This is how my homegame plays; gameplan?

For like a year I play a homegame with some friends like twice a month. It's just a fun game with friends that hardly know any poker strategy and we only play 0.05/0.10 with 2,50 buyins. (25bb)

I'd like to see of we can come up with a good gameplan for the table. Until now I usually play relatively tight, around 30/15 (differing some IP and OOP). I feel like I can loosen up a lot preflop because postflop play is plain awfull usually, especially once stacks get around 100bb.


These are my opponents;
1) One super loose passive. He plays like 95/2 preflop. Calls flops with like an overcard or better. Checks a lot when he doesn't have anything. Greatly overvalues any made hand.
This is the huge whale on the table, he's always stuck at least 10 buyins in a short time.

2) One LAG/maniac. This guys plays like 70/40 preflop. Has no problem triple barreling with air, shoving in 200bb as a bluff, and such.
When he's on a roll, any check against him is likely couterfeited by at least 2 streets of big bets by him.
He's usually a little less bluffy against me as I have a clean image, nevertheless he bluffs way too much postflop.

3) One weak tight passive girl. Plays like 30/10 preflop. Postflop it's fit-or-fold, although she knows to cbet as the PFR because I told her. Besides that she’s very straightforward and easy to read.

4) one semi-decent TAG, relative to the others. This is the only one playing online sometimes (not much) where he is a loosing player. He probably plays something like 30/15 preflop and postflop he’s able to adapt to the players he’s in the pot.
On dry boards he’s able to bluff raise and float.
He doesn't really know about odds and implied odds, so I've seen him fold decent/good draws to big bets when he should have called.
I have a read on him that he 3bets PP’s smallish a lot preflop.


Some general table conditions;
- Appr 50% of pots are limped preflop
- All are callingstations relative to online games. Some more than others, as said.
- A 3bet is JJ+ 90% of the time.
The maniac will sometimes min3bet AQ+ and some high suited cards, but not always.
- Everybody has 3bet call of at least 2/3.
- Everybody plays their draws passively.
- We start with stacks of 25bb. As the game progresses, effective stacks vary from 20bb-500bb.
- Later on it’s possible to buy in for more than 25bb.
- I get a lot of respect, because I’m tight and because they know I know a bit about this cardgame. Nevertheless, they’re still stations in my eyes.


Some things worth to discuss imo (feel free to add):
- Profitability of opening up my preflop ranges (PFR/call/limp). Especially in the 25bb-100bb zone.
- Opening up my 3bet range a lot (for value of course). I’m particularly interested in some ranges for preflop 3betting followed by shoving missed flops, for when I’m shortstacked.
But wider 3betting ranges when deeper stacked is interesting as well. At least comment on missed flops than please, that’ll be the most common and hardest part, imo. The value spots more or less play themselves.
- Playing marginal hands like Qxs/Kxo/T8o.

Is this game no limit? I'll assume so for the purpose of this reply. To start, that's a small buy-in for the blinds. To be successful early, it's going to be a lot of pump it or dump it. If possible, I'd lobby to allow the buy-in to be higher or the blinds to be lower - ideally 100BB, but at least 50BB. You gave a lot of detailed information, but to be honest, I don't think there's really much strategy to develop. All the players sounds pretty bad and since there's at least two really loose players who overvalue their hands, that's where most of your money is going to come from. I'd play tight and once you get some cards and hit a flop, you'll get paid more often than you won't. There's really no need to get fancy and it doesn't sound like there's anyone at the table you need to worry about or avoid. Just be patient and don't get frustrated if you don't always leave a winner, because even in an easy game, things won't always go your way, but more times than not, playing just decent in a game like will make you a big winner.

Fellow beginners - approach this one as an exam. You're at the school of poker, you need to graduate with good grades, you are handed this as an exercise and told your answer to it is going to be a significant part of your grade. You have enough time to answer it.

Discuss in your reply everything. Start with the basic stuff by outlining how you would seat all the players so it's optimal to you.

