unbeatable game?

[maxpowers21]

[ QUOTE ]

In limit games, after a very early point lousy play becomes NOT a mistake -- technically not poor anymore. When it's always capped preflop, and when everyone sees the flop, it becomes correct to chase with most anything, usually to the river. This creates big pay-offs when you hit, but it also means the expert's advantage is automatically lessened, as his opponent is making fewer mistakes. Nor can you influence opponents with your own play to make more mistakes. The difference between good and bad play smooths out dramatically, and so necessarily does the difference in advantage between them.

[/ QUOTE ]

No. This is wrong. You gain soooo much pot equity preflop when this happens. If you wait for quality hands you will just gain most of your profit preflop rather than on later streets. But, you will still gain TONS preflop if this really is how these games are played. No expert advantage is lessened. The edge just becomes much bigger preflop. The differenece between good and bad play on later rounds does not make up for the horrendous play preflop. Also I find it hard to beleive that everyone could hit a flop so hard that 6-7 people could be chasing correctly. If you only play TT-AA AK AQ many opponets will frequnetly be drawing dead on the river.

[schroedy]

It does make a better story.

It has happened to us all.

It doesn't mean the game is unbeatable. It means he was playing on emotion, sure that he was "entitled" to win, and definitely over his bankroll if he put his last $200 into a $2/$4 game. You gotta be happy to get all in on both of his hands, and the only reason you are unhappy with the result is that you are playing over your bankroll and in too much of a hurry.

Hand selection preflop and VLB (very large bankroll) is the name of the game here. (JTs, T9s and 98s go WAY up in value btw, and might be worth a look even non-suited -- AQ is much less valueable here, AJ might be a negative EV hand in the hands of someone who can't adjust.)

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Umm... no.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well that was entirely useless.

Have you ever even played these games Max? Your use of the word "if" indicates you probably haven't, but are trying to extrapolate from inexperience.

Pot equity is not a static thing. It evolves over time. Your insistence on the importance of pot equity preflop ignores that your pot equity changes when the flop comes around.

[ QUOTE ]
If you only play TT-AA AK AQ many opponets will frequnetly be drawing dead on the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

So what? You don't have to beat many opponents to win. You have to beat ALL of them. There is no second place in poker.

These games are multi-way games, Max, not anything else. For them, multi-way hands are needed. Straights and flushes are very multi-way friendly, and you will be getting the odds to draw to them almost always. Merely pursuing them, you'll sometimes back into other hands.

People facing a full field with just a single pair with no drawing possibilities are at a huge disadvantage in this type of game compared to others where people fold. Turning over your pair of unimproved aces on the river, even two pair, is going to do a lot less for you than it does in other types of games.

Of course, nobody is going to throw big pairs away, but the value of big cards is not absolute, as if it were a gift or a guarantee. It is RELATIVE, like the value of all hands. And it's not relative to one hand, or "many" hands -- it's relative to ALL of them. A big pair just isn't that hot a showdown hand in these games.

[ QUOTE ]
Also I find it hard to beleive that everyone could hit a flop so hard that 6-7 people could be chasing correctly. If you only play TT-AA AK AQ many opponets will frequnetly be drawing dead on the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do the math.

It's capped preflop and ten people are in. How many people are NOT getting good odds when there are 40 small bets in the pot before the first flop bet is even made?

Remember too that many people absolutely WILL call without good odds on the flop -- that is the nature of the game we are talking about here. This is a game often played to the river -- so we have to also take into account that when the turn card comes, it can give people a nice gift even if they played preflop and the flop less than well.

At this point, poor hands that have had to wait all that time to be made whole can THEN have good odds to call for one more draw to the river card. So playing a hand poorly can still leave you with a hand worth seeing the river with. And you WILL see the river with a lot of hands in this game, and so will everybody else.

The quality of a hand is not an absolute that is established preflop. Combine all the possible good hands with all the possible bad ones, and by the turn, there can be a LOT more good ones, at least good enough to call the pot with. This is not an uncommon occurence.

Factor in the weak hands that so many players are playing, and pursuing weak hands of your own becomes the norm for most players at these tables, not the exception. And when the pot is that big in a limit game, it is not making a big mistake to call it, or even raise it. Nowhere near as big a mistake as it is to do so in different types of games.

People who like those crazy games are many, but a lot of their biggest fans have probably never played them, and most people move beyond them as quickly as possible.

