any game where AI always wins preflop. So that means you get to see showdowns. If the AIs are showing down mediocre hands, then call with better hands than they do. You don't need premium hands to call them. If you feel uncomfortable racing when you probably have the best of it, then the stakes at that home game are likely to be too high for you.

If you really want to get proactive about this, then try to institute the WPT show both hands and enjoy rule. Meaning, if two players are AI, encourage people to open their hands before the flop even hits the board. You'll get tons of info and reads on these guys this way.

Also, you gotta target the impatient and desperate AI guys. Call them because they usually just don't understand the concept of being dominated.

As long as you can handle the variance, this should be a very profitable game for you.

Everything has been said that needs to be. See what hands they're going AI with and make a reasonable deduction of what he has. With a hand like AA or KK an AI move discourages action, and discouraging action is just what you don't want to do with aces or kings. You want to let in a drawing hand and hope they make top pair only to lose to your higher pair. With queens and AI move is more likely, but still unlikely unless the blinds were worth taking (which I assume it isn't if it's a home game). So with AK you should be a favorite against most hands and only a slight underdog to a smaller pair. Again, it's hard to fathom somebody making a huge raise with aces or kings. So call with your AK or AQ and hope for the best. All you can do is put your money in when you're ahead and hope you come out on top.