When are games too good?

[PorkchopDJG]

The OP's description describes the 8/16 games at Canterbury Park in MN perfectly. When I first started playing these games I thought they were just a crapshoot and the best starting hand never won because you always got chased down.
Now I know they are a goldmine if you can make the proper adjustments. You can't raise to issolate or bluff because they will call and coldcall 2 or sometimes even 3 bets. You are often right to draw to gutshots, two pair and even 2 outer pocket pairs after the flop in huge pots. Just play ABC poker and play your big hands and draws strongly and you will rake in huge pots. It can be frustrating on nights when you get sucked out on or can't hit your big draws but the times you do you will win racks of chips off the chasers and the super LAG's.

[Bob T.]

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The OP's description describes the 8/16 games at Canterbury Park in MN perfectly. When I first started playing these games I thought they were just a crapshoot and the best starting hand never won because you always got chased down.


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Exactly, when things don't go badly, you get a lot of sessions, where you do what I did yesterday. $600+ in a little over three hours. Most of what I did, was not get sucked out on, when I was ahead. Did I mention that I love Tuesday Mornings.

[Hair_of_the_Dog]

Most of my raises were on big draws from late position on the flop. I was trying to accomplish 3 things.
1) Get the button to fold, which I could often do.
2) Get others to fold so if I spiked a pair they couldn't draw out on me, which only marginally worked.
3) Get more money in the pot so when my nut flush or straight hits I get that 3 hand chip stacking thing Mr T is talking about, which almost always worked.

I've definitely run well in these types of games and would double or triple up in 2 hours or so. I guess the nice thing was that when I wasn't running well I didn't dump the same amount. It seems like the win potential vs. the lose potential is pretty good. Something like 2.5:1.

I definitely don't hate games like this, but because of the "schooling" effect they aren't the easiest to play. The variance almost makes it a crap shoot. The only edge seems to be preflop hand selection and knowing when you obv drawing dead (although knowing if you are drawing dead in these games is tough too).

Side note: The table was funny in a different way. If I raised from early position most players would fold. I discovered that I could run a very weird bluff (high risk) by raising pf UTG and firing the flop and turn. I did this 4 times and only got caught once.

[jeffnc]

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I definitely don't hate games like this, but because of the "schooling" effect they aren't the easiest to play. The variance almost makes it a crap shoot. The only edge seems to be preflop hand selection and knowing when you obv drawing dead (although knowing if you are drawing dead in these games is tough too).

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I kind of envy you. Guys like me, we have to wait months for a good new poker book to come out. You, on the other hand, have about 20 in the book store waiting for you right now that will be great reading :-)

[One Outer]

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I definitely don't hate games like this, but because of the "schooling" effect they aren't the easiest to play. The variance almost makes it a crap shoot. The only edge seems to be preflop hand selection and knowing when you obv drawing dead (although knowing if you are drawing dead in these games is tough too).

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I kind of envy you. Guys like me, we have to wait months for a good new poker book to come out. You, on the other hand, have about 20 in the book store waiting for you right now that will be great reading :-)

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This is the greatest single post in SSLH history

[Hair_of_the_Dog]

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I definitely don't hate games like this, but because of the "schooling" effect they aren't the easiest to play. The variance almost makes it a crap shoot. The only edge seems to be preflop hand selection and knowing when you obv drawing dead (although knowing if you are drawing dead in these games is tough too).

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I kind of envy you. Guys like me, we have to wait months for a good new poker book to come out. You, on the other hand, have about 20 in the book store waiting for you right now that will be great reading :-)

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I'm reading one right now that talks about this very thing. Check out page 80 of Poker Essays by Mason Malmuth.

I'm not saying that I don't know what the right play is most of the time in games like this. It is usually obv. My biggest problem is that I usually have no idea how strong my hand is when most of the players check and call, check and call. They seem to slow play everything. {shrug}

I definitely have a lot to learn about playing holdem, but I'm not that new. I've read 15 of those books already, some of them twice or three times.

I definitely think the law of diminishing returns applies here. It doesn't mean you should avoid tables like this. It just means that every bad player that joins doesn't contribute another equal amount of dead money to the good players.

I just brought this up because it is something that I have read about but never experienced until now. It's not a rant about running bad or suck outs. I don't care about that. It was an interesting experience, that's all.