Can a 3/6 or 4/8 game be beaten, or are there too many nits?

[novamob]

After playing 3/6 at the Mirage this past weekend and having played other low-limit hold-'em games, I am getting the impression that it is a crapshoot. People will play ANY 2 cards, so it is nearly impossible to put people on a hand. My AJs lost to 23off (the moron called a raise). My AK lost to 94s, etc. I watched a nit with 83s call a raise and beat AA. There were times when all 10 players saw the flop. Is such a game beatable by a good player, or is it now simply luck? What do I do? Do the higher limit games play straighter?

[ElSapo]

The reason the games are beatable is -because- they play any two. If you can't beat these games, moving up is probably not the best idea.

[beta77]

These types of games can be frustrating in the short term. However, while keeping in mind that your short term variance will increase in games such as these (due to the higher chance that someone will suck out on you), your overall win rate will be substantial if you continue to play tight and aggressive.

For example, if all 10 of you see the flop, a total "crapshoot" would indicate that you have a 10% chance of winning if everyone went to showdown. If you only play hands that are BETTER than your opponents, would you expect your chance of winning to be 1/10? Certainly not. Although your chance of winning may only be 20% to 35%, over time this is a substantial advantage over your lesser playing opponents. Try not to think of each individual suck out as a crapshoot, but rather, make good post flop decisions, get out when you feel you NO LONGER have the best hand, and take all their money in the long run.

Good luck to you.

[bernie]

[Schmed]

I hear this a lot with people. 'AK is not good in games where everyone sees the flop for any amount of money'... 'I can't beat the low limit game but I beat the higher game'...(heck I say the last one sometimes).....

Bottom line is these games are very beatable but you have to adjust to the players in the game. Multi-way hands go way up and big pairs go down in value. You get AA and raise you have 5 callers, and they call you to the river or raise at some point you have to be aware that they could have anything.

I actually find that the low limit player is so readable that you gain whatever edge you lose with everyone seeing the flop.

I posted a 3,6 hand that I played last night while I was waiting for my 6-12 game. I lost like 80 bucks at that 36 table and won 280 at 6-12. I really could have lost a lot more and I don't think I played poorly...(with the exception of that one hand).....But I have QQ, raise preflop, get a bunch of callers, flop comes garbage, I bet, callers...a lot of them.....turn pairs one of the garbage cards, and very weak player comes out betting....I fold.... everyone calls the guy.....he had the 24o for the full house on the turn....

The way I see these tables live is I look for the 2 people at the table that know how to play. I adjust to them and realize that with everyone else their hands will be an open book. If you show aggression and they bet in to you you can bet they have a pair beat. If you get C/Rd by one of these players look at the board, think what are the nuts, and now you know what they have. Don't say, 'Hmm I raised my AA he can't have the 24 for the str8'...he's got the 24 for the str8.

[Gamblor]

My AJs lost to 23off (the moron called a raise). My AK lost to 94s, etc. I watched a nit with 83s call a raise and beat AA. There were times when all 10 players saw the flop.

Realize that you only remember these because they are out of the ordinary, and incredibly frustrating

Winning all those bets 4 times out of 5 doesn't make the 5th time any less annoying, but remember that if you put your money in as a favourite, AA will hold up more than 23o.

Is such a game beatable by a good player, or is it now simply luck? What do I do? Do the higher limit games play straighter?

Being a good LL player has very little to do with hand reading and bluffing strategy and all that. Just stick with playing favourites for now.

A good analogy is as follows:

To be a good high school Quarterback, you must be a good athlete and practice. You learn how to throw a football better than anyone else, you'll win much of the time. You'll still lose, but you'll win more often. But as the players get better, and as they all understand the basic fundamentals of the game, i.e. what cards to play/when to pass and when to run, they need other methods to get an edge on their opponents. This is why bluffing and hand reading, tells and advertising begin to come into play, and in football we get offensive co-ordinators in booths with thousands in equipment, we get quarterbacks reading defenses at the line and calling audibles, we get coaches with complicated signals. But in a high school game, that would all be lost on a kid who can't even throw the ball.

[Joe Tall]

Yes, there are too many nits.

I have a solution. I'll set up a 3/6 private-game on Party Poker with some friends on here. I'll send you a message with the password so you can come play.

I hope this helps.

Welcome to the forum,
Joe Tall

[juris]

Can "nit" be the password? Or at least the table name?

[asymmetrical]

You're taking a bad attitude toward a potentially very profitable game.

My local home games, depending on who is participating, can get like this: they roll between loose/passive and very loose/very aggressive. You need to learn to adjust your starting hands and playing characteristics to the texture of the game you're in.

