game is too loose

[7stud]

[ QUOTE ]
I will see 4th st alot more often than i would in a "better" structured game but still i refuse to chase crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the ante were $10,000 per player and the betting was still 1-2, what starting hands would you play?

[FeliciaLee]

I've read all of the replies on this subject thus far. I'm not going to address them all, but I'll just give a general overview, which you can take or leave, and I hope will give you something to chew on.

Stud is more of a patience game than you can imagine. The variance is high and can fluctuate wildly. You can literally run good for months on end, and think you are the Stud genius of the world. Then you can go for months "without winning a hand" and think that you must have lost your mind. I've done both, obviously.

With a high ante, you must play more hands. There is no getting around that fact. If playing more hands makes you uncomfortable right now, then maybe you can get some practice on play money tables (I normally never advocate play money tables, but in this case, it can help you get used to calling with marginal hands that can show a profit if played correctly).

I, too, am one of the tightest players in the universe. Playing more hands used to make me so uncomfortable that I just wouldn't play at all. Once the poker boom hit, I found that I had to adapt, or be run over. It's so tough for a rock to adapt [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img] Eventually I did it, but it took me much longer than I'd anticipated. I'm still working on this, believe me. A well respected player from my Stud tournament in the World Series said I was the tightest Stud player he had ever seen in his life. Ever. And we played at the same table for about eight hours.

One of the attributes that Dr. Al says a winning player must possess is: "Ability to make adjustments based on observations; adapability." I keep that as a pop-up on my PC everyday, while surfing through the poker forums.

Have you read 7CSFAP? Have you really studied it? Gone through the quizzes multiple times? How do you score on these quizzes versus the HE quizzes? How about Mason's Poker Essays books? How did you do on those quizzes? Do you feel that Stud is your "A" game, or that it is just one of the many games you like?

Try to analyze yourself and your situation instead of what is going on in a particular game, and the short-term results of your Stud sessions. Results, in this case, are not as reliable as what is going on inside of YOU. If your game is healthy, if your head is in the right place, you can lose for months and still know you are a winning player.

Felicia [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
www.felicialee.net

[Nick_Foxx]

why not, chasing crap is fun...

ok but seriously, i think in such a game as you're describing where almost everyone sees 4th street, you'll gain equity by folding on 4th and 5th when they don't, NOT when you fold on 3rd st

im not a stud expert by any means, just saying what i would do

mike

[Jim Easton]

[ QUOTE ]
If the ante were $10,000 per player and the betting was still 1-2, what starting hands would you play?

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly, somewhere between no ante and the absurdly high $10,000 ante, the game goes from a game of skill to a crapshoot in which the game is little more than deal out 7 cards and see who wins. Mason has written several essays about stud in which he states the higher antes in the bigger games level the playing field somewhat, handicapping the better players by making luck a bigger factor. It seems to me this $1 ante in a 2/4 game is close to eliminating the skill advantage of the good player. It certainly reduces it significantly.

[eh923]

That is a huge ante. With that, you definitely need to loosen up on 3rd.

Along with that, consider limping with your premium pairs instead of completing/raising. These hands do well with few opponents, and it sounds like you're never able to thin the field out the way that you want on 3rd (again, with that ante, most people aren't making that big of a mistake to limp in). If on 4th or 5th you get a chance raise (or check-raise) forcing the rest of the table to call two-cold, you'll have more luck thinning out the field.

On 3rd, complete/raise more with multi-way hands. Since you're getting lots of action, winning just a couple of these pots will make a HUGE difference to your bottom line.

[Gitz]

Read all the posts and some great points. I love these games because it develops the edge that you have by going to the river by seeing more cards. You also don't have to raise until 5 street or later when you have pretty much the lock. Let the other players do your betting for you. Marginal hands will lose but by seeing all the cards due to more players being in makes it an easy fold. So sharpen your skills in these games and it will also help you when you play tight with fewer players. 7CSFAP talks a great deal about this and if you don't have it ask yourself WHY????

Paul

[Ray Zee]

in games like that you need to watch the folded or exposed cards and play very live hands. as you get so many people drawing at you you need to improve. so live hands rule. you would for instance fold a big pair if you saw one of them out and one of your kickers out or maybe just one of the pairs out. that is in general though as each hand plays differently. but you get the drift. push four flushes and four straights to the max when live. my guess is you dont push good hands hard enough and dont win the monster pots that are needed in these games.
i would tend to see 5th street alot with live pairs when not faced with too much pressure.

[MBTIGUY]

[ QUOTE ]
i would tend to see 5th street alot with live pairs when not faced with too much pressure.

[/ QUOTE ]
Does this include low/medium pairs w/low kicker trying to hit trips or just low pairs with an Ace or King overcard or straight/flush potential?

[Andy B]

I think that by "alot" [sic] he is not restricting himself to pairs with nice kickers. While Aces-up and Kings-up will win their share in very loose games, a large percentage of the value of any pairsy hand lies in hitting trips. You will frequently have the implied odds to try to do so in this game.

[patrick dicaprio]

the real value here is hitting trips not making two pair which will often lose. I played in a similar 4-8 game in vegas a few years ago and i was capping it with any fourflush, raising with threeflushed on third street and trying to keep the pot small when i had a pair. worked pretty well. but you also have to fold hands that you might normally play also in a tighter game especially if they are not live.

Pat