unbeatable game?

[stonecoldnuts]

Here's the situation. Imagine the most crazy loose action 15-30 game you can, and then multiply by 10. The table consists of 9 people (other than you), all of which know the basics to playing poker, but just don't follow them, including one 80 year old man who plays EVERY hand and calls them all down to the river(no joke, he loses $2500-$5000 a night at best.) They call down with any pair, draw, draw TO a draw, overs, unders, doesn't matter. At least 4, usually 5-7, people to every flop regardless of raise, 3 betting, some will even "cap for pleasure." Is this the best game in the world or the worst? Is it possible to consistantly beat 7 completely random hands? How would you play against a table of people that will play any hand no matter how slim their chances of winning are. You'd think it sounds great, but after seeing some of the sickest longshot beats happen i'm not so sure. comments?

[Vex]

Wha?

Nope. Not beatable at all.

In fact, I need to know the time and place of that game. So I can go...um...watch, yeah watch, to see for myself. Yeah.

[Blarg]

This sounds basically like your average 2/4 or 3/6 live game at the Commerce casino.

There are some people who win, but not many. The house always wins though. You can lose as much there as you can playing 10/20, easily.

You definitely need some kind of supernatural cool to play a game like that, because you will almost always get outdrawn when you're pushing a single pair. You need the best hand to win and you need to show it down. So you need to hit while others don't. Hard against 7 people on the river. Somebody will usually have hit SOMETHING.

So one pair and even two pair go way down in value, and drawing hands go way, way up. A flush or straight is a great multi-way hand and a single pair is a poor one. Small pairs go up in value if you get out of the pot on the flop if you don't hit a set; otherwise they're very expensive.

Even inside straights go up in value, but beware the ignorant end of straights -- with that many callers, you can't think that nobody will have stayed in with a piece of garbage that just happens to complete the top end of the straight. People in those games will even stay in looking for runner-runner on their double belly buster straights, so if you ever think you have something unlikely to fear -- don't stop fearing it. And somehow you have to still manage to push your good hands anyway.

That kind of thing makes for an extremely volatile and frustrating game. You can possibly make or lose a ton of money there, but most people don't want to risk the same daily volatility on, say, a 2/4 game that they would if they were playing a 10/20. If they were that well bankrolled and wanted that much volatility, they would just try 10/20 in the first place.

Good luck. That's a feast or famine type of game.

[stonecoldnuts]

feast or famine, i agree. But after 3 long sessions and 3 different very solid players losing a lot of money its hard to believe that the game is anything more than a very expensive slot machine.

[Blarg]

I feel the same way. When I used to play live, the 10/20 and 15/30 players all hated those games, and if they had to wait for a mid-level stakes game for a long time, they still wouldn't go play those lower limits to pass the time or try to scrape up extra cash, pretty much without exception. They all absolutely hated those games.

The online players usually speak of those games as a gift from god or something, but probably because they haven't played in them much, if at all. Online almost never gets even remotely near that loose.

A good player loses a lot of the tools that make him a winning player when he joins those games. You can't bluff anyone, reads don't really matter, you can't manipulate anyone's perceptions or behavior if they don't really care. wbat you do or even pay attention. It becomes like playing a game of "War," where the highest cards dealt out win. It's like everyone gets their cards, takes them to the showdown, and you flip a ten-sided coin to see who wins. It helps to be a good player, a little anyway, but nowhere near as much as it helps to be a good player in less of a "showdown" game. And it doesn't hurt anywhere near as much to be a bad player. Not a combo that you'll find many good players at all hanging around for and actually playing, though you'll hear almost nothing but how great those games are online from the people who never spend any serious percentage of their time playing them and never would.

[stonecoldnuts]

I wish i could remeber the exact way the hand played out, but i can't so you'll have to bear with me. My friend is playing in this "game" last week and makes a great CR on the turn and bet on the river on a bluff, he was able to get the the real hand out, but the 80 year old calling station called w/ his king high to beat the jack high bluff. In any B&M in the world the play would have worked perfectly, but not in this game.

[Blarg]

You can't bluff people out of pots when the only hand they watch is their own, and they always like their hand.

A lot of these guys get an ego attachment to the pot, too. They feel they're abandoning an "investment" to fold, or looking cowardly. Either way, they're not going anywhere.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I wish i could remeber the exact way the hand played out, but i can't so you'll have to bear with me. My friend is playing in this "game" last week and makes a great CR on the turn and bet on the river on a bluff, he was able to get the the real hand out, but the 80 year old calling station called w/ his king high to beat the jack high bluff. In any B&M in the world the play would have worked perfectly, but not in this game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your friend doesn't have a clue how to play in these games. Your complaints ring a little hollow after this example.

eastbay

[obi---one]

[ QUOTE ]
My friend is playing in this "game" last week and makes a great CR on the turn and bet on the river on a bluff

[/ QUOTE ]

How is this a great bluff in a game that nobody folds? Sounds like a horrible bluff to me.
Anywayz, I am always seduced by these games but don't do so great in them. Only good hands are sets, everything else is so vulnerable. And of course pump your draws for value.
Sure everbody else has pointed this out. And Ak sucks and aa and 22 are both only one pair and not that far off in value.

[zombies kill]

all i can say is amen to that.

even the best (or especially the best) online players seem to have little true sense of live b+m play in the year 2004. playing against bad opponents and playing against 6 or 7 random hands to the showdown are two incredibly different things.
the amazing differences between live and online nowadays can be unbelievable... when you lose with all your top ten hands to hands like 7-5os and Q-2s on the river AS A RULE AND NOT THE EXCEPTION...typical perceptions and attitudes go out the window.