I'm back from my home game and after a pretty bad session I'm questioning the "Raise big to thin the field" concept.
We play 0.50/0.50. The problem/beautiful thing in this game is just that people don't fold pre and catch light post. I raise my premium yesterday to 10-15bb (20+ with straddle) and always got 4-6 caller to the flop. With premium it's not a problem because I can raise more till I find the 3way/Heads up Size. What do you do with hands like KQ,QJs,ATo,88,QT in Late position after a bunch of limps/straddles? Do you Raise really big or limp behind and play high SPR (not that high with straddle) vs the bingo players? And if you Raise, do you cbet a missing dry flop? They will call with any piece and any draw. What I'm trying to say is: is Raise for thin value a good idea when you have to bloat the pot to see the flop 3way or Heads up Ve sticky opponent? Or I'm better off limping and playing high spr poker post flop? I have fired 3 bullets away yesterday and this only with Raise pre and cbet missed dry boards.
Sorry for my bad English and sorry if the thema is annoying, but I like to know how the community think.

Not necessarily. I guess it depends how many callers you get. In my game you're unlikely to get more than three most of the time. So if I have pocket Kings or something I don't want to blow them out with a huge raise. Even with a hand like KQ if the game isn't playing too tight I'm okay with a few calls because I'm charging them to play their K3 suited and if we both hit they're now more committed to the hand than if they just put in 2 dollars.

Getting sucked out on from time to time is okay as long as your charged them for the privilege and didn't call off a huge stack postflop when it should have been clear you were beat.

Most poker books and posters use unstated assumptions when giving advice on how to play a hand. They included:

1. Villians are playing to win. Even if they don't know what to do, their goal is to win money.

2. The stakes are high enough that nobody wants to just throw away their money for fun.

The problem is that in a home game such as yours, these assumptions often don't hold. Many of the people playing are there because they want to have a fun evening. I don't know what the economic situation is in your country, but a 100BB buyin is only $50. In the US, most people aren't worried about losing $50.

Therefore, people are going to play lots of hands because folding isn't fun. They aren't going to fold to a bluff because the cost staying in is low. In these games, you have to win by playing better starting hands than your villains and recognizing that TP is a below average winning hand on most boards. The result is you'll want to keep the pots small when you don't have a big hand (however that is defined in your game) and push hard when you have it.

If I'm raising 10-15 BB and still getting 4-6 callers before the flop, then I would only raise my premium hands and start limping a lot of the marginal and speculative hands. I would bluff and c-bet way less against this table.

These players sound really loose after the flop (and before the flop) so I'd just limp that stuff and hope to hit something. Don't use a strategy of trying to get opponents to fold if they're not going to fold. A huge strength of their game is picking off bluffs. If you keep bluffing you reward them for their loose play.

I love to raise a lot PF with marginal/speculative hands but I wouldn't do it at this table.

Thanks Venice, This was an Eye opener for me.

I´m not that opinion. I see the point of keeping villain range wide so we can value bet profitably TPGK+ vs his TPNK, but if that is the goal we can simply Limp behind and play a high SPR pot. Assuming Effective Stacks 100BB and assuming i raise 5-6BB with KQ and have 5 caller. Flop is K46 and my SPR is about 3 in a 6 Way pot. Not a big deal. I prefer to limp behind and see a K46 flop with a SPR of 10+. Or i´m missing something doing this?

Good points. Cbets bluff and preflop raise with marginal Holdings IP is lightning money on fire vs the Gambleboyz.

I disagree with Venice on a minor point...

At very loose home games, I play deeper, and look to play hands that make strong 5card hands, not strong 2card hands.

