Losing* whoops

I played a really loose table picked the highest avg pot for fun, and lost quite a few hands, there were like 3-4 loose players on the table.

My question is how can you be profitable at a table like this, all I can do is pray I hit the flop or get premium pairs. Blind stealing/bluffing is so much harder and most of the time it's in the dark unless you hit. The one time I was actually in a good position against one loose player (he was cbetting big every hand) I was smooth calling all his bets, then he hit the 2 pair on the river zzzzzzz. He shoved on the river, I was already 40% of my stack invested in the pot so I called.

The river card was an overcard but I had top pair all the way leading up to the river.

Did I play wrong?? I didn't wanna reraise because I thought it might scare him into folding.

What site, what stakes, what game?

full tilt 2nl nlhe

The micro book covers loose passive games. Limp with suited connector but dont call big raises with them. Limp with small and probably medium pairs. Limp with weaker slick when they are good enough, think twice calling a raise with them even if they are suited and dont pay off too much with a losing pair. Open raise and raise the bigger hands, but dont cbet with missed slicks but in best of situations expecting to pick it up and follow with a bet on the turn and sometimes on the river with a draw, will balance ur value bets. U make more money when u hit than when u miss and give it up. Consider trapping after a flop bet when ur oop if u think he will try to steal it with a bet or two. Hard to help ur calling game but ur not to call down with less than top pair as a general rule but it is up to u to think if it is good enough or if some weaker hand is good enough and where and up to how far. U probably should not call a raise down with one pair but it doesnt mean u should fold it to every raise. Dont let them mess with ur head too much and play solid and mostly for big value rather than mess ur head in marginal mess fights. If they want the pot, just generally give it to them, u will get their stack later.

First of all, make sure you know the difference between loose-passive and loose-aggressive. Loose-passive means calling station. Loose-passives don't like to bet and raise - they like to check and call, so if you see a player like this suddenly wake up and start betting - RUN!!!!!!!!!!!! Loose-aggressive means they will raise before the flop with almost any 2 cards and will c-bet the flop nearly 100%, and perhaps even double/triple-barrel whether they hit the board or not.

Against loose-passive players, DON'T BLUFF, DON'T STEAL - EVER. Flop top pair or better and bet it. You'll win big pots more often than they suck out on you in the long run.

Against loose-aggressive players you have to be willing to ride the variance train. That's why people are recommending a bankroll of 20 to 30 and sometimes even 40 buyins. If a specific player at the table is raising 40% of his hands and c-betting 100% of them, he only has ONE STINKIN PAIR on the flop MAYBE 38% of the time - and that's *any* pair much less top pair. I'm not sure of the exact numbers but I think he only has one pair on the turn 44% of the time and one pair on the river 50% of the time. Obviously the board texture affects these percentages as well. It can make you look and/or feel silly if you call him down with a pair of aces and he just happens to have two pair or a set on that particular hand, but you have to understand that it's really hard to have something that beats top pair - you're going to get him to barrel off worse far more often than you're going to get trapped.

This article might help you if you haven't read it already:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/32...43/?highlight=

Hope this helps
DTXCF

P.S. With regard to him hitting 2 pair on the river, you'll eventually get to the point where that doesn't even faze you. Seriously. Focus on getting your money in while you're ahead, not on whether or not the other guy sucks out on you.

Another thing you can try against LAGs is raising the flop. It's *very* villain-dependent though, because at 2NL most LAGs won't fold - they don't want to be "pushed around", they want to *do* the pushing. But play the player - if you call on the button with, for example, 76s, he c-bets a A94r flop, the other villains fold, you can try raising him - if he's willing to fold there are a lot of better hands than 76s that would actually fold there. I wouldn't raise top pair or ace high though because there are a lot of worse hands that will barrel the turn and still be worse.

This can help you determine how to play monsters against him as well. If he's folding to a lot of flop raises, you can slowplay flopped sets for one street to get him to barrel the turn with air that would have folded the flop (don't take this too far though - typically slowplaying is a mistake at 2NL.).

Hope this made sense.

against maniacs you have to be bold and play big pots with weaker hands when tight players arent in the pot. if you clam up you become the clam.

@6471849653
Thanks for the reply will try out limping suited connectors in game.

@DalTXColtsFan
Read your articles already, anyways, aren't loose passive players just calling fish??

Yeah, most of the time I feel like when playing against loose players, I'm second guessing who has better value preflop.

''This can help you determine how to play monsters against him as well. If he's folding to a lot of flop raises, you can slowplay flopped sets for one street to get him to barrel the turn with air that would have folded the flop (don't take this too far though - typically slowplaying is a mistake at 2NL.).''

This makes sense, I that I think that because I was folding a lot of cbets to the flops I was missing in, I thought a raise might induce a fold so I wanted to get max value. Maybe I should have reraised the turn strong when I am ahead and slow play all the way till river if I have the nuts.

The table I was playin in was crazy with like 3-4 loose players even a guy who tries to tilt me by showing huge and shove bluffs with mostly total rags even though he just got stacked the previous hand and rebought in... whattt

No it's not normal. Loose players are the most profitable ones in the game.

A wise man once told me that the biggest winner of the night is almost always one of the looser players.

----

Think about what all of those weak hands do to your opponent's range. It weakens that range. This makes your value hands more profitable and numerous. This is why you must gamble with the loose aggressive players. I'm not saying to make intentional negative expectation plays, but instead to realize that top pair no kicker is junk against a tight player and gold against a loose aggressive player. I would even go so far as to say that if top pair isn't profitable as a call three times hand, then your opponent isn't loose aggressive.

Also, it's important to note how this opponent plays in early position. Does he tighten up? Does he have no clue and will raise K4s regardless of his position? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Looser tables means bigger pots and higher variance. With average luck and solid play, the variance manifests itself in big wins for you. With some runbad or playbad, it can be a disaster. Friday nights have been extremely profitable for me overall, but I've had sessions where I lost 20% of my bankroll against maniacs on heaters.

I'm guessing you played a couple of hundred hands. If so, that's a meaningless sample size. A 'weekend warrior' will suck out from time to time, but if he's playing every pot, his range will be so much weaker than yours on average, that you crush him in the long run.

many winning players become losing players when the game gets too loose. they adjust wrong or clam up to the bigger action.