The how to for home games

So here's the deal, if I could... I'd play my cards how your suppose to, kinda how DB tells you to in ss/ss2... but being as some of the kids I play with are very immature to poker and extremely stupid... I find myself knowing it might not be a bad idea to fold in certain positions with things like A10,AJ, QK and so on... I'm suppose to fold pendin on the position also pending on the raise, my arguement is... these a-holes I play with, call with stupid shit, and raise with even worse... so how am I suppose to incorporate the fact that someone could reraise my AJ with an A9 and similar situations?

Sound a lot like the way people play with play money. I reckon if in doubt fold, keep foldin 'till you have the nuts, or at least close. Since these are maniacs your playing with so when you put in big bets you'll probably get a few callers. If you bet into them hard you can keep taking them out this way.

Try to make your hands cheap and bet for value, dont try bluffing. If they are over aggressive and force you to play high variance poker you have two options:
a) Dont play with them
b) Adjust to the high variance game and expect the wild swings, if you are making better decisions than them you will come out on top given enough time.

Originally Posted by AcesInTheHole

So here's the deal, if I could... I'd play my cards how your suppose to, kinda how DB tells you to in ss/ss2... but being as some of the kids I play with are very immature to poker and extremely stupid... I find myself knowing it might not be a bad idea to fold in certain positions with things like A10,AJ, QK and so on... I'm suppose to fold pendin on the position also pending on the raise, my arguement is... these a-holes I play with, call with stupid shit, and raise with even worse... so how am I suppose to incorporate the fact that someone could reraise my AJ with an A9 and similar situations?

Playing your cards how you're suppose to is now the way DB told you.

I'm going to teach you a big lesson.

Poker is about playing your opponent. There is no one set system to beat everyone. If you want to be good, you have to learn to beat them all. So learn to beat these fellas. You're a bad player for complaining about them instead of exploiting their obvious weaknesses. So now improve.

Play hands that flop big: suited connectors and small pairs. Learn if you can bluff your opponents (probably not) if you cant, overbet every strong hand you get. Be cautious but willing to gamble. You can never be confident in top pair, but you can be confident in a flush and it's ability to destack your opponent.

These posts have been done a million times, you should search around for a while.

-'rilla

Sounds like all the home games I play in as well. Granted some of these people know how to play, the majority only play once every couple weeks and only for fun. They mostly have no desire to learn outs, pot odds etc. not that I even bother trying to teach them.

Lately I have been trying to work on a strat that will help give me an edge againt these types of players (People that will call with any pair or draw, play almost all hands with the *Any 2 cards can win ideology* especially conectors or suited cards, Think any Ace or King is good, especially if they get a pair even if the kicker is a 2 or 3...)

I have found that the single most important thing when playing these types of players is POSITION! Now I know this is important in all games, but don't think for a second it is less important because your opponents are weaker In fact it may even be more important vs these types of players IMO.

Another thing is card selection. Last night at a friends house I played mabey 30-40% of the cards I was delt while the other 3 played anywhere from 70%-90% of their hands.

True while 4 handed any 2 cards has a much better chance at winning than on an 8 person table but I find it a waste of chips to constantly call the big blind with nothing hopin for a 7/7/2 flop when your holding 72o as hole cards.

Also don't take the PFR out of your game cuz you think they will suck out on you since they will play anything! Make them pay to see cards! What I love about my friends is that they will call pot sized bets with flush and/or straight draws all the time. Especially after the flop, and will almost always call a small PFR with them as well. So why not juice the pot a bit before you take it? Nothing wrong with folding when you get re-raised if you have not hit anything.

What I found worked great in a game I played last night was this...

In early-mid position I would fold any marginal hands. In late position or on the button I would call with any marginal hands ( low PP, suited Ax, Kx, Suited connectors But from time to time raise with these also if it's been a few hands with no PFR) But then if I got something decent ( High PP, AKs, AQs, AKo, sometimes even KQs, KJs, KQo, KJo) I would throw out a 3xBB raise. Did this last night(50 BB 1750 starting stacks) with a KJs got 2 folds, and 1 call. Flop comes down 3/6/J. At this point I have about 2400 and the girl that stayed in with me had about 900-1100 chips. Pot is at around 300-400 So I bet out for 200. She calls. Turn is a Queen... She checks to me again, So I bet 100 (Ya I know I should have bet more, but I thought my Jacks were still good and she was chasing but at the same time I wanted info from her and it was a fun game after all) She calls.