I may not raise pre much at all if the environment is that folks are there to have fun and see flops.

~~~
Et même si ce n'est pas vrai. Il faut croire à l'histoire ancienne.

That's not the right logic because KQ is marginal when your opponents play 20-25% of their hands. When your opponents play 60-70-80% of their hands, it's a pretty good hand. Raise it for value!

I think it's obvious that on such flops it's better to raise and have low SPRs that will allow you to play for stacks as opposed to having high SPRs where it's tough to do so and if you do, you re probably behind. Obviously, with 5 or 6 people calling, you will lose a lot and you have to know when to fold. But with ranges being so wide, you will still get paid a ton.

How can you fold with tpgk and a a spr of 3? A cbet commits you to the pot.
And what do you make if you miss the flop? Try to cbet good boards or Let it Go?



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^^^^^ this
If they old man coffee I would be limping with just about everything but given your table description I am raising preflop a lot with a wider range.
Pretty much if limped too I would be raising any PP,SC down to 76, and all suited Broadway,A2-A5s,ATs+,AJ+ when I have position.
When it get too the flop you are going to miss and have to give up sometimes but if people are calling with trash hands they are not going to lay down TP/flush draws etc
While it is a lot more variance you are going to win a lot more when people stack off with junk against hands that crush them.
The hard part is finding the point where they start to fold there trash and only play decent hands.
For some people K8s etc is only worth 4bb for others it is 15bb there is no point betting so much that they fold pretty much everything as you are effectively turning your hand into a bluff

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Yea the goal of raising preflop can be to either thin the field or straight value. If you are raising hands like KQs and getting 5 callers every time it is pretty much guaranteed you have positive equity on the flop. When I'm in a game like thwt my raises preflop are for value and to inflat the pot so it is easier to get even more when my opponents overvalue their draws and weak 1 pair hands. You just need to have the discipline to fold when it's obvious someone luck boxed you and be able to spot the time you can go for 3 streets of value with your 1 pair hands. Assuming you can do that you should be printing money at a game like that over any longer period of time (though variance in a game like that can be quite brutal).

So assuming you are raising that range and get 90% of the time 4+ caller and a bloated pot on the flop. What do you make when you miss the flop? Or when you Hit a middle Pair with a spr of <5? Just give up? Our opponents are loose, but assuming that they always go broke with top pair bad kicker for 100bb+ is a little optimistic. I think you overestimate the chance of stacking opponent when they Have Top Pair. If we cant reach a spr of <5 and go HU or 3 way with top pair hands such as KQ isn't it better to just limp and play post flop poker?


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You Have positive equity, but vs 5 random Ranges its Not that big advantage. And a bloated pot multiway with little spr is Not that big deal. You commit your stack with top pair ans Have a Lot of trouble with second pair hands.



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Another point for limping behind -> raising:
When we Raise pre and bloat the pot pre our cbet size will be a lot bigger than in a limped pot and we reach the betting price of the fish a lot faster. When we have KQo in a bloated 30 bb pot 5 way on K46 every fish will call a cbet with tpnk but fold often to a second barrell because they have reached the thersold of money they want to invest in the pot with a bad top pair. In a limped pot I think you can go for 3 street of value and expect that top pair worse kicker call you down because is not that much money(what Venice said Early). That's mean the same money with a lot less variance. I hope you can understand what I write, my English is so bad.

If six people are calling before the flop, you just want to shovel money in with hands that have equity, QTs is easily worth any amount of money preflop if five other people are calling with junky hands.

How much is the buy-in? It's entirely possible you should just be jamming. "Shortstacking" this game by getting 100bb in pre flop with hands that play well multiway is solid.

Max buy in is 200bb but almost anyone buy in for 100bb. Late at night the stacks get pretty deep and anyone sitting at 200bb+.
QTs is obv a good MW hand and we all should play it Vs these bingo players. That's not my question. My question is if you are going to raise preflop with this hand and good position if you know the 4/5 limpers are going to stick around no matter what. Is better a small pot with high spr or a bloated pot with a small spr?



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It depends if you can handle the variance.
If some clown is going to call decent/big preflop raises with trash,then I am raising but they will out flop you from time to time and you just have to dive into your pocket and top up.
