Man, this was one hell of a night...

I usually play 2/4 with some decent players, but I heard few days ago about this juicy 5/5 game. I decided to take a shot at it, and guess what, I have never runned so bad ever. I can post all the hands I have lost, but im sure you heard enough badbeat stories.

However, I think my game was also not optimal against such a table. Thats why im here for. Like I said, I play mostly 2/4 with decent players, so I like to raise ip with decent hands etc. But that strategy was not right here.

Blinds are 5/5 but if you openraise 60, you will get atleast 4 to 5 callers. They never fold, you can't bluff them. Since we dont hit the flop often, we are forced to give up. If you dont hit the flop few times, it will cost already half of you stack...

What is the best strategy for such a table? I was thinking about limping all the hands that we should have raised. Even Aces, Kings, Queens. Because if you raise with aces to 60, you get 5 callers, so your best chance is limp and pray for someone to raise, so you can 3bet huge for value.

What do you guys think? I cant have much losing sessions anymore, im down on my bankroll. I have lost about 17k in 1,5 month due to blackjack and roulette aswell, so I have 14k left. Its a bit tricky for 5/5 juicy game, but when I am back there again, I should play ultra nitty I guess and hope to run better.

Also do you think 14k is enough for 5/5? I see myself as a profitable player though, I moved up from the bottom to build this roll I have. I made some bad decisions like blackjack and roulette. I will never play that for sure. I just want to get back to the solid grind, but yesterday was hell.

Definitely don't play in a crazy game underrolled. If the preflop raises are so magnified, you're basically playing more like a 10/20 game. So you should have ~50k to play right in that game.

It also seems like your psyche is affected by the swings here so that's another reason to stay away from that game until you're more prepared for the swings.

Sorry about the run bad, definitely rough to run bad when taking a shot.

I would suggest that the next time you take a shot, that you set a stop loss of a smaller % of your roll. You should really only risk about 10% of your roll when taking a shot. So the next time you get to ~$20k, maybe take a $2k shot at the game.

If this is a home game DO NOT PLAY. They are colluding and you will lose every cent. Only play poker at a casino. This is your last warning.

Stay away from black jack. Its evil.

You need a 25k roll to play 2/5 prob need 35k for 5/5 and maybe 50k for this game. 18k minimum for 2/5 even if u play tight

@ ImAllInNow - I brought 2.5k with me indeed, and when I was busto the game organisator gave me another 2,5k to play with. Since they know me. I will give him his 2,5k back the next week.

@ JB Clark - This is a homegame indeed. What is colluding exactly? I have been playing homegames for few years now, build my roll also from homegames. Never seen something weird. I dont know what colluding means also.

But I have never been on this place though. (the organisator know me, because we saw each other on the other homegames)

Also the rake is hideous, 5% cap 35$. But I said to myself, if there is enough money on the table and if the table is really fishy, then I can do it profitably.

I agree with both of you that I should have bigger bankroll to play in this game, but the game is super fishy. Ex. Flop is 910J the game organisator will call all the way with 105. It will not matter if there comes Q on the turn, or anoter sigh card on the river. If he has hit, hit will pay. Doesnt matter what you bet.

I dont want to wait to much to play in such a game. I mean, this game might not last long due to the rake they take. I wanna profit till the game lasts. It is underrolled, but I have to play super nitty and limp everything I should have raised. I guess?

Losing 1000 BB in a single night is a dubious achievement. While I don't think most home games are rigged and it is possible you ran horribly, I think JBClark is right in this case. At best, you're not ready to beat this game no matter how "juicy" you think it is. At worst, they're going to bleed you dry. Just go to the next game with the $2500, pay off your debt and then tell them they are too good for you. That's for the invite, but you're not coming back.

If they accept graciously and wave goodbye on the way out, they probably weren't cheating you. If the organizer tells you that you can pay him back later if you play now or even offers you a rebate on your debt or future losses, flee the scene as fast as possible.

I wouldn't play in that specific game but that's a personal-ish choice I guess.

I would keep playing your regular 2/4 game assuming that you're a winner. If you find yourself continually going to the pits and chasing losses I would re-consider playing poker until you can be confident in your ability to avoid this.

Are you looking to make poker your primary income source? If so, before you do that, I would definitely recommend a stable part time job. Play poker on the side for awhile.

Stop playing in this game. You cannot beat the rake.

The host is effectively free-rolling you. He is raking so much money off of the table, that no one can beat him. He could be taking as much as $700 per hour off of the table (35 x 30 hands =$700 per hour).

Some awful advice about home games in here. I'm part of a 5/5 game and there's no cheating or colluding and we have a sheet as a convenience to keep people around. Not so you can be robbed by cheaters. Rake is very reasonable for a home game.

^ confirmation bias imo

Yes probably. But it's prolly weighted towards more games being legit than not. Trust me I've been to the worst of the worst of home games.

