I think a lot of us play in low stakes home games with friends, where I could not even conceive anyone would try cheating.

As to OP, I don't know how important this game is to you socially or financially, but if someone is trying to dictate how you play, I'd just politely walk away, espcially since, at least for me, I play way worse when I'm not playing the game I want to play.

Everyone keeps talking about opening up and all this stuff, but the single best thing you can possibly ever do to "make the game good" is to show bluffs, preferably in a narrow timeframe.

I in a regular game and one of the guys I just don't play pots w/normal range raise my open. He shows me a bluff, then another big one. He just sits for the nuts looking to stack people. He's missed my money I guess. Advertising. I think just say No. Don't try to outplay him w/less than a premium hand. Better to lose the 3B a couple of times a night?

You were playing more hands. Playing a hand doesn't mean you can't fold. I'd try to focus on situations where you can see an additional flop cheaply even fi its a garbage hand. Otherwise, play how you want.

Hey. I play in a small stakes tournament home games online with mics and cameras set up. Even in a tiny game like this, the guy running it has tossed multiple people with his overreacting to minor issues. Sadly, sometimes there is nothing to be done. I hope you get to stay in your game for the long haul.

I cant tell how to play this nonsense hand with a tilted host goading you into punting to satisfy his own ego, but the fact remains you're "on the list" and people are talking. Dont get disinvited. I only ever had one highstakes friend who mentored me a little and played 25/50 live frequently. I still remember the day he talked to me about if I ever got invited to a game like this that sometimes I just have to donate to keep the whales happy and look like I have some degen in me. The only example I recall was specifically calling a huge bet, like 10k on the river with air. He didnt discuss results with me too often but I feel 300k+ 1 year was brought up as motivation. So with that in mind, I love the idea of you jamming but the goal here is to prove you sometimes lose, not that you own everyone as an elite pro.