Wow the party .5/1 is almost unplayable

[blackize]

I managed to come out a little ahead after an hour, but at no point did I think it was due to superior play, just whoever caught something since like 5 people are in until 5th and every hand goes to showdown. Is there a way to play with the .25 ante and such loose players and be successful without getting extremely lucky?

[shadow29]

Yes.

[BeerMoney]

It takes time. The fish are dead set on seeing 7 cards. Just have fun with it.

[PoorLawyer]

I got a free $50 on party to start an account a while back and ran it up to over 500 at the .5/1 and 1/2 stud and hi/low games, so it is defintely possible. The swings are huge though. My bankroll doesn't seesaw like it did on party at any other of the 4 sites i play on.

Unfortunately I gave it all back with a combo of 30+3 SNGs and a cold run of hi/low.

[TS Clark]

After not playing stud on Party for a long time (I play 1-2 mostly) because I thought the ante structure was ridiculous, I finally realized that the games at Party were SO juicy that I had to just buckle down and accept the ante structure and variance.

I consider myself a pretty decent stud player, but by no means advanced. I think I have a good feel for the game and I have a very good memory (which helps), but I am nowhere close to the level of thinking that goes on among some of the folks on the forum.

That said, I have run $150 to almost $400 in the past couple of weeks playing 1-2 on Party (and without playing more than a couple of hours a day usually). I certainly know that some of that is attributable to luck (it's a drawing game and you have to catch or you can't win), but mostly it's just preying on the weak (and there are plenty of those) and enforcing good starting hand discipline.

You will have some down sessions, because the fish make variance a bitch sometimes. But when you get/make a hand, you will almost always get paid off and paid off big. You just have to take deep Zen breaths when you get sucked out on. If you don't, the aquarium will drown you.

One more thing -- if you have the bankroll for it, I would suggest the 1-2 game as your low/micro-limit alternative to the .50-1 game, as the ante isn't quite as ridiculous by comparison and pot sizes really help offset the antes.

Good luck. I've watched you play on Stars in the past and you seem like a very solid player, so I have no doubt you'll be able to adapt and win at this game as well.

Shane

[Andy B]

The structure in this game is absolutely ridiculous, and it's not like Party doesn't have any five cent chips or anything. The game is certainly beatable because the players are so bad. There is the temptation to loosen up too much because of the high ante. Bear in mind that because the game is so loose, you're going to have to show down the best hand to win most of the time. Don't get too fancy, and move up to $1/2 as quickly as possible.

[MrMonkey]

There is a good section on loose games in 'Seven card stud for advanced players'. One comment I would make about such games is that 'good' players often get themselves in trouble playing hands that don't do well multiway, totally disregarding the fact that 5 people are gonna see 5th st every time. I've definitely noticed this when I play live limit hold'em in a casino (I'm sure most of you know how loose and soft these games are). The bookish college kid gets slaughtered every time overplaying his AKo and refusing to believe that his opponents really have 29s, even though they always do, and as a result loses half his roll in this 'good game'. Look at this example from twodimes.net for example:
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=864135
Your AAT with a dead A and T is only 21% in the 6-way pot against a bunch of random, half dead hands which would all get destroyed playing against you heads up. Obviously this is above the 1/6 that you need, but it's still not a huge edge. In a loose game like this you have to put more emphasis on drawing hands like big suited, connected cards and you can even jam the pots on 3rd street if you want with something like a live 3-flush with big or connected cards. Notice how in the twodimes example the 3-flush with two dead spades is doing just as well as your AA.

Definitely the strategy of raising and reraising AA and KK on 3rd street and then almost always going to 7th street (a strategy which destroys the 10/20 game on party, in my opinion, in which almost all pots are heads up by 5th street) is going to be a losing or at best break even strategy in these games, especially if you consistently don't give up when it starts to look like you're drawing just to trips and boats. In a really loose game like this you could limp AA and try to get a raise in on 4th, or even on 5th if this is the only way to knock players out, just to get the pot shorthanded and contest the pot with all that dead money in there. In a game like this I would try to make aces up early and hope it survives showdown, or just give up with so many people drawing out there if you don't improve but it looks like your opponents might be.

A hand like Jx J I'd fold very early if I didn't improve on 4th street just because Jacks up or even Queens up is going to win very rarely at showdown if 4 or 5 people get to see 7th street.