River... Another Jack. So now I am pretty sure I have it, she checks I go out for another 100 figuring she would fold to anything else, but now she raises to 200... I think for a min and make it 500... Now she is stumped.. Looks at me a while, then eventually pushes her last couple hundred into the pot I call the all in and she says what do I have? I reply, You raised me all in, what do you have...

She flips over a Jack.. I show her my Jack. Now she is nervous, says a few cuss words, then shows me the 8 kicker, I flip my King and take her stack.

Would I play this the same way online? no. I still have a very hard time making reads online, and whenever I do get one or think I have one I end up so wrong it costs me like $10+ to find out. Plus if this was online and since online is riged no jack would have come and my opponent would have had a Queen.

A few big things I try to do are...

1) Play with confidence. Make continuation bets, use aggresion to your advantage! For some reason I am much better at doing this live then online but I am still working on it.

2) Play from POSITION. Fold thoes POS hands pre flop even if the whole table calls every hand for no reason just to see if they can spike 2 pair, a flush, straight, or a boat on the flop.

3) Raise Pre flop with your big hands, from position, and don't try to slow play every hand! Slow play is the devil with these kinds of players, unless of course you have the nuts! Then it is fun to watch them try and steal a 200-400 pot with a 2k all in.. You laugh at them for a min then call and show the nuts!

I swear I almost got mad at one of my firends last night. I kept asking him.. *What the hell are you doing?* Honestly it would be a 3-4way all call/check pre-flop or mabey a small 50 raise then the flop comes down 9/6/2 with say 2 clubs. Get 2 checks then when it gets to him he would push all in. To win 2-400.... WTF! I told him he does realise a 500 bet would get the same results and that Pushing all in is going to get everyone to fold except someone that's got the nuts or a huge hand that will have to call him. First time he did it 200 pot, all in for about 1400. I mentioned the whole Better hand will call rest fold. He says nothing. 2-3 orbits later, 400 pot he goes all in for 1k I just kinda mutter *again with the all in on a small pot huh*... then fold. 3rd time was about 600 in the pot, he had 650 left. I just laughed and folded. Hated giving him thoes chips but I had a k/6s with a Q high flop and only 1 of my suit. Eventually he ended up doing this again on a hand with about 900 in the pot and he had about 1200-1400 left. But this time I had the high pair (Queens) on a pretty raggy board (This all in was after the river this time) that he had played very weak on. There were 2 hearts from the flop as well as 2 conected cards. So I had put him on a flush or straight draw right from the start and I was bang on. As he check called me to the river, then once the river brought no scare card for me and he sat there for a couple sec thinking eventually saying all in I knew my read was right. Took me no more than 1 sec to say I call, he not not even had enough time to physically move his chips into the pot even.

He says *You call?* I say *Yea whatcha got?* He says *Nothin... King high* I say *Cool, I got Queens* Flip my Queen and then take his stack.

IMO this was the only way I was going to take his stack. I knew my read was right and went with it. But I really hate all in players on the flop since there is so much yet to come. But on Queen high, I have the Queen, No straight or flush posible but both were posible from the Flop by the time the river came I was confident enough to cal this time.

Hmm... ok I will stop now damn that got big and I don't wanna erase it might be something usefull in there!

P.S. I took the 3rd/last one out in about 10 hands with a straight on the turn over a pair of kings and took home the $20. First win in about 3 weeks live and will continue working on this strat tomorrow night when I go to a much larger game and see how it pans out there.

Sounds similar to my home game.
I finished on the bubble (runner up) in two tournaments with 3 other players. They all played loose Aggressive which works well against my tight aggressive. With that information in hand though, I intend to do better next time by changing my style. Easier said than done but practice makes perfect.


Label their style (you did). Choose a style that works well against it. Try and adapt to that style.
If you fail, <shrug> no biggy. The only failure would be not to try.