For each player discuss which hands you would play against them and how you would play them. Try to get into the heads of these opponents and try to "think along" with them so you know how best to exploit them and put them in difficult positions.

OP has a pretty sweet deal, and I'm sure he's profiting quite well from it - that's what this is to him. What this is to YOU is an opportunity to explore how you maximise your profit against different types of bad players in different conditions.

They're all bad, but that doesn't mean that you can play a standard strategy against bad players here. They are bad in different ways and you need to play each in a way that exploits their personal weaknesses.

I don't have time to study this one just now, but I'll probably put a reply together sometime tomorrow.

Jason, it's no limit indeed.

We have tried doubling the buyin a few times. I liked it, but others didn't because they didn't like the bigger cash flows going on. Someone walking away with a 50 bucks loss is a little too much for most of them to not care.
Lowering the blinds would be a possibility. We mostly feel limited by the chips we have I guess, as they have amounts on them and 0,05 is the lowest. It's also likely that most pots will be significantly smaller in size, and most of them wouldn't like that I think.

I'm quite positive that all of them, besides me, like the blind and buyin structure. But I'm gonna throw in the idea of lowering the blinds.

Besides that, I agree it's mostly a 2 (3 when limped) street game in the beginning. One thing that favoures me is that after like 1-2 hours, I'm either having a big stack or can buyin a big stack and play deeper against 1-2 opponents from then on.

As a compromise, see if you can set a 100BB buy-in max and a 25BB or less buy-in min. Remind them just because you CAN buy-in for more doesn't mean you HAVE to. If you can't do that, I'd probably just leave it alone @ that point. If the game is as soft as you say it is, if anything you want to RAISE the blinds so you can get more money from them, not lower them. In a short handed situation like 25BB, be prepared to buy back several times to handle the swings - remember buying back 3 times would give you just one normal 100BB stack. With 25BB, in one hand you could easily go in with the best of it and lose half or more of your stack if villain draws out or gives you a bad beat. Hopefully they'll at least let you reload before you go completely broke. If so, make sure you always have more than half your stack if not a full one because you're looking to double up and you don't want to get caught even more short stacked once the opportunity presents itself. The main thing to remember about buying in short in a game like this is that you don't have a lot of room to do things like bluff, information bets, blocking bets, or even cbets many times. Every chip that goes into the pot needs to have a calculated, distinct purpose, which 9 times out of 10 will be to extract value - YOU have the best hand and want money in the pot to get paid for it. If you're fortunate to get your stack up to 100BB, you'll be in great shape to start playing real poker and even bully the table because they'll be in the same situation YOU were in and they now don't have any wiggle room. And for you, this is even better news because they won't understand how to be successful with the short stack and will either overvalue or try to get cute and thus give away chips even faster.

Feel free to discuss strategy further, since he did provide a lot of detail from which to expound from, but for me personally (sorry to be a wet blanket ), such games do not require such deep analysis. I go into a game armed with my skillset, a general tight/aggressive/aggressive style and as information about my table unfolds, I adjust accordingly when needed. I've played in a lot of games like the one described above. To be successful, you mainly need patience and a basic skill set. By basic, I mean that you don't raise A4o in early position, can fold AJs to a raise or reraise, don't go broke with top pair, and the like. The hallmark of games like this are players that play too many hands and overvalue them. So, if you are playing tight (good cards) and properly valuing them (understanding when you've got the best hand), you're going to be a big winner long term. Patience is just very important because you may often be tempted to make things happen or take over the game because it's easy.

One more thought I didn't mention before is that observation is always important, but can pay off even more in games like these because players tend to play very predictably and don't mix things up. You want to pay special attention to how players will pay you off: do they like to chase draws, what hands do they raise with, what hands do they call raises with, what hands do they have trouble laying down, and the like.

I´d add: read some books - even ebooks - and share information among each other too...

