Taking flak for tight play

[KJT]

Hello all, first time posting.

I joined a home game a few weeks ago. I play online and in cardrooms and have read a few books. This has led me to play a tight-aggressive style. The home game is very loose on all streets.

All but one player does not have a problem, at least out-loud with my style. One guy, however, consistently ridicules me for folding all the time. I hear, "It's only $__!" frequently.

I have played three times and won three times. The last time I took a large pot off the whiner.

My question is, what should my play be as to this guy? A friend suggested intentionally losing one night. He thinks I shouldn't get a reputation as a guy who will consistently take the money of guys who just want to have fun. My problem with that is not the losing money. It is the playing bad part. I have played long enough to know I won't always get the money at each session. But I hope to play well each time I sit down.

OTOH, I don't want to continue going to the game if this guy won't shut up and I don't know of any other way to silence him.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[G Baade]

Read my post on the craziest home game ever. These guys were in tears, laughing because I folded K 4 o/s UTG. Dont let it throw you off. I went back Saturday and destroyed the game and left with 1200 dollars. If you "let him win" you will regret it. In the first game I played with these types of guys they took my money playing bullshit. I would never give in to guys like that because they will get lucky one time and really win. And that will reinforce the belief that the way they play is good.

[chson]

Eventually you'll be kicked out of the home game after several winning sessions. The host's reasoning will be something along the lines of you not being fun to play with.

[OilMan]

I feel your pain. I have the same problem except the whiner I play with thinks he is a good poker player and thinks I play way too tight. In my home games I do try to loosen it up a little bit, but compared to this whiner I'm still way tight.

My play is I try to destroy him every time we play. We usually play small stakes limit games (1/2 HE,O8, stud) but by the end of the night we are playing no limit HE with 0.5/1.00 blinds (most of the stack sizes are $30 - $50).

The other night I had pocket Q's and the flop came Q99! The whiner bet into me after that flop. He wasn't too happy when I showed my Q's. He showed A9o. I loved that hand. I think I orgasimed when I saw that flop with him still in the pot.

Back to your problem. I say loosen up a bit if it's a friendly game with people that don't really know how to play. I would use the loose pre-flop standards in SSH and HPFAP. I would not lose on purpose though.

Good luck

[KJT]

Checked it out and, yeah, that game is crazy.

I would rather have my players think the way they play is good. The games have worked out well for me in that regard. Basically, I have won some money, but due to the loose nature of the game, the guy who has won the most is just the luckiest guy for the night. So the spotlight falls on the poor player instead of me and bad play is encouraged.

Something I should have mentioned in my original post is that I like some of the players at the game. Does anyone have a problem exploiting the weaknesses of people they like?

[KJT]

Now that is a good reason to loosen up.

[KJT]

Thanks for the advice. I have loosened up a bit. Seeing as how there is unaminous calling pre-flop with very infrequent raising, I play any pocket pair and any suited connector down to 54 and any suited one-gap down to 97. I am considering adding all the offsuit blackjack hands. I still fear I will be spotlighted as too tight, especially for the whiner.

[BlueBear]

Sounds like a good game, so long your post-flop play is sound, there wouldn't be too much harm loosening up a bit pre-flop especially on later positions.

[KJT]

I also play the hands adding up to 20 in blackjack. I forgot to mention those.

[Scotch78]

People who play for fun are probably the most profitable opponents, but they will expect you to be a 'fun' player, too. The good news is that you can be fun to play with without changing your playing style. Just be more sociable: tell some good stories/jokes, bring a 12-pack of some micro-brew, compliment guys on what they think are their good plays, etc. And of course, don't criticize or argue with anyone. It may be too late to take this line for your game, but whenever I walk into a loose game I make a point to complain a couple times about the crap I'm getting dealt. Nothing too whiny, just let them know you're not getting good enough cards to play. They'll naturally assume their own defintion of 'good enough', and since they're not smart enough players to notice you never showdown crap hands, they'll also assume your definition is the same as theirs. Problem avoided.

