Players that gave me trouble

[MRBAA]

4-8 live game. There's a maniac in the game -- he's playing 75% of his hands and raising about 2/3 of the hands he plays. So he's raising preflop 50% of the hands. Another player is way too loose but decent and is reraising/coldcalling frequently. Several others are very loose as well, and the maniac has them fired up. So it's capped preflop about 1 in 5 hands. There's typically 4 to the flop and on the flop, there's often a bet and a raise. The turn and river betting is generally more reserved.

So the effective structure is something like:

8-8-8-8 with a few
16-12-8-8 hands thrown in (like one in five). In other words the maniac and the other players aren't totally nuts. They actually play okay after the flop.

Maniac loses everything, goes to ATM, gets it all back. He finally left after about 5 hours with a mountain of chips, but was actually only about even. Needless to say, he had a lucky day. I was getting bad cards, but also felt I didn't play optimally.

My strategy was to tighten preflop, eliminating suited connectors below J10 and small pairs, below 77, in early position. Normally against bad players, I like to get in and see a lot of flops. But because the early raising destroyed my implied odds, I felt I had no choice but to tighten. Post flop, I was inclined to see the turn with any piece and go to the river with any chance, since the pots were so large due to the preflop raising. Anyway, I lost about 5bb in about 6 hours of playiing with this crew. I mainly had bad cards, and when I had good ones they didn't hold up (my AA vs. KK and AK was rivered by a straight in one monster sized pot). Anyway, I think I played okay but am just curious if others have ideas.

Note: the maniac moved seats alot, so it wasn't possible to consistently be to his left. And the other lag players made isolation pretty much impossible anyway, so I was just as happy when I was on his right.

[Joe Tall]

In this type of game your implied odds when hitting a set are huge. You should play any pocket pair when the pot is going to be big here not just 77+.

The mistakes your opponents are making preflop can help you make up bets post flop. Have you read the Majorkong preflop quiz from a few weeks ago? Sounds like it's this type of game. Variance will be high but you'll have great shots of taking down huge pots.

Peace,
Joe Tall

[MRBAA]

So you're saying in this game, you'd limp in EP with 44, knowing it's 60% likely to be raised behind you and 20% it will come back capped? Of course, when I was in late position and it came to me unraised I'd call. Or even if it was raised and four people were in.

These players were much less crazy post flop, so it wasn't like they'd cap with crap on the flop or turn. Even the maniac was somewhat more passive postflop. In fact, I think I may have missed opportunities to bluff on the turn here, as players seemed to me to sometimes pump preflop and be a little quick to dump post flop in big pots.

[PokerBob]

I agree with JoeTall. I'd call with any pair from anywhere, but be prepared to bail if you miss the flop and make sure you have a large bankroll in front of you as variance will be HUGE. I know you say they'd slow down often post-flop, but what about when the flop comes A92r or KQ2r and you hold 22? IMO this sounds like a GREAT table to be at.

[Joe Tall]

you'd limp in EP with 44, knowing it's 60% likely to be raised behind you

I'd surely limp with it every time, and call one raise, easily.

Depending on how many are taking the flop capped, you could make an arguement for calling 3, but you are probably better off leaving it behind.

I'd like a limp-re-raise w/AKs, KK, AA in this game, tie everyone down real tight to the pot.

I think I may have missed opportunities to bluff on the turn here

I think this game calls for more straight forward play and value betting. You should have to worry about bluffing opportunities here.

Peace,
Joe Tall

[MRBAA]

Well, the reason there may have been some good opportunities to bet is that players would call 4 cold preflop, then fold the flop. Or call a bet or two on the flop as well, then fold the turn. When the pots are this big, you don't have to win too many semi-bluffing with draws or underpairs or whatever to win. I've been crushing Party 2-4 and generally crush this game as well -- these conditions were different, believe me. I think mainly I just happened to get cold cards when the table was wild.

[Joe Tall]

You shouldN'T have to worry about bluffing opportunities here.

Peace,
Joe Tall

[schwza]

It sounds like in this game lots of money is going in pre-flop compared to the amount going in after.

That doesn't sound like a game where I want to be limping small pairs out of position - small pairs want to see cheap flops and have betting explosions on the flop and beyond.

[Joe Tall]

small pairs want to see cheap flops and have betting explosions on the flop and beyond.

Small pairs have high implied odds and you'll make up the bets you lose preflop when you flop a set in these games. Most of these players have no ability of putting you on 44 on a KQ4 board and will ram and jam holding of KJ, JT, etc as you make all the money.

Peace,
Joe Tall

[colgin]

It sounds as if the game being described is most of the time multiway with most all pots being raised pre-flop, with the betting getting capped approximately 20% of the time pre-flop. In that case, I think you are right Joe. Certainly you want to limp with small pairs if you know you are going to get multiway acion everytime even if it costs you two small bets to see a flop. Besides, if you limp from early position and its three bets back to you you can always fold. Now I am not sure precisely where the crossing over point is (capped 40% of the time, 60%, 80%?), but at some point if the flop is getting capped too frequently then I think this strategy is not correct and is not what majorkong had in mind in his quiz. I don't have HPFAP in front of me but I recall that they talk about those tables in specific contrast to ordinary loose tables and say that in the case of loose maniacal tables with lots of pre-flop capping then you need to significantly tighten up and perhaps limit yourself to Group 1 hands.

Colgin