very loose live 10/20 game

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I have found a very juicy live 10/20 game. It has a mix of loose passive and loose agressive maniacs. Usually there are only 2-3 solid players at the table and sometimes I can be the only solid player at the table.

Some of the loose passive callers will call down with any pair, sometimes even any two cards without a draw hoping to spike a pair. Its unusual to get less than 5 runners in a pot, and sometimes it can be capped preflop with all 10 players. The maniacs raise and reraise on the turn with flush and straight draws or just an overpair and will also try silly bluff raises on turn and river in a multi way pot holding virtually nothing.

Its also the type of game where players will limp in with all sorts of crap, and when someone raises, they will reraise just to make the pot big. I had a particularly painful loss last night where I flopped an open ended straight and nut flush draw and couldn't hit. 94 suited who capped it preflop ended up taking down the $1200 pot with trip nines.

Anyway, my question is, in this type of game, at what point would you still play hands like suited aces and suited connectors in early position? The accepted thinking seems to be in a game that is very aggressive preflop you should tighten up on your starting hand requirements. But I feel like that no longer applies even if it end up being capped preflop as long as you got more than 6 runners. Because you are getting huge odds and the players are so ridiculously bad.

Obviously I'm not calling raises cold, but I'm talking about limping from early or middle position with suited connectors knowing that half the time someone is going to raise which, in this game, usually triggers reraising and capping.

[naMruM]

You need slightly better implied odds for suited aces and suited connectors than you do for pocket pairs vis a vis hitting your flush/two pair versus set value. I won't bore everyone with the math for the umpteenth time. However, it's important to understand the logic.

The problem with coming in with suited aces early for multiple bets is that your implied odds are wrecked later in the hand. Why? Say you come in for 2 BB in a pot capped preflop. You need to get something like 12BB out of the pot in order for your call preflop to be +EV. Most of the time for you to win with a suited ace and a poor kicker, you need to hit your flush. When three to a flush hit the board, action typically shuts down.

If your game is still an action game even when obvious draws hit, then you prolly have an argument. You're describing a pretty juicy game, and you might even have your implied odds out of the gate.

You can infer similar logic to something like 87s from EP under the same conditions, except that if the board looks something like 56K9 you'll probably get the action you need - and then get screwed when the T comes on the river straightening out a bigger belly buster LOL.

Me, I'd be thinking O8-style play in this kind of game - tight and continue past the flop only with a draw to the nuts, scoop huge pot once every 90 minutes, leave happy.

[Wolfram]

Your implied odds are killed in this type of game. Calling with suited Aces purely for implied odds means you'll have to make up quite a lot of bets after you hit. It's just not worth it. Just buckle down and play real premium cards.

Think of Ciaffone's 5/10 rule for NL. It states that if the preflop raise is less than 5% of effective stack sizes, then you should always call with implied odds hands (small pockets/suited conn/suited A). If it's less than 10% then you use judgment (will he pay me off if I hit) and if it's bigger than 10% then the implied odds don't justify a call.

If we apply this rule to limit it means that for your call to be correct, you need to get at least 40 small bets (for a 4-cap game) from the pot, and preferably closer to 60-70. For this to happen you need to hit hard, and somebody has to have a good second-best hand to pay you off.

I think there's a section in HPFAP about playing in very loose aggro games with lots of pf capping. You might wanna (re)read that.

[Dagger78]

If the game is very agressive preflop I'm not playing the more speculative hands in every postion as sometimes you'll get stuck paying 2-3 or more bets to see a flop. Your implied odds are shot and you'll end up flopping lots of weak draws in huge pots you shouldn't have been in the first place. I've saving speculative hands for late postion here.

Big porfits in this game, but big losses too.

[cpk]

Implied odds don't matter as much if your immediate odds are favorable. If you have nine opponents taking the flop, anything decent is showing a massive edge in equity and is making a profit--suited aces, suited connectors, small pairs, big cards--everything you could play off the button, and probably a few more hands. You are not going to have any trouble building pots in excess of 60 bets in such a game--I mean, for Pete's sake, you're starting out at 40. Suggesting tight play up front in such a game is absolute insanity.

[Wolfram]

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Suggesting tight play up front in such a game is absolute insanity.

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How many flops do you hit hard enough to continue with when you play A4s? Or 89s? How do you play it when it's capped 6-ways preflop, you're in EP and the flop is A 7 T with none of your suit? Do you raise? Everybody calls, now what? When everybody and their grandmother is drawing to at least 5 outs and you might even be beat on the flop your "anything decent" hand starts to look not-so-decent. You know that they'll play ace-any so you're just praying to hit your kicker.

Suited aces doesn't have that big of an equity edge preflop to warrant calling a multi-way cap.

I think your suggestion is absurd.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Suited aces doesn't have that big of an equity edge preflop to warrant calling a multi-way cap.

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Sure they do. Especially in maniac games. It's usually well above the average hand seeing the flop by the other opponents.

Although, I do agree that cpk's quote:
[ QUOTE ]
If you have nine opponents taking the flop, anything decent is showing a massive edge in equity and is making a profit--suited aces, suited connectors, small pairs, big cards--everything you could play off the button, and probably a few more hands.

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is a little too loose. Especially the part 'everything you could play off the button and probably a few more hands.'

b

[Yads]

Play super tight, like someone else suggested your implied odds for marginal hands are killed. Sorry to say, but you need to restrict your play to TT-AA, AK, AQs in this type of game, unless it's limped to you in late position and you feel the blinds are unlikely to raise.

[Mutant K12]

My 2 cents.... Suited connectors 76s and better rock in games like this. Suited aces...not below A9 for me. I will limp with these hands in EP most of the time if you know 4 or more are seeing the flop. If it is raised back to me and I have KQs-JTs I am happy to call, if its 1 shy of being capped when it comes back around, I will put in the last bet most times. In a very loose game like this, you might just have the best hand already in a lot of cases. Check the flop out and then play poker from there. You don't play these hands to win every single pot, just to win some very big ones.

Now, if this was just a game where every one had a premium hand every single hand I would cash out pretty quick [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[cpk]

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How many flops do you hit hard enough to continue with when you play A4s? Or 89s? How do you play it when it's capped 6-ways preflop, you're in EP and the flop is A 7 T with none of your suit?

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Well 89s is easy to play with this particular flop. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

With A4s, if you are in a favorable relative position, raise on the turn to knock people out (knocking people out on the flop will not work). If you are not, try to get to a showdown cheaply. You will win often enough with the pair of Aces alone to show a profit. The times you make two pair or better are just gravy.

Oh, sure, playing tight will win in such games, but you're going to leave so much money on the table it's utterly ridiculous.

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Suited aces doesn't have that big of an equity edge preflop to warrant calling a multi-way cap.

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We're not talking about merely a multiway cap, we're talking about a 10-way cap. The more people playing, the worse each hand has to be. If you're the only one being selective, you don't have to be ultra-selective to show a profit. This is not a difficult concept.

The main point is that in such a game concerns about position no longer applies, because you know everything that you would know if you were playing on the button or out of one of the blinds.