Casal, I'm not new to poker. I also have a pretty good grasp on this home game. I've played like Jason suggests (although a little less aggressive I think) for over a year and am by far the biggest winner in our game.

I'm just interested in opinions on wether I can expand my ranges a bit and exploit my opponents in more ways. To make it even more profitable for me, if possible, and more fun because of playing more hands.

Ok, guess I have time to cover off one angle of this thing - the structure of the game.

First off I wouldn't even open my mouth and discuss the structure further. The more successful you become in this game the more the people you play with will find it unfun to invite you. It's imperative here to keep the fish happy. One way to do that is to shrug and tell them you can play whatever rules or structure they like and then use your superior general poker skills and poker analytical skills to adjust to that game better than they all do. If you argue strongly for a 100bb structure, get your way and make a killing - you might lose friends or at the very least invites to the home games because you're just too good for it to be fun for them to play with you. If you're the one hosting they might just give up attending which accomplishes the same thing.

One basic thing that stands out to me in this situation is how it is the exact opposite of a tournament. As a tournament progresses people get shorter and shorter stacks relative to the blinds, which requires the play to change.

In this situation as time goes on stacks get larger and larger. This suggests the exact same type of change only in reverse. Initially you want to play the types of hands and situations that you would play in the later stages of a tournament when the stacks become shallow - the TPTK making hands and be prepared to gamble it up. There's only so much money to be lost or won on each hand. This will help your image. Whenever you're short effective versus your opponent play correctly for a short stack - gamble it up and try to build a big stack, thinking little of the buyin that you risk.

Note the bit about being short effective versus your opponent. Maybe everyone at the table is up to 100bb except one opponent sitting at 20bb - if you end up headsup against that opponent, put on your gambling hat and go to the races.

When stacks get bigger you start to play more tight as per normal early stage tournament or normal cash play. You will still have the occasional hand against a short stacker during which you gamble it up which leads to this structurally interesting situation: You develop an image as a gambler when the risk is small, and take advantage of that image when the stacks are big.

Even if you play absolutely solid like a rock when stacks are deep your opponents may remember crazy plays you made earlier in the evening when it was correct to play crazy and start to think you could have bet/raised on bluffs with air and be more inclined to pay you off when you hold the nuts.

Originally Posted by minSim

Casal, I'm not new to poker. (...)

I didn´t mean any opposite. Sorry! It was just to be a tip.

raise preflop, and try to get it in when you hit

OK, so first you have to consider their ranges and your own range as well as the SPR
then you will try to come up with a plan to maximize value

in my blog I did some calculations that if you shovel 2x pot when you miss and the villain only calls when he flops a pair, you'll make money because he'll call say 30% and you will still have 3 or 6 outs which are just gravy on top of the folding equity

if villain calls with ace high, you'll make money by being ahead some of the time
but if villain calls with a small pp you may be in trouble so that's why you need to consider the villain's range

25 BB's you needto play pretty solid hands in position. with stacks like that you're gonna need to raise pre to isolate, and pretty much shove cbet if the board is dry enough to miss their range

when you work up a stack of 70-100+ BB's, just play your regular game

Originally Posted by AFchung

25 BB's you needto play pretty solid hands in position. with stacks like that you're gonna need to raise pre to isolate, and pretty much shove cbet if the board is dry enough to miss their range

when you work up a stack of 70-100+ BB's, just play your regular game

But we can't forget about effective stacks.

minSim, if you need a gameplan for this game, UR DOING IT WRONG.

j/k, just play and adjust. nothing different from your daily grind.

Originally Posted by Erpel

Discuss in your reply everything. Start with the basic stuff by outlining how you would seat all the players so it's optimal to you.

I got advice before that we might actually like having a maniac sitting to our left. He is going to be raising us or check/raising us regardless of his position, so let's consider where we like him best. If he is sitting to our left, we can opt to check to him a huge percentage of the time, especially in limped pots. Most of the time he will be betting, and then we can see the actions of everyone else before we decide what to do. Most of the time, we will be closing the action. If we want to give that a shot, I like the order around the table to be 2 4 3 1 (starting with the player to our left and going around). That way, the most aggressive preflop players never have the button when we are in the blinds, and we have optimal position on the station.