But know that eventually they will go broke too doing it.
If you can't handle that for whatever reason calling is the other option but you will get out drawn a lot given the low stakes people are going to call with GS/FD/OESD/ 3rd pair with out the correct odds ( which is good don't get me wrong) but given the MW action is going to be a lot tougher to win hands
Each too their own I can see both sides have valid answer too your question
I just prefer to raise big pre so I don't have to think that hard post flop given the table dynamics

a) the your equity advantage will very between slight to massive and overall be a consistent money maker for you. Having a positive 4% equity edge overtime is a lot of money in your pocket b) you should never have the mentality that you are always stack committed in a game like this against opponents like this. Use your ability to hand read to play exploitative poker. You should stack off with top pair when you very likely have the best and avoid stacking off with top pair when you very likely do not. Bad players are pretty transparent if you pay attention over time c) same thing for when you make middle pair. you should not have trouble against bad players manipulating the action to either get to showdown when you want for the price you want or feeling confident you are making good folds and that our opponents aren't exploiting you.

The problem with limping is it hurts your ability to extract good value because the pot is smaller to begin with.

If multiple opponents are getting in 100bb preflop with hands with less equity than QTs preflop, then yes, this is a good idea. The problem is that this rarely happens in NL unless you are playing in an incredibly juicy game, and instead you'll find that if multiple players (if any, for that matter) decide to get in 100bbs preflop, they most likely have QTs absolutely destroyed.

I also think this concept of raising hands that have an equity edge preflop is more suited to Limit, where we have to take advantage of thin equity advantages on every street since we can't capitalize on it huge on later streets (like we can in NL). Plus, in Limit we can almost always get to the river to realize that thin equity edge, often against multiple players (thus easily getting the best of "our fair share"), while this is often not the case in NL (where we often end up HU very early, plus are often not able to realize our preflop equity due to our opponent betting too much postflop to force us off our hand before it gets there).

GcluelessraisingnoobG

It is not easy to distinguish whether your TPTK is likely up against TP2K vs set vs draw in very multiway low SPR pots.

Gfareasiersaidthandone,imoG

This.
When the spr is high enough we Have enough room to understand if we are beaten or not. When we are playing 6 way with a spr of 3..thats not the case.

Stop it, just stop it. When you get on low sprs you play for top pair and then take them to value town. You are going to be beaten by unlikely hands and often experience excruciating bad beats, but mathematically, there's no way for guys playing SCs much less unsuited garbage like 36o to come out ahead long term. And if they don't come ahead, who does?

It's ****ing hard to make two pair or better. It's hard to hit the flop in the first place and when you play garbage, the most likely outcome is crappy mid pairs and weak draws. Those players therefore either will have to fold a lot on the flop or play aggressively crappy hands. Some hand reading will help you decide which is which, but even if you aren't able to tell them apart, you ll come out ahead over the long term.

I play in a home game like this, and it's very difficult.

The bottom line is, to make $ you have to hit flops. You have to throw out a lot of poker skill/strategy and simply make hands. Skills like good bluffs, hand reading, bet sizing and even position are all diminished.

Variance is huge and you just can't escape it. OP you know your villains better than us but an idea is limp with top 10-15% hands and then when raised with multiple callers then you shove and take it down or get heads up.

Another strategy is 3bet more. In these games everyone calls the "standard" raise size but they usually back down to the 3 bettor and the only caller you get is original raiser, heads up is way easier to play than bloated multiway.

I know how you feel, it makes for a long night losing mult buyins when you raise/call raises and miss every flop. But there will be nights you run like god and make 2000BB+

It's not going to be difficult to play for stacks at a table this loose. These villains aren't going to wait for a monster before they are willing to put a lot of money in. You can make big bets and even overbet the pot and if they like their hand they won't fold.

I don't think it sounds like the table was that loose. Depending on stack sizes and exactly how loose they were (I don't know how many other players were playing), you might be right. Maybe KQo should be raised and I would raise it up if they're calling 60-80% of the time but I think from the description they will be tighter than that against big raises. I'd raise it up every time if it's suited though.