Party $200 NL Cash Game

[RollaJ]

The game is pretty damn tight when its raised preflop.... something Im not used to on party..... anyone else ever play it?

[eMarkM]

I've played it quite a bit. Yes, the level of play is generally better than the lower levels. It does tend toward weak tight play as there's more scared money here, so you can be more aggressive with position. For example, you still have a lot of players limping in EP with 75s hoping to see a flop. If there's two of these A2C limpers and you're in LP, a nice pot size raise will shoo them all away. A nice play, whatever your cards. It's very profitable if you can get position on one or two of the fish and one of the sharp regulars with a mound of chips doesn't have position on you.

[Ulysses]

I've been playing this game quite a bit the last couple of weeks. I haven't found the same thing as you. Yes, when there are 5 limpers and I make it $40 to go from the Button or SB, I often take down the pot right there. But when I open for $20 UTG, I often get 2 or 3 cold-callers. I often find two or three super-LAGs in the game w/ pretty big stacks. And I'm pretty LAGish myself when I get started w/ the stupid $200 max stack. I've played it a few times when 4 of 5 of the players have > $800 stacks. That's when the play starts to get a little interesting. And in those games, I will take a lot of chances to try and double up ASAP.

One weird thing I've found is that the big stacks will call much bigger raises regardless of where they come from. So, even though you might have only $200 and he's getting no implied odds from your tiny stack, if you raise to $50 pre-flop w/ AA, the $1000 stack may well call you w/ K8s and call your all-in if he makes a pair.

[Ulysses]

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one of the sharp regulars

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Who are those? So far, xsaunt is the only one I've faced a few times I'd call solid. There are a number of other potential good players, but I haven't played long enough to be sure.

[JWise]

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one of the sharp regulars

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Who are those? So far, xsaunt is the only one I've faced a few times I'd call solid. There are a number of other potential good players, but I haven't played long enough to be sure.

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Xasunt is definately not one of the solid players. I wont give you his stats or give away his weaknesses, but he did manage to lose $407 with 99 on this board Td Kd 8c 4s 3c.

[Legend27]

If you want to play a $200 buy-in game on party then play on PL $200. The players there are consistently worse and the pot average is consisently higher most of the time. There are alot of winning players that play on the NL $200.

[Ulysses]

I've only played this game for a couple of weeks, so my sample size is very small and I've only run into the same faces a few times. So, who knows, the player I mentioned may indeed be quite weak. However, wrt the one hand you posted, while that could be a terrible play, it might also be a winning play against someone whose betting pattern suggests they hold something like Ad8d when they push on the turn. I've made tons of pretty thin NL calls v. guys who always play a draw a certain way. Sometimes I've been right, other times wrong.

[JWise]

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it might also be a winning play against someone whose betting pattern suggests they hold something like Ad8d when they push on the turn. I've made tons of pretty thin NL calls v. guys who always play a draw a certain way. Sometimes I've been right, other times wrong.

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In this situation you described youd have to be right hes on (A8d AJd AQd) around 85-95% of the time for it to be a profitable play, depending on how much you already committed to the pot, which cant be much. So even if this is what happened i cant say it would be that great a call, but what really happened was a lot worse.

[Legend27]

xsaunt is a winning player but I dunno what he was doing on that hand.

[Ulysses]

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In this situation you described youd have to be right hes on (A8d AJd AQd) around 85-95% of the time for it to be a profitable play

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I don't really want to nitpick a hypothetical situation here, but I just don't see how you can make a statement like that.

Let's say I make it $30 after a few limpers and get two callers. $100 pot. On the flop it's checked to me and I bet $100 and again get two callers. There's now $400 in the pot. Now, on the turn, my opponent comes out firing his last $275. The guy in the middle folds. Now it's $275 to me w/ $675 in the middle. Against certain opponents, I'll be able to put them on exactly a set or a flush draw here w/ this kind of pattern. And I won't have to be right about them having a flush draw anything near 85% of the time for this to be a profitable call.

BTW, please keep in mind that this example was simply made to illustrate a point, not to show good or bad play by any of the hypothetical participants.

As for the actual situation you were referring to, if you say it was a bad play, I have no reason to doubt you. My point is simply that many seemingly bad calls in NL are sometimes not that bad.