Originally Posted by Erpel

For each player discuss which hands you would play against them and how you would play them. Try to get into the heads of these opponents and try to "think along" with them so you know how best to exploit them and put them in difficult positions.

I don't know how much it's necessary to get in these opponents' heads, really. But I do like the advice of considering how we should play each opponent.

1) Raise with hands that have showdown value. That includes mainly high cards and pairs, something like 66+, A9s+, KTs+, QTs+, JTs, ATo, KJo, QJo. Any time I have a pair on the flop (or a strong A-high when I think it's likely best), I'm betting. I'm only c-betting my strongest draws, with any other marginal draws (overcards, gutshots, etc.) I'm checking behind the flop. If I bet the flop with top pair good kicker or better, I'll tend to bet the turn again, otherwise I'd check behind. If I checked behind the flop and he checked the turn, I would bet the turn with any non-showdown-value-10-outs-or-better draw, otherwise if I haven't improved and only have a weak A-high or K-high, I'm just checking behind again. Fold to any aggression obviously without a very strong hand. Bluffing in general is pretty -EV. I'm limping behind him preflop with the lowest PPs, SCs, and a few other suited cards (see below) and looking to hit good in a multiway pot.

2) This is where it really gets fun. You really have to mix up your play against this guy to keep him wondering what you're doing. If he's betting big, you're still better off raising preflop with mainly your showdown hands against him, but since he's bluffing so much you can get value from big draws as well by playing them aggressively. This means that you should be able to add SCs 54s and better and suited 2-gappers 53s-QTs into your raising range, along with perhaps K9s and Axs. If he's on your left, it's going to be really interesting to figure out what kinds of hands you should lead out, what kinds of hands you should check/call, and what kind of hands you should check/raise. Let's split our hands up into a few categories: A) monsters, B) TPGK+, C) big draws (12 outs or better), D) a pair or A-high we think is best, E) a pretty good draw (8 outs or better), F) any other hand.

A) I'm either check/raising or bet/raising, and I'm probably splitting it about 50/50 either way, mostly depending on board texture. He's more likely to raise on a drawish board, so bet/raising works well there. He's likely to bluff at a dry board, so check/raising works there.

B) Here I think is where we get the best value from calling him down. We want to sprinkle in a few check/raises and bet/calls just to mix things up, but I think check/call is a pretty good line with these hands. If we don't have TPTK or 2 pair by the turn, it's a good time to switch to check/raising instead of check/calling, or simply leading out if we think he was on air on the flop and might have picked up a draw or a showdown-value hand on the turn.

C) I'm getting it in. Since this is almost always on a drawish board, I'm leading out most of the time with this hand. Bet/reraise is probably the best line IMO, but it's still important to mix it up sometimes.

D) These are the important hands. They are the ones that we tend to lose a lot of money on by calling down lightly and getting sucked out on, finding out that we were behind all along, or simply folding the best hand. Sometimes leading out with these hands is the right play, but often we are better off check/raising and ending the hand right away. Bet/call or check/raise/call is pretty horrible if we don't have pot odds to improve to a hand we are comfortable going with on the turn. And of course we should be willing to check/fold sometimes, too, in the face of any other reads.

E) We can check/raise these hands as well to help balance out D. In this case, though, we often will also have odds to bet/call the flop. Don't call the turn without pot odds because you have slim implied odds. If we called the turn with pot odds, we can potentially check/raise the river with a made hand if he tends to bet the river with showdown value. If we didn't quite have pot odds to call the turn (generally bad, but sometimes it's really close), then we really need to be leading a made river.