It is dubious yes. I must say that I have runned bad and it had affected my game. I go there with the strategy to play super tight, but after my aces got cracked 2 times, and my kings were cracked, and I had cooler setups against the ''fishy'' host. He cant fold a hand so when I hit my AQ on Q32 flop I think im good, I go for full value and sure enough he will have 32 in his hand. When I hit my AK on A67 flop I think Im ahead and go for full value, sure enough he has 67 in his hand. When I have 56 on A56 flop, I jam allin after another fish bet 150, I jam allin for 500 he calls with AK (Its not bad at all) turn 4, river 4, kills my hand. And stuff like that, its hard to play super tight then.

You will be down about 3k by then, and you try to play more hands to hit maybe something and get them back. So it was a combination of bad run and ''tilt?''.

About collusion, I have looked up what that means and I think they did that yes. Both of the hosts which organize the game have played. Both of them are super ''fishy''. They blew every pot up, they called every raise, so now I think back, its some sort of collusion. The rake is high, so they try to get the pot big everytime so they can rake money in.

Thats why I say, when I go there next week. I will give him his money, I will try that game for one last time (2x500 buyin) and after that I will be done. Like I said, I usually play 2/4 with decent players. So when I get AQ KQ KJ etc. I like to openraise with those hands. I did this also in this specific game, and thats not the right strategy imo. If you openraise to 50, you dont hit the flop, you cant cbet bluff, you have to give up. Do that 10 times, and you are down 1 buyin.

So I have to change this style, I have to play super nitty, limp everything I would have raised and move on from there. I think maybe then, it can be profitable game. You basically wait for aces, kings, queens, or you wait to see a cheap flop and if you hit something strong, you can valuetown them. But first, you need to see a cheap flop. Even with AK, AQ etc.

Hey man,

Yes i have a part time job atm. I dont think I will ever play those pit games, I do truly believe that it is rigged. The blackjack card shuffle machine is rigged. Ofcourse I know you cant beat the house, but now I know the shuffling is rigged aswell, im done.

I just hope I can find my solid grind back. I have put in so many hours of playing, so many long nights, only to lose most of it back in 2 months. It hurts. I dont know how people cope with heavy losses. Its difficult to not think about it.

You are right, thats why they blew up every pot maybe. Its crazy rake.

You absolutely do not need $50k to play this game. It is nothing like 10|20. Just because other players don't take account for the blinds doesn't mean we don't have to. We can be very selective with our spots if we are worried about variance because we are still only paying $10 per orbit to the blinds. Also, the bigger our edge, the less of a roll we need, and we have an very big edge in this game if it is fair. $10k is more than enough to play this game. Even starting with $5k we are probably very unlikely to go broke.

10% seems kind of arbitrary. Why 10%?

35*30 = $1050. The game sounds like a lot of pots are hitting max rake ($700 pot)

Of course this rake is beatable if it's a fair game. Why would you even say it isn't? Online micro rake is worse, the games are tougher than this donk-fest and tons of players are beating micros. Ignition is basically 5% uncapped at the micros and it's easily beatable.

OP either ran like hell, played badly or got cheated. It's actually pretty hard to lose 10 BI in the described game because you should be getting your money in very good at a high frequency. I don't know why a host would be stupid enough to cheat at a game he is making serious $$$ at through the rake. Most likely OP ran badly and played badly. Based on his posting it doesn't seem like he has good fundamentals. Raising to $50 with AA and getting 5 callers is not why you're losing. Limping everything is a horrible counterstrategy unless pre-flop raising is extremely frequent.

Aces cracked.

The first time, someone opens 30, 1 caller, I raise it up to 120, IR calls. We are HU. Flop Is Q84 I cbet 120, IR push allin, I call. He has JJ, river J.

The second time, someone raise 35 or so, I 3bet again 110+- he calls. Flop is KQx I cbet, he jam allin 500$, I call. He has KQ.

And why is limping a bad counterstrategy in such a game? We obviously will not limp every hand, but a hand like AQ AK AJ I think we should limp it in. And if a aggresive player opens, and there are 4-5 callers, we can 3bet huge to get HU or to pick up the pot right away.

I might be wrong ofcourse, but thats why im here to see what im doing wrong. If you will have different counterstrategy for such a game, please tell me how you would approach. Thank you.

If you get 5 callers when you open to %50, why not open to $90 and see how many you get?

These games are very high variance, so you need to be rolled for it, but can also be extremely profitable. My adjustment is to limp every speculative hand, nut-mine, and value bet them to death when I hit, and to raise premiums to whatever redic sizing needed to get one or two callers, and then never c-bet bluff, but almost always go for three streets of value with TPGK+ and ride the variance train. It is very exploitable, but if no one at the table exploits it, game on.

Two buy ins leave the table per hour, and you believe the game is beatable?

***

Jonko:

$1000 / 10 players = $100/player per hour goes to the house. You are basically paying over $3 for every hand that is dealt to you.

You have to make $100/hr just to break even. 20 big blinds an hour. The best players in this game, under the most favorable circumstances, make about 10 big blinds per hour. And they don't do it with short stacks, which they effectively are in this game if the average raise size is $50-$60 with a $500 buy in.

So you have to be twice as good as the very best live players, playing about half the effective stack size, to simply break even in this game.

