One fundamental truth of poker is that it is about winning money, not winning hands. In order to win money, you want to put a lot of money in when you have a big hand and put little to no money in when you don't. This isn't as simple as it sounds.

In the game you describe, most of your villains limping in learn that they need to fold on the flop if they don't have a good draw or at least TP. They also are quite passive, checking or calling until they have monster. Even then, they'll just call because they think they are tricky players. Therefore, they aren't going to call unless they have a big hand or draw. If you don't have a TP hand, you're mostly likely going to just c/f. If you do have a TP, you'll likely bet a 1/2 to 2/3 PSB on the flop and shut down if called, especially if there is no draw on the board. If you have better than TP, you're going to keep betting on the turn and river.

Of course this is super generalized and you're going to adjust it to the players are you know where their pain points are.

Exactly. Even as an online player, if you were to filter your results by biggest pots won they'd all be flushes, straights, boats etc. Not just top pair.

The problem is when u play these hands and miss the flop a ton which you will you are burning money. When u hit there is a good chance u get paid. Last night I played a bunch of those hands and lost all of them. I guess I will have to see how it works over time. Thank you

Thank you for the advise

This.

Also, this.

One thing that is good to think about when playing versus fish is that fold equity is inversely proportional to implied odds. In other words when you have one you don't have the other.

In this game you don't have any fold equity so trying to get people to fold is burning money. The upside to this is that you will get paid off with your value hands. The hands that you want to be seeing flops with here are pocket pairs, suited connectors and suited 2-gappers and suited aces. These will not make the best hand very often but when they do you'll be fairly certain that you're good and they'll win you huge pots.

On the flip side big Broadway hands suddenly become a lot less attractive. This is because they are great at making top pair which, if you're playing online is a solid hand. However if you're playing no-fold'em hold'em one-pair hands aren't as great. Now I'm not saying to fold your KJo preflop..Just be aware of a lot of money is piling in on a Jxx flop that you might not be best.

There's also no issue with playing fit or fold in a game like this. You have to make hands so you want to see a lot of flops and then escape cheaply if you miss.

Now also since you need to make hands to win there's going to be a good bit of variance. Some nights you'll run dead and there's nothing you can do. Don't be tempted to run a big bluff as that's horrendous in a game like this.

I could probably have written this OP myself a few years ago. I was able to win online games but was always losing playing with my friends whose only experience was in those infrequently run home games. I was trying to apply my online strategy to the home game but it was fundamentally incorrect since the players I was up against had different styles and weaknesses.

My best advice for you is to quit poker.

Thank you. I guess I just have to get it in my head to play this style of game.

Thank you for taking the time to respond

These type of "how do I beat this type of game" threads rarely go well, as evidenced by this one. I won't lock it right now, since venice didn't and I'm not going to overrule him, but it's close.

Listen, it's this simple. If there is no "happy medium" raise sizing that gets your desired number of callers (and I've definitely played in games like this), then
1) put in money when you are ahead of their ranges, which means with big hands pre and with TPGK+ on most flops,
2) look for cheap showdowns when you have a made hand but are not ahead of their ranges (such as when they call OTF),
3) draw to big hands as cheaply as possible (including limping speculative hands pre, checking draws OTF instead of semi-bluffing, etc.), and
4) value bet the ever loving crap out of them when you do hit a big hand (tripsTK+).

Embrace the variance and stop trying to push them around if they are immovable.

I like playing in games I like this. It's high variance, and you'll have losing sessions and you're intersession variance will be high. Here is my advice, and I believe these are all connected so you need to do all of them not just some:

1. Raise every hand you enter.
Your opponents as a group are playing very wide. To get 4 or 5 handed every handed most hands people are playing 45% of ranges. Which means typical villain is playing something like:

22+, A2s+, K2s+, Q8s+, J7s+, T7s+, 96s+, 85s+, 74s+, 64s+, 53s+, 42s+, 32s, A4o+, K9o+, Q9o+, J8o+, T8o+, 98o, 87o, 76o, 65o, 54o

Your raises don't need to drive people, these are also value raises because...

2. Tighten up.
Reverse implied odds are death. Hands like KJo, QTo, even strong hands like AJo and KQo are very marginal especially out of position. Hands like Axs and small pairs are great from any position. Suited connectors and suited 1 gapers are strong but only in position.

3. Semi Bluff
Do not put money in the pot with small amounts of equity. Fold. With that said, semi buffing is your friend. Pound big nutted draws with with raises and 3!.

4. Flop the world.
You are not playing a top pair game. You are playing to flop big draws, two pair and sets. When you hit them you pound them betting at least 75% to PSB in every spot. If you flop top pair you are checking and calling. If it gets down to 1 or 2 V's by the river and weakness was shown on the turn then you can go to value town with top pair. If their is a lot of action on the flop or the turn easily fold your top pair hands. If you flop second pair or worse fold.

