I moved to Georgia 6 months ago. My only options for casino poker are Cherokee, NC or Biloxi, MS. Either place is 8+ hours round trip, something I don't want to do every week. I've been playing micro and $3 triple up SNG at Ignition. I don't crush it but I'm winning.

I found a "home game" a couple of weeks ago. The table dynamics and player pool are way different than I'm used to:
It's a home game in the sense that it's played at someone's home. Custom tables and chips. Free food, liquor, beer, and sodas. Talk by the dealer and players of other games at other locations and cities. Talk of attending tournaments.

Game is 50¢/$1 NL 10-handed. 1st time I bought in for a $100. Sat down and saw that 5 players had stacks of $400 to $700. Later players bought in for $300 or more, saw a rebuy for $900. Straddle is allowed from any position, has gone as high as $25. Open from UTG +3 for $15 nets 3+ callers. Interestingly, not a whole lot of 3-betting (this doesn't help me cap range as I've seen AA & KK flat). Lots of raising pre flop. Bluffing frequency is greater than I'm used to. Majority of players talk the lingo (equity, outs, clean outs, opponent's range, etc.). Majority of the time, pre flop callers are calling the flop. It's a long enough post already so here are some of the issues I have:

1) I don't have a bankroll. I have $200/week disposable income that I can dedicate to poker. I bought in for $200 last week. This brings up my SPR disadvantage vs the bigger stacks on the flop.

2) I know some of you would salivate at so many callers and say just bet bigger. But I've seen those equity charts where even AA does poorly against so many callers.

3) LAG villains; I don't want to be exploited by fit or fold on the flop. But OOP with not even a redraw, what to do?

1st week I bought in for $100, rebuy for $100 left broke. Last week bought in for $200. Got up to $900, left with $200! Game starts at 11:30pm, at 5:00am I knew that I was fatigued but like a dummy I stayed for another hour and a half and spewed. Strategy advice please.

Sorry about the formatting. I indented the paragraphs and double-spaced to the next. The formatting is there before I submit but not after.

I put spaces between the paras for you.

Forget everything you've learned from the online micros. You will never isolate, and you will almost never get 2nd Pair+ to fold. Bet only for fat value, and bet huge. Don't put much money in post flop with overpairs 4+ ways. Look for cheap SDs once you have a weak made hand. Bet like a maniac once you have a strong made hand. Semi-bluff almost never.

Ride the variance train. I have raised to 17xBB pre and got multiple callers in these games. I have both won and lost over 700BBs in one night. While I averaged a ridiculous winrate, these types of games are incredibly swingy. With no bankroll, you may go home brooke several weeks in a row. String a couple of good sessions together and your chances of building a bankroll go way up.

Read this thread on converting from online to live.

GL.

It looks like it plays closer to a 1/3 game, you need a bankroll of like 4k minimum. If you want to play for fun on $200 a week and gamble that's another story but it's impossible to treat the game seriously on what's less than a full buy in per week.

If they're spewy and you're good at poker then find a way to scrape some money together. If you're not so good at poker then I suggest you don't play that particular game, or deposit your $200 online and play very low stakes and learn the game. There's no substitute for a proper bankroll.

Jax should be a lot closer

How much are they raking you at this game? It should be very high to give free food, free booze, dealers, custom chips, tables etc. If there is no rake or a low rake, you want to flee this game as fast as possible. You're being cheated.

Next strategy step is to not play in for the next 3 months and save your money so you have a bankroll. Then go back and play fully rolled.

A quick note: as a short stack you have an SPR advantage. Not disadvantage.

+1

Just because there is no rake doesn't necessarily mean you are being cheated. I am a regular at 3 different games like this right now and they all have no rake.

Typically the regs in the game bring the alcohol and leave it for the next game. Doesn't take long to have a nice stock. Snacks same way. Actual food pizza or take-out everyone at the game just chips in. The dealers work on tips. It is not uncommon for them to make 3-500 bucks a night. Hardly worth trying to cheat someone out of LOL 200 as nothing will kill a game faster than roumors of cheating.

With that said, back when I played in a lot of true underground games, raked or not, it's pretty easy to figure out which ones were sketchy and leave never to return. This doesn't sound like one of those games.

More on strategy later, but if your buying in to this game for 1-200 bucks, you aren't even a consideration to the other players unless you run it up like you did and then they start paying attention.

Bankrolls matter if you can go broke or lose all your poker money. That's not the case with you as you can afford to go with 2 bullets of 100bb every week. This is what I would do until I (hopefully) built up a roll from winning.

Garick covered some good strat advice. I'll add leave when you get tired. Set a reasonable time to go and bail then.

Not quite the same thing.

Yeah, this is the first thing that jumped out at me too. Based on this comment alone (which suggests lack of poker knowledge, no offense OP) and lack of BR, my advice (if playing in this game at all) would be to BI short, play super tight, and pretty much put chips on lock down when deeper (and just try to get off the table eventually as tactfully as possible so that you're invited back).