Good luck with that.

This game is unplayable, irrespective of how juicy it looks. Take that thousand dollars you were going to give to the house and hire a hooker for ten hours instead. It's a more pleasant way to get fucked.

And probably cheaper.

And while I'm on the topic, if you lost $17K at BJ and roulette, you have a gambling problem.

This isn't true man. It's not rigged. The games are designed for the house to have an edge, that's all. The reason you shouldn't play them is because like you said, you can't beat the house long term.

If you're playing in any major casino in the US I can assure you the shuffling isn't rigged.

I live, played in the Netherlands. They use shuffling machine here, after each hand he put the cards back in the machine to shuffle. It makes alot of sound to shuffle so it catched my attention. I really had a sigh feeling that the machine was rigged. It didnt matter which move you make, you will lose. You might win 1 time obv, and lose 9 times.

If you take a card, you bust. If you stay, dealer will hit higher. It didnt matter which move you would make.

So. It is a good sign that you don't want to play blackjack anymore. Only the very best card counters can win at that game, and they get kicked out of the casino when the casino realizes how good they are.

it is a very bad sign that you think the game is rigged in a licensed casino in the Netherlands, as it make me assume you don't think things through logically, which is a very bad sign for you as a poker player.

It is also a HUGE sign of gambling problems that you've managed to lose half of your roll at table games and didn't stop sooner. It makes me think that you have a big "chasing losses" problem, which will get you creamed at poker games like the one you describe. You probably shouldn't be gambling for meaningful sums of money, period. and likely not gambling at all. Even if you have an edge in theory, you don't seem to in reality.

Respectfully, this is the same question any struggling 1/2 player asks. I kinda wonder what your skill level is if you are asking this? I mean, the strategy against those players is exactly the same at 5/5 as it is at 1/2.

Anyway, my first thought was the same as others that this could be a rigged home game. Running bad would be one symptom. Obviously in one night of poker it could just be luck but if they have some cameras hidden or are stacking the deck, it wouldn't be an accident for you to run bad.

Short answer is just stay away from this game, but do you have any real friends in this game? How did you hear about it? From a friend or somebody you don't know but was surprisingly friendly to you out of the blue?

@ Garick - I had the chasing losses problem, but it only went downhill obviously. Thats why I dont want to play pit games no more. I do have a burning feeling inside me, thinking about my losses. I cant sleep at nights. I want to get back where I was, i know it will take time but it makes me tired. That constantly grinding is a really hard job. Anyway, i had this fresh mindset when I enter that 5/5. I didnt think about my losses at that time, I was ready to put mindset 0 and grind my way up. But then I run the worst I have runned, also its above my normal stakes so you lose another 5k and you are back to that sigh burning feeling again. Man, I dont know what to do. I think about quitting for good, but I do this for 10 years now, its addiction and also when I quit I dont know what I should do with my life at all.

@ spider - the organizator is a thug, both of them. They seem to have alot of money, its not because of hard work or because of poker. They make their money by criminal activities I think, and thats why they throw money so easy. I saw one of them at few other homegames, and he played crazy their aswell.

So I really dont think they have cheated or something, this place is really underdog. All young "criminal" type of guys, who just play without knowledge of the game. Just like the game hosts.

The reason I have lost 5k is like I said because of bad run in combination with poor play. When I took some of this bad beats, it did affected my overall gameplay. Maybe without that, i should have been down 3k.

yeah it really doesn't sound like cheating to me, obv you could be cheated but this games plays super big and being down 5k would be normal in this variance fest

I have even in a similar situation over the last few days, made a thread about a couple hands...playing 2-4 on.a few wild nights with regular straddles up 32 and beyond, I feel like the game should be beatable and very profitable but the swings are tough. One of the pros I play with dropped 6k into a 2-4 game the other night. Which is seemingly absurd but the game plays more like 8-16..... Which a 6k loss isn't crazy....
When the game is like this I buy in for 100bb and try and run up a stack, rather than dropping 400bb in one hand.... It's usually pretty easy to run it up to 300bb+ and then go from there.

Oh, mam... wtf?

Don't play in that game if the preflop 2! is 12bb and 4-5 villains call it.
What's the point of raising in the first place if 4-5 dudes calling? Don't play like that because having 4-5 player call 12bb is like limping in a 30/60 fish game.

The problem here is the number of callers. So, what you can do is play AA/KK and AK and raise for $360+ but for that you need a bigger bankroll. Or Raise for $1000 in the back after 4-5 players have called the $60 from somebody else.

Make sure find out what's going on because it smells fishy to me. See what happens if If 4-5 villains calls the pre raise and you make it like $180 wtf they do? They still 4-5 all call it? It may be so that you are against the "4-5 as a group team" of player that are in cookouts and they split your losses at the end of the night. Make sure what's going on when you are first in the pot for 2! now how many callers? and the same thing how many come in the pot if you raise like $360 in the back with 4-5 in front. They still all come and call your $360? - If they do .., well.. wtf? do you want more proof? ..,
f*** them all. They gang-up on you. Try to trap them with AA or don't play.