First thing I did after reading that was... called em up and asked if they wanted to play haha... thanks guys, I'm gonna pay more attention to position now

Just wanted to say thanks... I used that strategy tonight and I think it worked...

chris_1069

I really hate all in players on the flop since there is so much yet to come.

your exactly right with how you read that guy, i've taken a fair few stacks from guys who insist on bluffing all in on the flop. There is only one time that i am prepared to make a move like that (so far, expeirence may teach me a few more). and that is.. say.. LP Ax suited, flop nut flush.. your against intellegent players who are capable of making the read you spoke of, so you check it to the river and push and one of them calls with top pair/2 pair/set/overpair

I know all about the 70-90% seeing the flop. Last time I played at a home tourney (10 guys) I folded about 75% preflop which was the reverse of everyone else. One guy started making fun of me folding over and over. Then he got knocked out making a stupid play on crap cards and as he walked away (I was now down to two others at the table after playing about 10 hands out of 50) he said "keep folding man! good job!" What was my response?

"At least I'm still at the table."

I took runner up though.

Seems this is really working out for me so far! Been a good weekend so far and hopefully will get better tonight.

Played 1 game on Friday night, was a 5 person $10 buy in, took home 1st place for a winner takes all $50. Then played last night 5 handed won that again. Now I am playing tonight will be most likely about 5 again and hopefully things work out for me

Love the fact that I am actually starting to make some fairly accurate reads as well! 1 big hand was when I floped middle pair (8's) and I had him peged on a flush draw, or mabey the straight draw. I came out betting my 8's he did a weak re-raise(told me he had the straight/flush draw as he would always do this) I call. Facial expressions on turn told me he still didn't make his hand, so now I know for sure he is chasing, but decide to check to him anyways and see what he does. He bets out a weak 1/5 pot or somehting similar. So I raise that x2 making it more like a 2/3 pot bet he calls. River was a nothing I bet out for half the pot and he folds it to me. I ask him what he was betting with. He just kinda shook his head and said *I was on a draw*. Bingo! But I already knew this.

One other thing I am really likeing is that these types of players will show their cards alot for absolutly no reason! AND they make the same bets when they bluff.. very frequently. They don't even do it to conceal. They do it because they think I bet this on a bluff last time and he folded I will do it again. I watched the same person make 4 bluffs with 500 chips (100 blinds) then bet AA with 200 chips... Don't get much easier than that to get a read on him.

If I think of anything else usefull after tonights game I'll come post em(or do it from work tomorrow)

The home games I've played in are against extremely weak opponents - where everyone is in the hand for the flop. I don't know if any of you guys have played like this, but it is much harder to win with a quality hand when there is 8-9 other ppl in the pot....

Originally Posted by midas06

The home games I've played in are against extremely weak opponents - where everyone is in the hand for the flop. I don't know if any of you guys have played like this, but it is much harder to win with a quality hand when there is 8-9 other ppl in the pot....

That was exactly my problem. Especially if I got in the habit of starting to limp in with them with any crap hand I was delt since I knew they were all doing the same and I had just as good a chance as them to hit my hand.

BUT the problem I would run into here is you never know what they have. I might play a 67o and hit a pair of 7's and a gutshot straight draw on a 3/4/7 flop. Bet into it and get some callers. Then a Queen comes, and you have no clue where you are again. Mabey someone called thinking I have some high cards and hit a Queen.. mabey someone had a 5/6 pre-flop and floped the straight and is waiting for you to bet more so they can keep up the slow play. ANYTHING could happen and I was getting frustrated playing these weak hands.

So I started playing tighter, seeing about half as many flops as the rest of the table (30-40% when the table would see 70-80%) Playing from position to try and gather reads, raising pre-flop to get at least a couple of the junk hands to fold out (from position unless I get a group 0-1 hand) Then most importantly DON'T SLOWPLAY!! Unless I know someone is likely to bluff at me hard to knock me off a pot when I have the nuts I will do the betting/raising because alot of them will call right to the river with crap then fold it, or call anyways and show that middle pair from the flop that they called to the river with.

P.S. went on to win that other game last week also and am now 3-0 live in the last 3 games (all first) Playing again tonight so hopefully I can keep it going.