Loose Players and Game Selection

[Walter]

If you are playing with very loose, very bad players in a small-stakes game, what do you think is the most profitable game to call? Or is there an even better game that is not spread in casinos that would maximize your edge.

[Dynasty]

Stud high only should be better than either hold'em or Omaha. The mistakes loose players make on 3rd street in stud are much more costly than the mistakes made in the flop games.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Walter:

I don't think it's even close. You want to play either razz (seven-card stud for low) or jacks-or-better to open draw poker without the joker (but playing with the joker is still pretty good).

Best wishes,
Mason

[chaos]

Lowball (5 card draw low) is pretty good also if your opponents will regularly draw 2 or even 3 cards.

[Billy LTL]

Not exactly poker but 7-27 is pretty much a guaranteed money-maker if you know how to play it.

[spiral]

I think variants of H/L stud with no qualifier and a declare are far and away the best. Put in the option to buy cards and escalate the betting toward the end of the hand.

Another devastating game that incorporates Mason's observation about how good draw is would be the following:

5 or 7 card draw, H/L with a declare, roll at the end.

The order of action would be:

get cards
bet
draw
bet
arrange your 5 card hand in a face down pile
everyone turns over one card
bet
repeat until each player has 4 up and one down
simultaneous declare for High, Low, or Scoop
bet
show

This game should yield a monumental edge against bad players

[bad beetz]

In home games there's a game called three-fifty-seven (I won't go into the rules I'm sure they're online).

It's a gold mine, this game creates the biggest edge possible for a thinking player. I pick it about 75% of the time the deal gets back to me.

[Clarkmeister]

7-27 RULES.

Billy, do you play ins beat outs or outs beat ins?

[Clarkmeister]

I played Indian poker with my girlfriend and daughter the other night. Her daughter had a tell. I crushed em. lol.

Forget about draw, tells have to be more important in Indian poker than any other game, right?

[Jimbo]

Clarkmeister you laugh but in the early 80's we would play pot limit Indian Poker!!! You gotta love it when you are the one sitting in front of a mirror! LOL

[Clarkmeister]

Holy crap Jimbo, now THATS a poker game. PLIP.

I'll have to try it sometime. I'm a degenerate like that, lol.

[Andy B]

I'm going to go with seven card stud high-low with a declare. I think Sklansky wrote somewhere that this is the game where the good player has the biggest edge. It's certainly the game where I have the biggest edge. Whether or not I'm a good player is perhaps debatable. If you have to have casino games, high-low cards speak and stud/8 are also good games. Of course, you have to know how to play high-low games, and a lot of "good" players don't.

In 7/27, I become the live one. Do you just never play for high or something?

[Billy LTL]

Clarkmeister, in answer to your question - 6.5 beats 7.5, and 26.5 beats 27.5. Though I'll go with what the dealer calls of course.

The optimal rules as far as I'm concerned allow the option of passing a draw only three times - after that you live with what you've got, or fold.

Billy

PS - Oh yeah, if you are ever in a situation where you have introduced the game and it received rave reviews, you might consider dealing 7-47 towards the end of the night.

[Walter]

in 7-27, your aces can go both ways, so you can make 7-27 or 7.5-27.5

it is lucrative in the same way that other hi-lo games are when you have people risking lots of money for a decent shot at 1/2 the pot.

call it after everyone has had a few beers and are looking for some action.

[Billy LTL]

it is lucrative in the same way that other hi-lo games are when you have people risking lots of money for a decent shot at 1/2 the pot

It's even more lucrative than normal hi-lo game because in the first couple of rounds there is often a little war of domination and unless an opponent has the nuts or near nuts you can many times drive him off his low. Most opponents don't know to quit here and will start drawing for high, getting face card after face card, with the betting being capped after each draw.

[snakehead]

could you please explain why you think razz is a good choice?

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Snakehead:

In razz, since there are no flushes or straights, it's much easier to read someone's hand. Furthermore, bad loose players will frequently start with a bad one versus your three good ones. Thus you frequently get to play seven cards versus their six and the hands are easy to read, and yes they will sometimes start with that bad one up.

By the way, assuming you are an expert, against decent players razz becomes a terrible game to play. But against live ones it can be great.

Best wishes,
Mason