Quote 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.