[archcity]

I play a home game with 8-12 friends, $20 NLHE. When we started I was dead money, after months of study and online play I'm in the money consistently. I'm now recognized as probably the most conservative player in the game.

We start with $3750, blinds 25/50, doubling every 20 minutes. The game is pretty loose, lot of limpers into the pot. Raises are always called by 1, 2 or more. People bet medium and low pairs even one ace and sometimes bet and call them to a showdown. Lot of pots are won with these types of hands. It is very difficult to win a hand without betting premium hands and connecting on the flop (when you do it pays off, but sometimes you just don't get the cards) On the other hand nobody likes to go out early. With the randomness of play its hard to build a BIG stack. Like I said I can usually get to the money, but from there it is a crap shoot. Payouts are slanted heavily toward the winner 20/40/120.

I thought I might throw everyone a curveball. Starting in level 2 (50/100), I am looking for this situation: Full table (8 or 9), I am on the button or in the blinds, almost everyone limps, so say there is a pot of $650. If I have a decent OK hand say ATo or medium pairs, I go all in. I figure I increase my stack by about 20% when everyone folds or have at least a 50% chance of doubling up.

I'll do this again a second time. If I'm still alive, I either have healthy stack or a BIG stack. Now that people are catching on, I will only do this with a premium hand AK, QQ through AA, figuring I'll at least one caller out of frustration.

As a side benefit I think the rest of the game tightens up, so I might be able to put people on hands easier and my AK won't get beat by a two pairs K4 in a raised pot. Plus I think its good that people will now find me somewhat unpredictable.

What do you think?