F) These are the best candidates for balancing out your leading-out range, especially if he sometimes folds to a lead. If you see a board that you think he is willing to give up on a decent percentage of the time, then bet/folding is not a bad line to take. I wouldn't do it a ton, but doing it with these hands occasionally will help to balance out those times that you are bet/raising and bet/calling (with your other hands, of course). Check/raising these hands isn't recommended generally, and of course check/folding should be your first option.


3 and 4) This should be pretty straightforward. They will be across the table from you (ideally) and you won't be tangling with them quite as much. Against 3 I'm playing a pretty strong range and c-betting like 75% of the time. Against 4 I'm c-betting a bit less, but I'm going to be more inclined to bet later streets where he might be willing to fold a hand that we are losing to. Specifically I would tend to play draws aggressively on both the flop and turn. If he seems like he's not going anywhere, however, I'm checking behind on the turn with my draws. Regarding your read preflop, the best thing I can think of is to not 4bet with your big pairs. Since you'll be flatting in this spot with a lot of implied-odds hands (SCs and low PPs), also flatting with big pairs that are crushing him should be profitable.

Originally Posted by minSim

Some things worth to discuss imo (feel free to add):
- Profitability of opening up my preflop ranges (PFR/call/limp). Especially in the 25bb-100bb zone.

Not as profitable as you might think. You may believe your postflop skills are much better than theirs, but a big part of that is that you are going in with better hands to begin with. In the 25bb zone especially, you want to be playing pretty tight. As you get deeper you can open up a bit, but I'm not going crazy.

The one major exception is if there are a lot of limps before you, especially on the button or in the small blind, or in the big blind to a small raise. In that case, there are some great multiway hands that would do well to see a flop. The following list is taken from a 6max button open range that I have been playing around with:

Getting 2.5-to-1 or better (1 limp. With higher hands we should often be raising obviously): 22-88, A9s-A2s, KTs-K2s, QTs-Q8s, JTs-J7s, T7s+, 97s+, 86s+, 75s+, 65s, 54s, ATo, KJo, QJo, JTo, T9o

Getting 3.5-to-1 or better add in: 99, ATs, KJs, QJs, Q7s-Q5s, J6s, T6s, 95s+, 84s+, 74s, 63s+, 52s+, 42s+, 32s, AJo, KQo, QTo, J9o, T8o, 98o, 87o

With these hands, we are generally looking to hit TPQK or better or at least an 8-out draw to the likely best hand. Don't fall in love with a hand that isn't at least 2 pair or a high pair with other outs.

Originally Posted by minSim

- Opening up my 3bet range a lot (for value of course). I’m particularly interested in some ranges for preflop 3betting followed by shoving missed flops, for when I’m shortstacked.

Against 1, I'm really only 3betting KK+, and maybe even flatting with those at times in late position. Against 3, it's likely something like TT+, AQs+, AKo. We can start to open it up a bit against 4 and 3bet 99+, ATs+, KQs, and AQo+. ATs and KQs might look a little out of place, but these have some good fold equity against his range and for the times where he doesn't fold, we can hit flops with a lot of outs.

Against 3 is where we should be 3betting the most. I would consider 3betting a range as wide as 88+, A2s+, K9s+, Q9s+, J9s+, T8s+, 98s, 87s, 76s, 65s, 54s, AJo+, KQo. Notice I leave out low pocket pairs and a lot of unsuited broadways... those are too hard to play postflop against an aggressive opponent. Much better are the connected suited cards that we can play very aggressively when we hit a good draw. We don't even need a super-good draw to raise hard with these hands since we should have more fold equity in a 3bet pot. I'm not saying we should always 3bet with all of these hands, but if you're looking to 3bet wide, this might be a fun starting point to play around with.

Originally Posted by minSim

But wider 3betting ranges when deeper stacked is interesting as well. At least comment on missed flops than please, that’ll be the most common and hardest part, imo. The value spots more or less play themselves.

With deeper stacks, 3betting with these suited cards can get especially interesting. With our made hands and our huge draws we can often string the hand along and really get paid. With our good draws we can apply a lot of pressure on the flop to get a fold there.

