How To Play Against Super-Loose Nut Jobs

[Josh Chud]

Went to Tunica for Memorial Day Weekend. Played 4/8, 5/10, 7.5/15, 10/20, and 20/40 Holdem at Gold Strike, Horsheshoe and Grand over the 3 days. One thing that really amazed me was that the 20-40 game was even MORE loose and contained even more ridiculous showdowns than the 4/8 game. The guy to my right came in for 3 bets UTG+2 with J6o and won the hand when flop came Q66. We're talking showdowns of T3o vs 42s, 74o vs 44 vs ATo vs Q2s in a capped preflop hand. Hands never had less than 6 entrants, and i dont remember playing a hand for less than 2 bets preflop, i would say average was 3 bets. Anyways this *really* threw me off, wasn't prepared to go through the kind of swings i was gonna need to go through to play correctly in this game. So couple questions and ill post a hand.

1) How loose do you get in these games? Normally i fold Hands like AX offsuit or suited (X = Queen or under) against a raise. But it seemed like any suited or unsuited connector, pocket pair, and AX suited were suddenly legit hands against these fields.

2) Do we bite the bullet and change our strategy? Preferring to play incorrectly before the flop and correctly after the flop, because the pot odds are so ridiculous and the payouts are enourmous? Or is there a more dominant strategy in these cases?

Here is my 500$ Hand

20/40 At the Horseshoe
Hero is Cutoff with A /images/graemlins/spade.gifJ /images/graemlins/spade.gif
UTG Raises, UTG+1 Reraises, UTG+2 folds, MP Calls, MP+1 Calls, MP+2 Folds, Hero Calls, Button Folds, SB Folds, BB Calls, UTG Calls

Flop is: 6 /images/graemlins/diamond.gif7 /images/graemlins/heart.gif8 /images/graemlins/club.gif

BB Checks, UTG Checks, UTG+1 Checks, MP Checks, MP+1 Checks, Hero Checks

Turn is J /images/graemlins/heart.gif

BB Checks, UTG Bets, UTG+1 Folds, MP Calls, MP+1 Folds, Hero Raises, BB Folds, UTG Folds, MP Calls.

River is 4 /images/graemlins/heart.gif

MP Checks, Hero Checks.

Would anyone play this hand differently? I dont think betting the flop is right because im probably behind to the preflop raisers who probably raised small PP's or some combo of (AK,AQ) and i will need to hit to win, every hand at this table has been showing down, 1 pair is almost never enough. But everything else is open to interpretation.

[Mempho]

I live in Memphis and have played this game innumerable times and I can say that yes, you are correct that the game can get quite ridiculous. It is not always that way, but it does get that way, especially on "touristy" weekends such as the one last weekend. And, yes, there are significant strategy changes. I don't have time to post on this right now, but I'll come back this evening and build on some of the other replies from some of the excellent posters on this forum.

[stankphish]

I would have bet on the river. What would you do there if you got raised?

[Josh Chud]

I was definately not on my game, i agree with betting the river but the whole time i thought i was losing to T9o, yet didn't get raised on the turn. In fact the 1 guy who showed down with me was the only solid player at the table so i figured better not to get trapped. I believe at the time i was playing i would've called a check-raise here out of frustration, but normally i wouldn't because runner runner flush is not out of the question to chase in this huge pot and he could've flopped the nuts with T9 and wanted to get tricky on the river instead of the turn.

[stankphish]

Unless he was completely brain dead he would have reraised on the turn if he flopped the nuts.

[catlover]

In this sort of game I think position becomes less important than normal. If there is going to be a lot of betting and raising, it mostly matters whether you have a winning hand and not much where you are sitting.

Preflop prefer suited hands and pocket pairs. The reason is that they have the potential to make big hands which is what you want in this game. Stuff like AJo is not much good and should be folded because one pair is frequently not enough to win.