Dealing With Bad Players

[THE LEECH]

i need help. The people I play with do not care about money at all, so they will call every bet, however most of the time the draw out on the river. I tend to beat myself up about it even though I played it right, and I lose my confidence and play bad the rest of the time. No matter how hard I try I cannot fight it, and I cannot relieve the stress. Please give me some tips.

[pfapfap]

[ QUOTE ]
most of the time the draw out on the river

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Tip #1 is realize this isn't true. Tip #2 is value bet value bet value bet.

[tsearcher]

You might want to check out the psychology section and check out some threads about dealing with tilt.

Some simple suggestions I have:

Don't play with money you can't afford to lose. If the stakes are too high, don't play in the game.

My biggest suggestion is reevaluate your own play. You should want to play against bad players. I do everything I can to find bad players. If you can't beat the bad players, maybe they are not the ones that are bad.

[stevea]

You want to play these types of players, because in the long run you will kill take all their money!

If they're sucking out most of the time...you haven't been playing with them long enough.

Just keep playing solid poker andy ou'll get their money eventually.

[headtrauma]

One thing about playing with bad players is that you need to learn when to release good but vulnerable hands like top pair good kicker. When they've been check calling all along and suddenly fire a big bet on the river, they've often caught a second pair.

[J-Limit]

I came to the home game forum for the first time today looking for this kind of post.

I went to my first home game a couple of weeks ago after playing @ the casino/online for a few years. The play was bad to average and I found myself amazed at some of the poker knowledge (lack of) in the room.

I have found myself to be a much much better limit holdem player than NL (I dont have to pay as much for the mistakes I make obviously) but this group of guys play 20 SNG's that tend to break into a micro pot limit cash game later in the evening.

Enough of the background....now for the question, How do you all adjust your game going in when you know your villians are loose/aggressive and loose/weak.. should I be trying to get into more pots or is the better play to tighten up and wait for the good cards?

My personal experience on this evening was that I tightened up and didnt play many hands at all... took a couple of beats and came home $40 down... I just dont have enough experience in this type of situation to know if I played it right and over time it will pay off.. or if I should adjust my strat against these guys.

Thanks,

[PantsOnFire]

Forget about bluffing, forget about check-raising and forget about slowplaying (well actually betting less to give good draw odds to a second best hand might be useful). Use implied odds. Limp into the pot with every speculative hand you get. Raise preflop for value with every good hand. Bet when you are ahead and check when you are behind. Call when you have the odds and fold when you don't. Recognize betting patterns in these players and how they play various hands.

[PantsOnFire]

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Enough of the background....now for the question, How do you all adjust your game going in when you know your villians are loose/aggressive and loose/weak.. should I be trying to get into more pots or is the better play to tighten up and wait for the good cards?

[/ QUOTE ]

loose/aggressive - tighten up, slowplay and check-raise.

loose/weak - loosen up and limp with speculative hands, value bet, don't bluff or slowplay or check-raise.

[J-Limit]

Thanks for the replies PantsOnFire.... Your advice seems very solid to me and I will do my best to implement it in the game next weekend.

I appreciate it.

[PantsOnFire]

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for the replies PantsOnFire.... Your advice seems very solid to me and I will do my best to implement it in the game next weekend.

I appreciate it.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you are feeling adventurous and you can get into pots preflop cheaply with loose aggros, then do it with speculative hands like suited connectors, Axs, and small PP. But have the discipline to get out when you miss the flop which will be most of the time. The idea here is to use implied odds which are generally very high in these games. If you flop a big hand, you can just let those guys bet it for you.

Cheaply also means calling PF raises as long as there are other callers and as long as there are not many reraises as a rule.