really loose NL game

[ChezJ]

there is a crazy NL game in d.c. that i've sat in on twice. blinds are $1/$2 and buyin is $100-$300. but the typical pre-flop raise is $15-$20, or sometimes $30-$50!! if you raise $5-10, EVERYONE who called the $2 will call no matter what they have, or some maniac will re-raise $50 to steal the pot. you pretty much cannot steal the blinds with any kind of raise.

once you decide get into one of these hands, the pot is already $25-$50. so flopping top pair, i know you are supposed to bet the pot but this is just not possible if your stack is not so deep. a $20-$30 bet is usually enough to get rid of people unless they caught some kind of pair. on the turn, betting the pot will typically put you all-in so few people do it without 2 pr or a set. they often follow up with another $20-$30 bet.

what's worse is that the game often goes shorthanded (5-6way) so you have to play a lot of crappy hands like A8o and pay $17 to see the flop. i was able to luck into some pocket JJ's and AA's to make up a lot of dough but mostly this seemed like a total bluff fest and crapshoot.

any ideas on whether this kind of game is beatable, or whether i should just avoid it? being a limit player, i don't have the kind of balls-to-the-wall aggressiveness it takes to bluff at a lot of pots. for the most part i just bet my hand and pray for good cards.

ChezJ

[jmontis]

You should tighten up in this game, but marginal hands go up in value for sure (KJ , JT). You don't need balls to the wall aggression here, just cards.

However, don't tighten up so much that the table starts making jokes like "uh oh, someones got rockets". Because i've seen that before.

This is the absolute best NL game man. Give some occasional action to them, show down a shitty hand, then tighten up big time. You can't bluff these guys, so don't. They will bluff you though, at least a couple times i'm sure.

LAG players use aggression for their lack of cards, so get used to seeing outrageous bets with very little in their hands.

[Bmxicle]

It sounds like the last thing you want to be doing is bluffing, get involved with pocket pairs with good implied odds, and come over the top with jj-aa and maybe even ak. When i get into a game full of maniacs, i sometimes just go into push or fold mode, i think of the range of hands peole will call me with, and if i think my hand is in the top 60 percentile of those hands or so, i just push over the top of people and see what happens.

This kind of game is very beatable, but it is the kind of game where you will generally win or lose alot of money every time you play.

[Grand_MasterB]

this game can easily be beaten... with the average pot pre-flop at $40 and above the $3 in blinds you play every round are nothing. I would just sit there and wait for a hand then you should be able to take down a huge pot. Even if you only get that $40 or $50 preflop thats in the pot that is still enough to sit around for over 16 more rounds waiting to get another hand. Even if it is short handed (6 players) you will still be able to see 100 more hands for "free" just from winning one pre-flop pot, let alone if you get deaper and win

[ChezJ]

yeah that's what i kept telling myself when i got AA twice and everyone folded to my flop bet each time. the $40 i was scooping in was huge relative to the blinds so i didn't care if i didn't get callers to the turn.

otoh, if i ever flopped a strong draw, i'd have to pay $15-$20 to see one more card, and that made it important to not get too complacent with $40 pots.

ChezJ