Help me win/not suck at my weekly home donkament

[tuq]

All,

Not sure if this thread will draw flies but I thought I would ax anyway. Any help is definitely appreciated.

I gave up playing online a bit back and am relegated to playing in a Monday night home game. It's a friendly $20 buy-in donkament that has 10-18 people, depending on the week. We rarely miss a week, and the host is conscious of the ten person cutoff - he gives first dibs to regulars, and only opens a second table if it looks like we can get 14+. I became a "regular" earlier this year.

Anyway, I've played a fair share both online and B&M, read even more, but I can't beat this goddamn game. I cash about 15% of the time, which makes me a lifetime loser.

The players know what they're doing to a degree - there's nothing stupid like looking at each others' cards (LOL) and stated action is binding, but it's still pretty chill. That said, they're almost all loose - classic bad play, they LOVE aces and LOVE sooted cards. As an example, last week I called AQ pre-flop from EP and made a huge raise when the flop came Q-x-x, two clubs. A chick in MP had called with K5 clubs because they were sooooooted (after this hand everyone commented on how she loves to play flush draws) and I had to deal with an all-in from some guy from IIRC the SB who had called with a Q5 and then shoved when the Q came, with two to act ([img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]). Everyone commented on my "great laydown" when the third club came on the turn and the chick pushed, I was getting something like 10-1 odds to call with the rest of my chips but yeah, not gonna do that LOL.

I know the default response to this is "play the opposite of them, play tight" but there is a lot of pre-flop raising and I'd hate to restrict the hands I see too much. Any thoughts/ideas on how to beat these action junkies? Thanks.

[eof]

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I'd hate to restrict the hands I see too much.

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Well too bad. Either you want to win or you want to play bad cards. If the other people are as loose as you are and cashing consistently either they are better than you or they aren't as loose as you think.

In general, if there is a lot of preflop raising going on, you should be reraising big with with your very good hands, and folding your [censored] ones. It really depends how deep this tournament is. It probably isn't very deep, which means there isn't much room to 'play.' Play tight tight tight tight till it gets near the bubble when no one wants to go broke and the blinds are big then you get to play your [censored] cards and steal all the money.

But basically, you can't play bad cards and not have the effect of playing bad cards. but you have >4k posts so maybe this is a joke, cus you should obv know this

[eof]

almost 10k w/e

[Fubster]

Clearly the answer is to take your postcount and divide it by your stack size. The number this yields is called your M. Use it to determine the risk/reward ratio for the hand you will be playing.

[Gonso]

If you're going to make arrogant responses, the least you could do is try and answer the question - which you can't begin to do without knowing the tourney structure. And you registered like 15 minutes ago so lol @ either of you talking about his post count.

So:

1) What are the starting stacks?
2) What are the blind levels?
3) About how many hands are dealt per level?

If the structure is reasonably fast and the players are LAG, loosening your hand requirements (not tightening them) is often the best adjustment. Otherwise, you're throwing away hands that have real value.

If you're going to play AQ in EP at all, raise it. From some of yor comments I'd guess that rather than being more/less loose, you might have to be more aggressive raising preflop in general. You might wind up 3-betting AQ and 99 against this crowd.

Also, token obvious suggestion: increase your bet and raise amounts against this crowd.

[tuq]

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but you have >4k posts so maybe this is a joke, cus you should obv know this

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Gonso, thanks for the serious response. My post may have been cathartic and answered itself, but I'll answer your questions, maybe it will further clear things up in my head.

Starting stacks are variable. Usually around 5K in play chips.

Blinds typically start at 25/50, last week for some reason they started at 12/25.

In the early going we generally only see about one orbit/blind, which is 15 minutes in duration.

Good points beyond that, but it's hard to push these guys off of stuff. THEY LOVE ACES. In the only other thread I started in this forum I lamented about folding QQ against two all-ins (neither was shortstacked) and it turned out their holdings were AQ and AK, and of course my hand would have held up.

Mostly, I was looking for someone playing with similar experience and how they handled it. It's an oft-said thing that's certainly not always 100% correct, but I feel that with the playing and reading and analysis I've done I'm the best player at the table, but my ROI puts me among the worst.

[eof]

ok dick. i answered you seriously and had a second thought that maybe this post was a joke of some sort.

i've played many tournaments like this. you start out with a good M, but you're only seeing 7-10 hands per blind level, meaning this is essentially a turbo.

so once again, dick, play tight or you will lose. if you play tight while they play loose, you will get chips. you said you knew this but wanted to know another way. well there isn't really.. unless you are a master bluffer, which you probably aren't because you're a dick, dick

[eof]

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And you registered like 15 minutes ago so lol @ either of you talking about his post count.

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u reg 3 months before me you leet old time pwner dick

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
ok dick. i answered you seriously and had a second thought that maybe this post was a joke of some sort.

i've played many tournaments like this. you start out with a good M, but you're only seeing 7-10 hands per blind level, meaning this is essentially a turbo.

so once again, dick, play tight or you will lose. if you play tight while they play loose, you will get chips. you said you knew this but wanted to know another way. well there isn't really.. unless you are a master bluffer, which you probably aren't because you're a dick, dick

[/ QUOTE ]
What the hell is the matter with you? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[Gonso]

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but it's hard to push these guys off of stuff. THEY LOVE ACES.

[/ QUOTE ]

With a fairly fast structure, the best adjustment for this is to raise your better hands a greater amount, esp preflop. If you're raising 4x BB with JJ and consistently getting called 3 ways, then open for 6 or 7 BB instead.

TPTK against these guys looks like you'll be ahead of their range on most flops. You basically have to crank up the value of all hands, even with QQ preflop. If these guys will get it all in with hands like AQ, even queens will have a lot of equity against their ranges.