Scott

[kona]

Maybe you should take a 1.75 bottle of tequila with you and offer ongoing shots for the “guys”. Tell them that unfortunately you don’t drink anymore but that you wanted them to have fun too. This way your more sociable and they have an excuse to play a little looser.

[jedi]

Drink more, carry on more of a conversation when you're out of the hand, and loosen up a tad when you have position.

[daryn]

just play your game. don't change for anyone.

[SenecaJim]

I had a similar problem. I would do like scott, complain a little, like " Crap, I'm married to that 2-7, if it comes suited, I'm playing it." Another thing i"ll do is, I never drink when I gamble serioulsy, so sometimes at this game, I just will crank it out last hour or so and you just naturally loosen up with drinking and the b.s. Seeing you do and play like that even couple times goes a long way with crowd.

[CurryLover]

What about trying a few plays to give you a loose image during the start of a session? Like raising blind a couple of times or putting in a straddle (is that what you call it in the states - I'm in England?). If you act loose at the start of a session you often avoid the flak for the next 6 hours when you play tighter. It's usually not that costly and sometimes you get lucky with your blind raises and make a profit.

Also, if the game is very easy and has mostly un-raised family pots you can massively increase the number of hands you see the flop with. I'd play any connectors even if they're not suited for example. You don't really anticipate any profit on these from early position, but you will get lucky once in a while and make some of the money back. Most importantly, you will be involved in most hands like the other players and so will not get flak.

I did an experiment for several weeks at one of my local cash games. I decided that I would play every hand in unraised pots before the flop. So I was playing 7-2o from early position and junk like that. I was just interested to see if that way could work. Of course, if there was a raise I would muck my hand (usually). What I found was that I still made a good profit, although it was impossible to say what this shows since I only did it for 2 weeks and I might have made more profit otherwise. I did toy with the idea of having a little notebook and noting down the outcome of each hand, but thought that might slightly undermine the loose image I was hoping to acquire!

I guess what you need to do is to find a line between making a consistent profit/playing your best and getting chucked out of the home game. If I was playing at a casino I would not change my style of play at all, no matter what abuse I got. In a home game it is different though.

[eh923]

You can change things a bit without dropping your starting standards...

1. Be sociable and likable.
2. Checkraise a little less in 2 or 3-handed pots.
3. Value bet a little less on the river. Say crap like "I was afraid you had the <fill in the blank>."

These minor changes will cost you a few bets, but FAR less than playing mediocre cards and getting 2nd best hands.

[DESSLOK]

I play in a number of home games including one of my own.They all are different but we have fun,one of them has from 10-20 players every time had the same guy win 3 of 4 games in a row(out of a strong group, almost half regular winning players in Atlantic City) I told the rest of the group it will force them to improve their game.They did and he has not won since.

[flair1239]

I quit playing home games for this reason. I would have fun and be social and would drink more than my fair share of beer.

However, I would not play stupidly. These guys were genuine bad players, out of nine of us, the average was about 7 people to see the flop. It was not uncommon for the whole table to see the flop.

I started taking criticism the 2nd time I went. I would always run beer for the guys because, I was not constantly in the hands. Still they were critical, saying that I was just there to win money....(duh).

After a few times I just told the host, I was not coming anymore. He is a serious golfer, so I used this analogy. "Say you are golfing weekly with 3 other guys who always get drunk and routinely play badly, and don't work on improving their game. You continue playing with them because it is a good time (which the home game was), but at the same time you try to play your best because you want to improve. However one day all these guy start constantly criticising you because you are actually trying to golf well, would you want to continue to play with them."

My advice is to leave the home game. These guys are just going to keep riding you, talking behind your back, and then one day they will be openly hostile and it may even come to blows if they are drunk enough.

[jmark]

If you have to loosen up by playing suited connnectors down to 45 and any pocket pair in a game where 90% see the flop, maybe you are too tight after all.

