So theres a game in my home town that is plo 6 max with a group of about 16 regulars and the game plays 7 days a week. I work a full tine job and recently have been getting invited so ive played 4 times over the last 2 weeks. So the game is a 5 dollar ante from every player and 5 dollar rake per hand from there. The minimum buy in is 100 no max but average buy in for others is around 300 to 500. Now i have done ok the 4 times i went with 3 winning sessions and 1 losing however i have been mostly experimenting with what to open with pre flop compared to checking pre flop. This is my first expirence in an ante game like this and would like to hear some opinions thank you

What are blinds? More importantly, what is the max amount you can open raise to?

There are no blinds just a 5 dollar ante per player most can open is 60. Or doible the amount of antes if playing leass than 6 handed.

$5 rake in a home game? WTF is up with that? Does the guy who run the game keep the money?

I play in small club on the BROS with maybe a dozen friends playing PLO (either .30/.60 or .5/1.00); we either give rake back afterwords in the .5/1.00 or we have a HH bonus in the .30/.60 (use the rake as a jackpot for the HH of the night, must be 2222 or better with both cards playing - first run only on multiple run-outs).

How can you open raise for $60 when the pot is $30 with all the ante's? I though this was PLO, this seems like some dark voodoo version of it - everyone ante's the BB and we can open for double the pot???

This structure is really bad. I would strongly consider not playing - sometimes bad structure is a sign that other shady things are happening.

The strategy focus should be 90% pre-flop. Short stacks should be shoving all the time to win antes, and like be reloading $5 a hand they fold.

The guy who runs the game doesnt play and the game is held in his bar currently closed due to covid. I dont really have a problem with the rake as the avg player i would consider bad like maybe 3 out of the regs have done any studying what so ever. And only the open is double the antes the rest is straight plo.

How does pre work? Everyone gets to see a flop for free after ante? If u open it has to be 60$ ? Can u open for less?

If everyone was playing $500+ and no flop/no drop $5/rake a hand is fine. It seems a little greedy here, but whatever.

I'm guessing there is a ton of limping, and players are not adjusting to ante properly.

But if players are only playing $100-300 deep why not just spread 1/2, 1/2/5, 2/5 or 5/5. You can still include some kind of ante if players really want that. Like 1/2 with a $5 button ante or 2/5 with a 1 or 2 dollar ante.

$30 in antes here helps camouflage the rake being greedy without actually being good for the game. Because once players start opening for $60 players should be all-in preflop or on the flop most of the time - super swingy - does not sound like a fun game. Also short stacks have huge advantage over deeper stacks in this format.

6-handed PLO seeing maybe 20 hands an hour, so he's raking $100/hour off the table - seems like a great game for the guy running it!

Making the open double the antes de-stabilizes the game entirely - if it was regular PLO at $2-$5 the open would be $15 and a 3-bet would be $60 (or at $5-$5 the open would be $20 and a 3-bet would be $70). With the version you are playing the open is $60 and a 3-bet is $150. Post-flop SPR will always be 1:1 to or worse so we can't ever fold after any 3-bet it would seem (outside of the most outrageously bad flops).

You said people buy in for an average of $300-$500 - this means every pre-flop 3-bet people will be committing 30%-50% of their stack. Since it's 6-handed you're pre-flop 3-bet range needs to be wider (and as there is an ante instead of blinds we are bleeding $30 a round instead of $7 or $10).

Basically this game is designed for pure gambling and to fill the pockets of the guy running the game in his bar. Nothing wrong with that as long as you are aware those are the situational dynamics.

It doesn't sound like a good game outside of the fact that a few players are terrible. That doesn't have as much value when the betting structure is so odd that everyone will just recklessly gamble and there is no fold equity. Add to that the rake and it's really unattractive - lets say the 6 of you start playing at 6pm and pay until 2am (8 hour session). Everyone buys in between $300-$500 so we will say average is $400; 6 x $400 = $2400. At the end of the night there is $1600 on the table; 1/3rd of the money at play going off the table.

I'm sure with the re-buys and what-not it's a smaller portion Maybe he's only taking $800 from $5000 if everyone rebuys, but that's still a significant percentage of the money in play.

Hopefully you've got such a significant player edge it's worth it - I would probably play super-tight and look to squeeze in position if I did play, but in this type of game you just need to run good more than anything. No fold equity, low SPR, going to be a whole lot of shipping going on.

Yes everyone gets the option to check or bet after ante can bet any amount up to 60. From the few sessions ive played id say the avg open is 25 or 30 but lots of checking and limping more than youd assume

[QUOTE=SocraticGambler;56434735]$5 rake in a home game? WTF is up with that? Does the guy who run the game keep the money?

I play in small club on the BROS with maybe a dozen friends playing PLO (either .30/.60 or .5/1.00); we either give rake back afterwords in the .5/1.00 or we have a HH bonus in the .30/.60 (use the rake as a jackpot for the HH of the night, must be 2222 or better with both cards playing - first run only on multiple run-outs).

how does rake work, i play in pppoker with some friends and afterward he gives a high hand and about 5 bucks to compensate for rake... so the game is raked but does that mean the rake goes all to the guy running the game or does some of the rake go to the app?

[QUOTE=rdnatm;56459958] I think my buddy started a "Club" and they give you a fixed amount of FREE Chips to play with. He allocates the "Play Money" to everyone's account as a bank (i.e. you start with $200, at the end of the night whatever you are at above or below that is your win/loss).

Since we aren't playing with "Real Money" persay the app isn't taking it; they just force you to buy more "Play Money" once you've given out enough to members of the club (or you can start a new "Club" and get the default "Play Money" to start with again...but then everyone has to join the new club).

So the guy who runs the game (my buddy) is the admin and is technically collecting the majority of the rake which is play money (I believe the app siphons off a fraction of it though to insure that you will have to buy more "Play Money" at some point). Then he can just view the stats afterwords to see what each player paid in rake for the session.