Beatable Game??

[Hamlet]

I play the $6-$12 at Canterbury. It has the same rake structure as the $8-$16 game and is very beatable. It often plays very loose (6+ players to the flop), and the aggressiveness varies tremendously. Note-- I did not say that I myself actually beat the game. I'm just saying that it is beatable. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I'm one of those players that avoids the $8-$16 because of the much increased aggressiveness. I'm not really playing poker for the money though. I like a game where I can see plenty of flops. When 5 bets are going in pre-flop, reasonably tight pre-flop play is required to be a break-even player, even if the game is loose. In the $6-$12, though, I can get away with playing alot of extra hands in the 6-7 way pots for 1-2 bets pre-flop. They cost me some money, perhaps even enough to make me a small net loser in the game (time will tell), but they are not big mistakes in a loose passive game. I'm talking mainly about suited trash type hands.

What I find interesting is how little understanding of loose games most otherwise solid players have. Which hand would you rather have on the flop in a 5-6 handed pot:

Hand 1 AJ
Hand 2 K7s

Flop Js 8s 7h

People don't seem to get that the K7s is a monster money favorite most of the time with a flop like that. Yes, it probably made a bad call pre-flop (although in a loose game it isn't nearly as bad as some people seem to think). Once the flop comes, though, I would take the K7s every time. In fact, the AJ will often be a money dog to all the draws out against it. If raising won't thin the field, it should consider just calling instead of raising.

Disclosure-- I started playing live again after the Neteller issues. I had been playing microlimits online. In the past I played regularly at 15-30 at Canterbury and was a sizable winner (not enough hours to be statistically relevant). I have played about 75 hours this year and am a small winner $8/hr. I probably won't play more than 400 hours this year, so I won't really have enough hours to determine if my loose style of play is winning or losing.

It is surely more interesting than playing TAG poker though [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]