As others have stated, in a very loose, very passive game TPTK and big pocket pairs will go down in value because so many people are drawing against you. Combining their collective outs against your outs to improve and you'll see you can sometimes becomes a dog even with TPTK.

Stop thinking of the game in terms of best hand at the moment, and start looking at the game as getting maximum value out of your best potental hands when they hit. In a game like this I push premium drawing hands. If everyone will stay to the river for several bets, and you can manipulate them to put even more bets in when you have a great drawing han....well, when you do hit that hand they're all going to pay you off handsomely. Flushes make me the most money consistently in my crazy loose games...often, in mid- to late position I'll play almost any 2 suited cards if enough people stay preflop and the people are ones I think I can push around on the turn and river.

Look at these loose low-limit games from a money/odds perspective as opposed to a hand-domination perspective and I think you'll do much better. Make sure when you're drawing you're getting the proper pot odds to continue, and when your opponent is not getting the proper odds, try and manipulate him into continuing anyway. If the game tightens up, you can tighten up with it and push your TP more aggressively. Learning to adjust to the game and playing dynamically has really helped my bottom line.

I know Gary Carson is not a popular name around these parts, but his book does a fantastic job of explaining how the game and theories of the game need to shift as the dynamic of the table shifts on the loose/tight and passive/aggressive scales.

To answer your initial question: the real reason a 3/6 or 4/8 casino game is unbeatable is because of the rake. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Good luck.

[MRBAA]

If you can't beat these games like a rented mule, you are not a very good player. I just played a 2-4 hand at Party last night where I capped with AA against a loose player, capped a flop of 9-10-3rainbow, bet and was called on a turn of an offsuit 4 and bet and was raised when a Jack fell on the river. The other player had jacks and hit a set. Big deal. I still averaged 4bb/hr for the night. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but these are the easiest games to beat, not the toughest.

[laxrulz777]

[ QUOTE ]
To answer your initial question: the real reason a 3/6 or 4/8 casino game is unbeatable is because of the rake. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't find this to be true at all... I play at the Biluxi Grand and there tend to be ALOT of tourists that come with the intention of spending money. The rake is pretty painful (10% capped at $4 with $1-2 tips for the dealer and waitress being SOP) but that just means you have another factor to figure into your decision making. You need to play tight but aggressive and try to win a few big pots rather then lots of medium ones. Every time you can build a pot over $40 you lesson the rake on the hand. I've played probably 75-80 hours there so far and won about $500 at the 4-8 tables... While that is not quite a BB/hr it's not far off (especially considering the first 10 or so I was a bit out of my element). I've also only had one losing session in that time.

low limit games with rakes are certainly beatable but it's definitely different then playing higher limits or even playing with competent players

PS If your particular Poker room regularly seats more than 3 competent players at a full table then you might have problems from that perspective.

[HajiShirazu]

These games are unbeatable because of the obscene rake, not the bad players. In fact the bad players are the only reason why these games are even close to beatable. I would give two or three fingers to play at 3 full tables of these types online, at any limit, whenever I wanted, for the rest of my life.

[Louie Landale]

The differences between a reasonably "normal" game and a wild game are:

[] You make money by winning big pots in the showdown, NOT by gaining or saving extra bets in medium pots. The correlary to this fact is that you should play in such a manner that [a] you get to the show down, and [b] you win quite a few of them. This means do NOT tend to play hands that "improve" to hands that won't win show downs, either because they are dogs or because you are likely to fold them along the way.

[] Since there are so many bad hands out a bad hand, some bad hand, is a favorite to win the showdown. This means that MOST show downs are won by crap. This is also an illusion: if 2 good hands each have a 40% chance to win are playing against 6 bad hands that each have a 10% chance to win, its 6:4 that a bad hand will win. Never-the-less, the good hands are making money and the bad hands are losing money.

[] Its near impossible to put a very loose player on a specific hand early enough during the hand to make a difference. This basically ONLY means you may lose a bet here and there when you normally wouldn't. You'll win your 40% of show downs against 3 opponents, but you won't know WHICH 40%. Deal with it. That's a serenity issue, not an odds issue.

[] Forget about "narrowing the size of the field" plays. If you cannot narrow the field when you flop a pair of 9s, don't play T9o.

[] Good draws are gold. Play more suited cards, play more small pairs, bet and raise with draws a LOT more often.

[] "Stealing" is a thing from another universe.

[] Big pots not only means the opponents are correct to draw against you, it also means that YOU are correct to draw against THEM.

[] You are going to win quite often by just calling. You'll need to get over the "shame" of that.

[] Its reasonably possible to NEVER raiser PF figuring to wait until you flop something before investing much money.

- Louie