Hey everyone,

I'm hoping to get some advice and tips on essentially, how to beat this weekly home game I go to. It's 50 NL, and usually has 9 people going. People usually buy in for $40-70, and within 2 or 3 hours or so of play there is usually $1400 on the table. As it goes without saying, the entire table is crazy loose. 2 of players seem to know what they are doing, but the rest seem like they just want to gamble.

I just play a very TAG game, and for the most part finish up anywhere from $50-150 a night. My VP is probaby around 12, pr something like 5. I like to limp the premium hands and re pop when it comes back around, as 90% of the time someone is going to raise it. Despite my tight image, the players don't seem to respect my raise, or they just don't realize or w/e. I usually end up giving them more credit they deserve, and probably end up making poor lay downs.

Sooo, do I keep playing the way I am, or do I start to pay ultra LAG like they do? It's really tempting, but I have no idea.

I know I am rambling on and my thoughts are all over the place, but we usually only play for 5 hours so roughly 180 hands, and I find myself playing like I would for a 5 hour session online where I would get many, many more hands.

All advice is appreciated,

thx

I believe there is no other way to play that except TAG. I mean, playing the same game they are playing is going to do you no justice except probably breaking even with them. Remember poker is a game of patience and making 1-3 buy ins over 180 hands consistently is a very good bb/100 IMO. Not really gonna get any higher then that.

Thx for the response.

I should mention I set mine like a mofo as I have huge implied odds even against middle pair haha.

I guess it's just tempting to see that one guy who plays so loose and has $500 in front of him, and want to play his style.

Gotta member winning play in the long run I guess :S

One loose crazy player or another will win a giant stack every week. Watch carefully, though, and you'll notice that it's a different loose crazy player every time. They're mostly breaking even against each other, while you sit there taxing the game for a consistent buyin or three every week.

Still want to play like them?

This is pretty fundamental:

Play the opposite style your opponents play and you'll profit as long as you make the right decisions more often than your opponents. Play solid and the one night out of 10 that you run well, you'll be taking home 5+ buyins. Patience and consistency until then.

As themukinnutz said, winning 100-300BB most sessions in a game like this is pretty good already. In my limited experience, these types of games tend to have crazy variance, so if you're a consistent winner then you're already doing something right (or running hot ).

Maybe you should move up.

I play in a game just like this, and I play TAG. I don't try to out-LAG the LAGs, but I do push a wider range of hands harder against these players. TPTK is a big pot hand against the guy who will go to showdown with middle pair every time. If they start to catch on and tighten up against you, show 'em a bluff - you'll get plenty of action for the rest of the night. If not, just keep playing TAG and value-bet the tar out of them.

I found some good advice in this thread, let me see if I can find it...

There it is. You should do like bolt781 is doing, because it seems to be working out for him.

lol ok, I guess it's one of those answers where you figure it out by thinking it out :S

thx for the responses.

one of these days ill have the $500 stack!!

Heh, yeah. As tit4tat said, it's easy to get jealous of those players who get huge stacks with unlikely cards. But as he also said, it's not the same person every week. In the long run, they lose. Unless it's a tournament, it doesn't matter who has the big stack. All that matters is how much is in your stack.

I'd rather win $75 for six weeks than win $500 one week and lose $50 for five weeks.

It's technically possible to play LAG back at them, so long as you have a purpose. See, these guys dont. Their version of lag is just pure chaos. They're randomly doing things trying to get a result, hoping that betting or raising or checking here and there will somehow net a win. You on the other hand can try to make decisive actions that get a result. A lot of what you'll read from them is not so much their hands, but their intent. If you can detect that a fish intends to go all the way with his hand then you can let yours go, and vice versa. If you think he's weak just because the way he is and the way the board looks, then go ahead and try to bluff him out if it looks like he just wants to fold in the end.

If they're playing loose you can still loosen up some, as your hands will persistently have more equity than theirs. They are going to play any two suited cards, you're only going to play suited connectors. They'll play any pair, you will play top pair. So go ahead and isolate with A8o on the button, 3bet 77 on the button, raise 67s in the CO, etc etc. Once you have determined their intent to play the hand to the river, then you can decide if you can bet it for value or not. Remember, their ranges are so terrible, and they overplay the strength of their hands so much, you can get lots of thin value out of any TP type hand and so forth.

Yeah, I've gone through this myself. It can be frustrating watching a horrible player build a huge stack with a series of junk hands that just keep hitting.

But then I started to notice that the worst aggromonkeys in one of my cash games will have one big win for every 2-4 big losses. This is a GOOD thing - the big wins are what they remember, and it keeps them coming back in spite of the losses. My wins are rarely that spectacular, but I have a lot more winning sessions than losing ones, and my losing sessions are rarely "big." I'm beating this game for about 10bb/hr (lol sample size), and I'm still plugging leaks and working hard to improve.

So six times 75...carry the one...damn, math is hard.

I like this a lot. I do this myself, at times. Just make sure you are up against a random-playing LAG, and not someone who is taking the same approach as you. You'll get a lot of variance when two of these players collide.

lol 1-3 buy-ins on average is insane! Wonder how long that has been going, you're running sick good, don't forget that. I usually don't even consider myself "setmining like anything at all" with the two pocket pairs that I pick up over 5 hours of play. So good luck and may you never get outdrawn.

again, thx for the help.

i've been to it 13 times so far, and was stuck 1 session for $60 and the rest have been up. I'll keep updating this thread weekly as a sort of personal tracker if that's coooool, and hopefully get some more input.

Seems like you're playing fine.

Only problem with set-mining is that it's a live home game, which based on the number of hands means you're probably going to average one flopped set per night. You might flop 6 of them, but then again you might go three sessions without one, so this can be an excruciating way to sit and try and grind out profit.

I'm going to reply to this post in reverse order. If you are playing online in a solid way and winning, there is absolutely no reason that you SHOULD play any different live. Winning poker is winning poker.

That being said, you need to play in position as much as possible and you need to start identifying spots where to not lay down so easily. When you're looking at a very draw heavy board that's wet as all hell, credit isn't a bad idea. Doesn't meant I just give up and let them have it, but you need a stronger than usual hand to call these situations. If the board is a more dry board and you're positive you're laying down winning hands then I'm assuming these guys use their aggression to pull off bluffs against you which opens your calling value range. Basically just let them have the rope.

What are the blinds? .25-.50? or .50 -1.00? This sounds like a short buy game. They probably play like they have full stacks even though they don't. You could probably eat them alive by using a legitimate short stack strategy.

Position is gold. Your opponents will likely play any two cards from any position and not even realize there is a huge difference. Play some speculative hands in position and use your tight image to steal pots in position.

Pretty solid summary.

It was referred to as 50NL, which means it's .25-.50 blinds.

You may in fact play very well and they may be terrible and easy to exploit, but do not expect this rate to continue.