[Saint_D]

You never mentioned the limits you play at. I host a $10 buy in 8 player tournament once a month at my house. In this game, I play pretty bad. I know when I am making mistakes and do it anyway. Losing a baby tournament can be a lesson to my unconscious about playing too loose or chasing to much.

If they stakes were higher it would be different.

For you situation, provided the stakes are worth playing for, I suggest you just say things like
"Well, I guess I got pretty lucky."
"I know I play too tight, but I am risk averse. It will catch up with me some day."
"Wow, you hit your gutshot strait on the river. Nicely played! I guess I still have a lot to learn."

If the stakes are low I would say "Well, at these low stakes I do OK, but if you crank up the stakes a little, I crack under pressure." /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[KJT]

I did bring a twelve-pack the last time I went.

[KJT]

What would you suggest?

[jmark]

I would suggest just following the starting hand guidelines from WLLHE or SSH.

What's your VPIP?

[KJT]

"What's your VPIP?"

I don't know what the acronym means.

[jmark]

Sorry everyone throws the acronyms around so much it's easy to forget not everyone knows them.

It's from poker tracker, the % of time you voluntarily put money in preflop (not from the blind). It's a good indicator of if you're too tight or too loose.

[Mikey2k4]

I like bringing beer. That way, if you win their money, at least they're still getting something out of it.

Be sociable, exchange stories, etc., when you're not in a hand. When you start to win, just claim luck, and when you fold, just say, "I'm getting TERRIBLE cards! Give me at least ONE face card to play with!" even if you're folding KJo.

[Robert Ezzo]

There is a very lucrative home game that I play in every 3-4 weeks - one other player is good (not great, but relatively tight), the rest (about 6 to 8, depending on the night) are just horrid players. We all have a great time at the game, including myself, so I actually am quite careful not to "kill" the game on a normal basis. I play properly normally (although I do play more starting hands than normal, since pots are rarely raised pre-flop), but at least 1/3 times I play wicked loose, playing all kinds of crazy hands and draws. I actually find it gives me two benefits:

1) It keeps the players a bit off balance, so when I'm playing tight aggressive (my normal game), they don't adapt to it.

2) It makes me one of the "guys", which allows me to keep coming back while I make a very nice profit overall.

I guess I'm a bit strange, based on some of the posts here. I'd rather make some decent money a couple of times, then bleed some of it back (not too much - maybe 1/2 the $$$ I normally earn on a normal night), to keep the other guys happy. If I bleed them dry everytime, they'll stop playing, and that would certainly be EV- in the long run! (It's not easy to play badly, but it's a skill that is critical to playing home games like this on a regular basis.)

[Bez]

No problem, they're trying to get your money too.

[Sundevils21]

[ QUOTE ]
just play your game. don't change for anyone.

[/ QUOTE ]

bingo

[Hedge Henderson]

[ QUOTE ]
No problem, they're trying to get your money too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Probably. They're all there to have fun, but money is still how you keep score.

--

The old standby answer "it depends" applies, KJT. There are a lot of good stories and examples here, and what you should do depends on exactly what the situation is and where you want to go with your game.

I've hosted a micro-limit home game for close to three years now. About a year ago, one of the regulars invited me to another micro-limit home game down the street. The players at this other game were, well, pretty bad. I played tight-passive for about an hour to see what was going on, then resumed my regular tight-aggressive game.

I cleaned up for about six weeks. During that time, I noticed a subtle change in my opponents' play. After about 12 weeks, all but the weakest players had adjusted, and the best players from that home game could hold their own in my game.

I'm not making money. Even when I was kicking butt, $3 an hour (on a good night) ain't exactly a living wage. What I have gained is experience in playing other opponents, now reasonably skilled, whose approach to the game is from a different background than mine. I play to get better, and (mostly) because poker is fun. If I can win enough to pay for my six pack and cigar that night, that's just a bonus.