5. Don't slow play
Ever. You're playing for big hands when you get them you need to pound them. You're semi-bluffing so people will feel like they need to call you down. That is how you get value.

6. Don't call big bets
This one is hard because you're playing tight and patient and when hit gin you want to get the chips but if someone is betting big in absolute terms $100+ (at 1-2 or 1-3) fold anything short of top 2 on a dry board (V likely has a set). On a flushed board you need to be willing to fold sets, straights and baby flushes all depending on V and action. Calling big bets with strong but nutted hands is a huge money loser, the opposite is also true.

7. Top off.
Keep your stack near the max size, because you are playing to get all your chips in the pot so being at 250 instead of 300 is a big deal because it costs you 50 when you get it in.

8. Bring multiple buy ins
Realize you're going to have swings be prepared so you don't get shut out.

I agree it is close and if there is more trolling, I will shut it down.

Please don't shut it down. I am getting some valuable info from some people which I appreciate. Who cares if people troll. We just move on and let them troll I guess

one thing I kinda disagree with is this whole RIO stigma playing TP live. By that I mean "fish are so loose that if you're value betting TP by the river youre likely behind". We've already established fish play a wide range of awful hands. They arent just playing suited connectors and gappers to our raises, theyre playing unnecessarily awful hands like random suited jacks, king rag, unsuited double gapper like 85o, etc. So, if we know they're playing total trash we also know their odds of improving arent necessarily that great when theyre calling us down.

I've made lots of money double and triple barreling hands like AJo and QTo as nothing more than top pair winning at showdown. So dont immediately freeze up and assume "omgosh this fish just called 2 streets he could have anything, even the nuts!" No, they will largely still have the same poor holdings they started with, and are paying off rivers because who knows why.

I agree with javi on TP. It certainly has value especially IP on river, but it does take some understanding of board texture and reading of opponents to extract value.

If you are struggling with beating this type of game, forgoing extracting TP value isn't necessarily a bad thing until you have improved other aspects.

I think it’s really a function of how many folks are in the pot. If it’s 5 or 6 Im pot controlling anything less than TPTK, and fire on weakness.

In many 1/2 games, the 3B! is a potent weapon again against hangers on. You can usually get them to scatter.

And if you're wondering how to get 3 streets of value against 2nd pair you just need to scale your bet sizing to target that range of hands. Dont go for the 2/3 pot line every street. Maybe bet the turn half pot and the river 40% pot or less. Nothing wrong with value betting $75 into a $200 pot with A9ss on a AJK78dd runout vs the majority of loose rec players

+1

There's some gold in this thread.

I assume you would use small preflop raise sizes (3x, 4x) with your strategy. Correct?

Small preflop raises brings is back to 6 or 7 handed flops. This is what I am hoping to avoid

His point is that you are looking to disguise your range and make it easier to get people to stack off, not to limit the number of players to the flop. I actually disagree, as these types of players tend not to be observant enough for us to have have to disguise our range and are often willing to get stacks with meh hands in limped pots, so I find always raising unnecessary. Still, he's not talking about trying to limit the number of players who see a flop.

Playing these types of games isn't easy, but it is simple. Make a hand and get payed ridiculous amounts of fat value. All you have to do is bet for fat value, and very rarely for any other reason.

Here's the thing about playing draws in loose rec games; you're never getting stacks in a limped pot but you arent raising draws to semi-bluff either. Quite honestly all you're really doing when you raise a hand like 78s in a live game is just bloating the pot so that you win big IF you hit. This is in a sense gambling since it contradicts some of the fundamental tenants of poker. When your semi-bluff has no FE then you're just putting money in behind. However the flip side to this is that we expect to win a handsome pot literally every single time we hit. So even if you're an 80% dog you're 100% to double up quite often. Implied odds in live games are ALWAYS there.

*grunch*

I think the best thing for you would be to start playing PLO online. When you're in multiway pots you have to evaluate hands differently. Draws and 2p+ go way up in value and 1 pair hands go down. if you can't thin the field w AQo let's say, then you really don't have a multi-street value bet a lot of the time with top pair.

also, play more pots in position with borderline hands. you're getting plenty of pot odds and implied odds. when you hit 2p+ or make a draw, bet big. if people call a ton then don't bluff. I don't know, it's not rocket science.

^ meh cant say I agree with using PLO to refine your NLHE strat in live games. In PLO the draws people play are logical. OESD, flush draws, etc. It's not that hard to figure out what they're drawing to which is why you want to always be drawing to the near nuts when you face resistance. In NLHE players are often drawing to very very weak draws. Chasing a gutshot is extremely common. Heck I see players just chase pairs, meaning lots of out of position floats with ace high just hoping to hit an ace. You dont really need to slow down vs these player types like you would in PLO where even a fish can easily have a big combo draw.