New home donkament I can't seem to adapt to

Annorax · #1 03-10-2007, 05:50 PM

I've been invited into a new home game situation. It's a $10 buyin STT with a bunch of drunken clueless people who think calling all ins on the first hand with 85o is a good play.

First problem: Second gets his buyin back as consolation prize, winner gets the rest. This payout stays in place even when they have four or five tables, and they don't allow deals because of some bigoted, backwards beliefs. They're [censored], but they're dead money.

Second problem: Starting stack is 800 or 1000 chips depending on number of players and the drunkenness of the idiots. Blinds start at 25/50 and double every time a player is busted out, capping at 800/800. The average tournament lasts about 15-20 hands because these people don't know how real structures and real poker work.

Third problem: There's at least one mechanic in the game. I've seen poorly stacked decks and a marked deck in play. I've got the cheating figured out, and I'm tempted to take advantage of it rather than risk pissing off a game's worth of union workers by accusing one of cheating.

I know this could be massively profitable despite the absurdly high variance and unpleasant atmosphere. How should I be adapting to this? It seems like too much free money to simply walk away from.

KingGeorgeC · #2 03-10-2007, 06:52 PM

Forget about it, enjoy the drinks and coin flips.

pismeyer · #3 03-10-2007, 08:59 PM

How bout inviting them to your place for the game? You set the rules, you have your own set of cards, blind structure, and payout.

Other than that, drink plenty and and have some fun.

P [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

wiper · #4 03-10-2007, 09:05 PM

depending on the situation, 85 on the first hand of this tournament may not actually be that bad...

Annorax · #5 03-11-2007, 03:51 AM

[ QUOTE ]
How bout inviting them to your place for the game? You set the rules, you have your own set of cards, blind structure, and payout.

Other than that, drink plenty and and have some fun.

P [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Any reasonable structure is likely outside their attention span, even with a 2 hour rebuy period. Transplanting them into a sane environment isn't an option, in part due to lack of a safe, controlled location where any kind of violence from the suckers wouldn't result in severe injury or death to myself, let alone the suckers. These guys allow and encourage every kind of bigotry and hatred short of racism, and even racism is fair game against politically incorrect victims like people of Middle Eastern descent. One of them actually pulled out a photo album of corpse pics that he said his father brought back from Vietnam to try to put an Asian guy on tilt. Also, they're too friggin' retarded to understand the point of payouts beyond the consolation buyin for second place. They have no skill to speak of, and I'm beginning to suspect the structure was designed to compensate for their stupidity.

Cliff notes: I can't change their game or get them to play elsewhere, I need a way to beat them at their own [censored] game.

pismeyer · #6 03-11-2007, 09:34 AM

This is not a good game. Find another one or start another group. Sounds like you're wanting to personally challenge your own skills as a player and these guys are not the type of game in which you can do that. It's taken me about three years to break away from a group of guys that played a similar style of poker, I'm still friends with them and occasionally I invite one or two of them over to my place to play in a "structured" atmosphere and they seem to not do as well if you can imagine that. Don't get me wrong, the group of guys I hang around with can get pretty reved up too, I even have a couple of gals that show up and play too, everyone but few drink or smoke, fart and swear, but it's all in good taste (strange sentence I just typed).

I don't have the answer to how you beat them, even if you do have a good session with them, would you go back?

Good Luck!

P [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

FireStorm · #7 03-11-2007, 10:47 PM

No offense, but you should know the answer to this - there really is no solution or adaptation. You have listed every conceivable donk-friendly aspect of poker that exists in this STT, in your opening post. Obviously, there's not much strategy here other than value betting the life out of your hands and getting in a ton preflop with top-5 starting holdings. Simply do this and live with the immediate results, knowing that in the long term, you ought to profit nicely off this.

Maybe see what you can do about talking over the payout structure a bit more. Seems like anyone reasonable would allow more than two players to get paid when there are 40+ entries.

Off topic, but honestly, how sure are you that people are actually fixing the deck here. Somehow I doubt this. I've dealt for years and I can't do this, nor know anyone who can with any consistency. It seems odds that the group of people you describe have an elaborate cheating scam going.

mugatu668 · #8 03-11-2007, 11:12 PM

This isn't poker. It's gambling.

Annorax · #9 03-12-2007, 12:33 AM

[ QUOTE ]
No offense, but you should know the answer to this - there really is no solution or adaptation. You have listed every conceivable donk-friendly aspect of poker that exists in this STT, in your opening post. Obviously, there's not much strategy here other than value betting the life out of your hands and getting in a ton preflop with top-5 starting holdings. Simply do this and live with the immediate results, knowing that in the long term, you ought to profit nicely off this.

Maybe see what you can do about talking over the payout structure a bit more. Seems like anyone reasonable would allow more than two players to get paid when there are 40+ entries.

Off topic, but honestly, how sure are you that people are actually fixing the deck here. Somehow I doubt this. I've dealt for years and I can't do this, nor know anyone who can with any consistency. It seems odds that the group of people you describe have an elaborate cheating scam going.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure it's an elaborate cheating scam. I'm sure that it's either a bunch of horrendously unlucky donks consistently losing to the host who consistently gets AA/KK/AKs when he deals or a bunch of horrendously retarded donks who can't conceive of their friend cheating them by stacking himself consistent AA/KK/AKs/flopped nut straight with garbage. There's SOME kind of fix in the game, but I think it's the kind a not-so-drunk retard sets against a bunch of really drunk retards.

headtrauma · #10 03-12-2007, 06:31 AM

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't poker. It's gambling.

[/ QUOTE ]
Poker is gambling. Accept it and you'll be better off.
Gambling with an edge is still gambling.