On the other hand if you get dealt a live 3-flush or 3-str8 and not too many people catch your suit on 4th you can definitely pay to see 5th trying to 4-flush and 4-str8. Just be careful with the straights because there is pretty much always at least 1 flush draw out, and I'm sure we've all seen these ridiculous hands at low limits (and occasionally at high limits) where 3 people have flushed by the river.

On the other hand, as somebody else posted, I love silly low stakes games like this where I can just screw around and gamble with like $25.

Anyway, that's my 2+2 cents.

Oh and the rake. The rake makes these low limit games really hard to beat cause I think it gets capped at a higher percentage of the average pot. Whereas at 20/40 stud on party the rake almost doesn't matter since every pot just caps at $3 rake which is often less than 1% of the pot.

[BeerMoney]

Mr. Monkey, you bring up good points, but here's the thing..

Everyone would rather play live aces then dead aces, and would rather have good drawing hands, but we don't control the hands we're given. All we know is that we'd be better off if we had fewer opponents with our dead AAx. Does that mean you should muck AAx if one ace is out?

We know we should play more hands since the ante is high? So, which ones? Well, AKsX type hands? But, we know big cards don't mean much against so many opponents, right? So, maybe a hand like 8 9 J? to look for the T. But, that ten needs to be live.. Just rambling, but the answer to these games isn't easy, I think you have to just avoid the huge mistakes that your opponents make.

you also have to realize that paired door cards don't mean squat.

I think the point is that you're gonna experience some huge swings. You still have to push small edges though. Don't expect to raise to force someone out. they're gonna see 7 cards, and there's nothing you can do about it. In the long run, you will make your money off of people making terrible mistakes.

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
There is a good section on loose games in 'Seven card stud for advanced players'. One comment I would make about such games is that 'good' players often get themselves in trouble playing hands that don't do well multiway, totally disregarding the fact that 5 people are gonna see 5th st every time. I've definitely noticed this when I play live limit hold'em in a casino (I'm sure most of you know how loose and soft these games are). The bookish college kid gets slaughtered every time overplaying his AKo and refusing to believe that his opponents really have 29s, even though they always do, and as a result loses half his roll in this 'good game'. Look at this example from twodimes.net for example:
http://twodimes.net/h/?z=864135
Your AAT with a dead A and T is only 21% in the 6-way pot against a bunch of random, half dead hands which would all get destroyed playing against you heads up. Obviously this is above the 1/6 that you need, but it's still not a huge edge. In a loose game like this you have to put more emphasis on drawing hands like big suited, connected cards and you can even jam the pots on 3rd street if you want with something like a live 3-flush with big or connected cards. Notice how in the twodimes example the 3-flush with two dead spades is doing just as well as your AA.

Definitely the strategy of raising and reraising AA and KK on 3rd street and then almost always going to 7th street (a strategy which destroys the 10/20 game on party, in my opinion, in which almost all pots are heads up by 5th street) is going to be a losing or at best break even strategy in these games, especially if you consistently don't give up when it starts to look like you're drawing just to trips and boats. In a really loose game like this you could limp AA and try to get a raise in on 4th, or even on 5th if this is the only way to knock players out, just to get the pot shorthanded and contest the pot with all that dead money in there. In a game like this I would try to make aces up early and hope it survives showdown, or just give up with so many people drawing out there if you don't improve but it looks like your opponents might be.

A hand like Jx J I'd fold very early if I didn't improve on 4th street just because Jacks up or even Queens up is going to win very rarely at showdown if 4 or 5 people get to see 7th street.

On the other hand if you get dealt a live 3-flush or 3-str8 and not too many people catch your suit on 4th you can definitely pay to see 5th trying to 4-flush and 4-str8. Just be careful with the straights because there is pretty much always at least 1 flush draw out, and I'm sure we've all seen these ridiculous hands at low limits (and occasionally at high limits) where 3 people have flushed by the river.

On the other hand, as somebody else posted, I love silly low stakes games like this where I can just screw around and gamble with like $25.

Anyway, that's my 2+2 cents.

Oh and the rake. The rake makes these low limit games really hard to beat cause I think it gets capped at a higher percentage of the average pot. Whereas at 20/40 stud on party the rake almost doesn't matter since every pot just caps at $3 rake which is often less than 1% of the pot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Uncle?