Perfecting Play against maniacs

[wacki]

I have a home game every saturday that is filled with mostly maniacs and a couple of people, although still considered loose by 2+2 standards, actually play in a somewhat logical fashion. Although, I have the game beat, I am wondering what percentage of the flops should I be seeing, and more importantly, whats the math behind figuring this out? That way I can calculate the percentage of the flops I need to play in all future games.

Heres the game:
The buy-in is half or full.

You can buy in as many times as you want, but are capped at the max buy in limit. Depending on the night is either $10 or $20 bucks.

There are no blinds, ante's are 5 cents.

The play. There are ussually 2 people (besides me) that play with some rhyme or reason. The rest tend to vary greatly on the play from calling an all-on on the flop when they haven't even made a pair and there is a 3 flush on board, to playing the typically loose game you see on Party 's cheapest NL tourneys. The play varies according to the mood with these people.

Even though the preflop ante's are 5 cents, people tend to always bet 30 cents before the flop, but rarely ever raise the 30 cents.

If you bet .50 on flop $1 on turn and a $1 or $2 on river, atleast 3-6 people will almost always stay.

If you bet .50 on flop, and a $1 on turn and go all in $10 on river, you can get a caller about 25% of the time, and two or three callers %25 of the time, and get you will get everybody to fold about %50 of the time. On some nights, however, you'll be lucky to get even a %25 fold rate on an all in.

Playing No-Foldem holdem is nice because of the big payoffs, but means that you ussually need to have a straight to win. Even a three of a kind is risky business in this game. Occasionally I can read the opponents well enough to actaully win an all-in on the river with a top pair, but that happens about once or twice a night. It's just too risky.

My Question basically is, what percentage of the flops do I see? And if you could, please explain to me how you got to that result?

[Whistler]

I would see almost every flop....ie, the percentage of hands you would normally see + the percentage of times there is no raise pre-flop + the percentage of time you think you can outplay people on the flop. I think this is a great game for someone who can throw out a K6s when a K 5 10 rainbow hits the board. Basically you are getting crazy implied odds to see the flop, 30 cents to win up to 20-40$.

[wacki]

Forgive me if this sounds like a stupid question, but when you say throw out a k6s when a K 5 10 rainbow hits, you do mean you are able to fold a top pair, correct?

Right now, when I play hands like this the only times I go all-in on a hand like this is when I know the person thinks of me of a super tight fold at any kind of raise wuss. Which about everytime I play, I get atleast two people that think of me this way. When one of those people try to bully me, or I get a good tell from a person that plays crap hands I call. When I go agaist one of these people I try make sure I'm going heads up and not against 2 or 3 other people if I have top pair, which happens to be a rare occasion.

Is this a good philosophy, or are there more rules I should add/change to my play?

Also when you say you would see every flop, right now I only play flops that I get a open ended straight draw, 4 flush, 3 kind, or two pair off of the flop. If I'm in the LP and everybody is folding or not betting I'll play a top pair.

Top pairs are tricky tho. It seems like if I bet, everyone else starts raising regarless if they have a hand at all. I ussually try to call down a top pair, or go in really heavy if no one is betting. If I go in heavy (has to be atleast 2x the pot) it's risky, because people tend to call me more than fold. If I call the bets down, I get a multiway pot win (ussually 3-4), but more I will tend to lose more. Yet there is less at stake. I still can't figure out which one is better.

Remember, we are talking about people that will, with a suprising frequency, risk half their stack off of a second to the bottom pair.

My philosophy treated me well last weekend (trippled my money), but it frustrates me when I see other maniacs not all that far behind me, and occasionally beating me by a large margin even though I am still up.

[bunky9590]

Heres a nice piece of advice for ya.

DON'T WORRY ABOUT WHAT EVERYONE ELSE MAKES IN THE GAME!

Worry about yourself and your own play. Now in a game like that I'm playing any and all pocket pairs, and and all suited connectors and one gappers and with position unsuited connectors and will break the entire table more often than not when they hit. I LOVE Games like that. When you hit your hands they pay out like a slot machine jackpot. Just don't push the ragged edge on every little edge that you have. Sit back and wait and pounce. (And get their money)

[nothumb]

Your post perfectly illustrates the point: TP with a kicker is a much better hand against three sane people than three idiots or maniacs. I play in a home game like this and I play a lot of speculative hands, and I draw to them cheaply because the implied odds are monstrous. I often don't even bother trying to narrow the pot with top pair, I just fire 2-5 times the blinds in (this is a respectable but not terrifying bet in our game, and people are slightly more tight than in yours) and see how people react. TPTK depends on reads and guts in a game like this; I rarely overcommit to anything less than two pair. You're not losing too much playing this way because you get paid off so handsomely for making any hand.

When you catch yourself worrying about what people have on the night, spend more time worrying about what they have on the year. You're probably miles ahead.

Cheers,
DC