ETA: And obviously consider the saftey / up-and-up of the game as others have suggested. With any real money involved, I would not play any home game unless I knew all the players personally in "real" life, but that's me and I'm super conservative like that.

GgoodluckG

Have you? You know that in terms of AIPF, even as your equity goes down, your EV goes up with more callers, right?

Which would you rather have, 80% of $100 or 15% of $1000?

Pick out a pretty 8%-10% range...play that in early positions. Pick out a pretty 11%-16% range...play that in late positions. Wait. Profit.


And eat as much as you can, lol.

If you are worried about people attacking you when you check out of position, first of all, they probably aren’t, if they are, start checking good hands and check raise your draws and strong value.

So what's your point?

SPR - with a low SPR on the flop doesn't it become a jam or fold? I have little money behind. Doesn't a low SPR commit me? A higher SPR allows me to get away from a hand with less consequence.

Getting away from your hand is not your goal, though. Yes, you have to do it sometimes, but it shouldn't be your main focus. Playing deeper smooths out the variance, as you are less often committed and at the mercy of the deck. On the other hand, when you are short Vs often will be unable to bet enough to deny you odds, and more importantly in a game like this, will often be unable to have the IOs they need to call you with speculative hands.

The big advantage of high SPR is that you can often get them to make big mistakes in large pots, which you can't do when short. You need a better feel for the game in order to do that, though. Generally an approach appropriate to the online micros (very tight by live standards and a lot of continued aggression post with most holdings) is not so good for deep-stack live and is much better for shorter stacks.

My advice.

1) If the game is being raked, don't go back.

I don't mind giving people who run and deal home games tips - but if they're raking from the pot, that's illegal, and there's no guarantee that they're not taking way more than their fair share from the pot. You really can't get ahead in that game anyway, so your best bet is not to play.

2) Establish a virtual bankroll - then make it a real bankroll.

You have $200 a week you can lose on poker. Make a spreadsheet in Google Docs or whatever you're comfortable with. Decide how much you can flush down the toilet in, say, a three month period. $200 * 12 = 2400. That's your virtual bankroll. (You really should have 4000 for this game, but you're not a pro, you're an amateur, so it's okay to be a little light). Keep track of your buyins and cashouts (wins, losses). Eventually try to replace your "virtual" bankroll with your *real* winnings, if you're a profitable player -- consider the $2400 a "loan from yourself to yourself" that you have to pay back.

I've created a Google Docs spreadsheet for you (or anyone else) to copy at this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

It won't tell you what to do, but it will give you an idea of how much you're winning, losing, whether you should stay in games or not, etc. Long story short, you can't be sure of your decisions if you don't have the data.

3) Tighten up, wait for premiums, raise bigger, don't bluff. ABC poker.

You're basically not going to find a game in Georgia that doesn't.

Definitely worth watching for this.

That's not really something that can be determined without knowing how much (if any) edge OP has on the field.

Thanks to everyone one for the advice, much appreciated. @ Garick thanks for getting me out of my tunnel vision. I kept seeing the negatives instead of taking the time to understand the positives.

I think that what put me off stride on my 1st visit was all the tecnical lingo. In the live games I've played there is always at least 1 player spouting the lingo, usually totally inapplicable to the situation. At this game, almost the whole table has something to say about odds, putting someone on a range (not a hand) etc. That combined with the deep stacks relative to the BB, caught me flat footed.

On my second visit I really noticed that it was more about the larger stacks trying to bully the smaller stacks. The variance is outrageous. Example: 6-handed. BB straddles $25, UTG calls, Hero AdQd raises to $100. BB & UTG call. Flop ($300) 8hAc4d. Checks to Hero, bet $150. BB calls (all in) UTG folds. BB turns over A8. 10-handed, Hero MP AcKc. UTG +2 raises to $15, UTG +3 calls. Hero raises to $50. B & UTG +2 calls. Flop AK6r. Hero bets 1/2 pot, 2 callers. Turn bricks, hero bets 1/2 pot. B calls, UTG +2 folds and says to B "you know what he's representing, right?" B says "yeah, but I don't think he's got it" and proceeds to call my 1/2 pot bet OTR & shows QQ while I'm thinking the whole way of what I could be behind to.

As far as the game being sketchy; it's in an upper class neighborhood. The game I'm "invited" to is one of the smaller games. Players on my left and right were business owners. My 2008 Chevy Cobalt looked out of place parked amongst the Mercedes and Lexus lol.

After my next visit, I will be posting a PAHWM or 2. Thanks again.

Neither of those hands showed any ‘bullying’ from large stacks.

I am concerned about the blatant disregard for the One Player To A Hand rule. They sound awful enough that I might play anyway, but that's pretty gross.

If these goofballs are gonna call ~40% of effective stacks pre with dominated aces and pay off three streets with QQ on an AKx flop I don't really care if they're openly discussing my range, my social security number, or my mom.