Otherwise, on totally bricked flops, I'm giving up pretty easily. I would still c-bet the flop on boards that hit my range well (A-high obviously, K- and Q-high to a lesser extent) and on boards that miss opponent's range (all 3 cards 7-or-lower, various paired rainbow boards). With the SC cards I would tend to c-bet the flop if I make a low pair since: 1) that's the best chance to get value and to get to a cheap showdown vs unpaired cards; 2) we potentially fold out better pocket pairs against some opponents hoping to hit a set; and 3) when we hit our set or 2 pair it's very well-disguised against anyone who has called our flop bet. I'm not 2-barreling unless I pick up an 8-out-or-better draw on the turn. We should also be c-betting AK or AQ a decent amount of the time.

If the flop and turn both get checked, we can fire sometimes here with our hands that have no showdown value whatsoever, especially if the turn was a scare card. If we have showdown value (any decent pair and sometimes A-high), I prefer to check the turn back again a lot of times.

Originally Posted by minSim

- Playing marginal hands like Qxs/Kxo/T8o.

Um, not often. A lot of Qxs hands and hands like 87o or T8o are worth playing in a 5-way pot (as I indicated above), but otherwise they're better to dump. Marginal off-suit hands are mostly worthless, and that includes Ax and Kx. People love to limp with Ax and Kx and it's too hard for your TPNK to run into TPWK or 2 pair.


Well that's my shot. I would love for someone better than me to correct any mistakes I made, because I'm sure my advice isn't the best you'll find on FTR . Good luck, and most of all, have fun. It's great to make money, but against your friends it's much more rewarding to enjoy yourself.

Doan... connectors have no value 25bb deep. And there shouldn't be much happening after the turn. The right strategy is a not a very fun one. You bet your strong hands big preflop, and overbet shove most flops.
Also mixing up your game is obviously bad against über-donks. - Did not read any further.

Also: it's a freakin home game. Drink beer, have fun. You can beat it even if you just donk around, so... just do whatever. It's not like you're playing cent games for profit.
If you sit down at a home game and do the Chris Furgeson, you're not making any friends.

Originally Posted by Erpel

Fellow beginners - approach this one as an exam. You're at the school of poker, you need to graduate with good grades, you are handed this as an exercise and told your answer to it is going to be a significant part of your grade. You have enough time to answer it.

Discuss in your reply everything. Start with the basic stuff by outlining how you would seat all the players so it's optimal to you.

For each player discuss which hands you would play against them and how you would play them. Try to get into the heads of these opponents and try to "think along" with them so you know how best to exploit them and put them in difficult positions.

OP has a pretty sweet deal, and I'm sure he's profiting quite well from it - that's what this is to him. What this is to YOU is an opportunity to explore how you maximise your profit against different types of bad players in different conditions.

They're all bad, but that doesn't mean that you can play a standard strategy against bad players here. They are bad in different ways and you need to play each in a way that exploits their personal weaknesses.

I don't have time to study this one just now, but I'll probably put a reply together sometime tomorrow.

this

Originally Posted by oskar

Doan... connectors have no value 25bb deep. And there shouldn't be much happening after the turn. The right strategy is a not a very fun one. You bet your strong hands big preflop, and overbet shove most flops.
Also mixing up your game is obviously bad against über-donks. - Did not read any further.

I obviously didn't mean that at 25BB deep. I guess I should have said that, but a lot of the suited connector stuff was for once the players get deeper. He also seemd interested in limping along occasionally, so I was trying to indicate what kind of hands would do well in a multiway pot, even as shallow as 25BB deep. Sorry for any confusion there.

Originally Posted by oskar

Also: it's a freakin home game. Drink beer, have fun. You can beat it even if you just donk around, so... just do whatever. It's not like you're playing cent games for profit.
If you sit down at a home game and do the Chris Furgeson, you're not making any friends.

...and if you had finished reading my post, you would have seen that at the end I said that the most important thing is to have fun.