[ACW]

[ QUOTE ]
Online games are almost never like this, so people who extrapolate what they must be like from their online experiences are almost always not thinking of these games the way they're really played.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I first started playing poker, I played for Yahoo dollars on the Yahoo games site. These games were exactly as described (that was April '03 - they may have changed since but I doubt it). Basically you had to raise every hand you wanted to play as it would always get capped anyway so the hand just went quicker if it went raise-raise-raise without the futile calls in between.

After a lucky streak I decided I must be good at poker. I joined a real money site and found out I sucked!
These tables are great for convincing casual players they might be good at poker, if nothing else!

[Blarg]

Those are play-money games, right? They can be fun but very misleading.

[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.

[obi---one]

[ QUOTE ]
No. This is wrong. You gain soooo much pot equity preflop when this happens. If you wait for quality hands you will just gain most of your profit preflop rather than on later streets. But, you will still gain TONS preflop if this really is how these games are played. No expert advantage is lessened. The edge just becomes much bigger preflop. The differenece between good and bad play on later rounds does not make up for the horrendous play preflop. Also I find it hard to beleive that everyone could hit a flop so hard that 6-7 people could be chasing correctly. If you only play TT-AA AK AQ many opponets will frequnetly be drawing dead on the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

Maxberg, this just shows you have no idea what you are talking about. One pair in rarely good against all these players and you are going to have to pay off these huge pots with your overpairs. What you have descibed is surely a way to lose money in these type games! And ak offsuit is absolutely horrible. Thats why these games are deceptively tuff. One pair is not a good hand even if it is aces, you are looking to hit a set so small pairs are just as good.

[Greg J]

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

[/ QUOTE ]
Nice summation! I will have to remember that.

This thread is very useful for the micro limits I still play at. Thanks guys!

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
For that kind of bankroll, it's quite possible to leave 2/4 and go play 10/20 and make more money with much less drama, if you have that skill level. Which is exactly why everyone does that who can, without exception.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure about "without exception", but basically I agree. Sure I'd rather make e.g. $20/hr at 10/20 rather than $12/hr at 2/4 (assuming I could). But I'd miss the "drama". In fact, I find those loose games more fun and I miss them. Occasionally I go back and play 5 tables of .25/.50 just for fun.

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, people play differently and have different strengths and weaknesses. You don't have to look hard to find 2+2 posts or posters claiming fantastic play under any circumstance, but it's not correct to say that any tool is as good as the next, especially for everybody. It's quite obvious that these super-wild games deny you the use of some tools and grant you different advantages -- "tools" they're not.

[/ QUOTE ]

I completely agree, right up to the last phrase. There *are* tools you use in the very loose games. SSH discusses some of them.

[ QUOTE ]
In limit games, after a very early point lousy play becomes NOT a mistake -- technically not poor anymore. When it's always capped preflop, and when everyone sees the flop, it becomes correct to chase with most anything, usually to the river.

[/ QUOTE ]

"flabby generalization and not thinking things through very well" comes to mind here [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ QUOTE ]
Nor can you influence opponents with your own play to make more mistakes. The difference between good and bad play smooths out dramatically, and so necessarily does the difference in advantage between them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your point about "mistakes" with calling too often sometimes becoming correct is taken (I agree). But overall, I think you're wrong here. And I think Ed Miller would disagree as well.

[ QUOTE ]
The poor player will get the good player's money much more often in these games, because in limit play, the inflated pots of a super-loose game will justify and reward poor play more often. It's inevitable that contrarily it will reward good play less often. It's simple math.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's also simple math that the expert player has a much higher EV in this game than a tough game. Isn't that really what it's all about for a disciplined, properly bankrolled player? Isn't that what we all ought to be?

[ QUOTE ]
But the profitability combined with the enormous volatility and outsize bankroll requirements for even modest-level games like this make them less of the bargain they seem on paper. Online games are almost never like this, so people who extrapolate what they must be like from their online experiences are almost always not thinking of these games the way they're really played.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand why you don't see these games online. I get the impression you haven't played in them as much as I have, and I think you're exaggerating.

[jeffnc]

[ QUOTE ]
Don't you play almost entirely online, if not entirely, jeffnc? This is the lack of experience I'm talking about, which leads to endless extrapolation about how great the super-crazy games really are

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes I do. What are you talking about? You think "super crazy" games don't exist on the internet? Define super crazy, and no matter what your definition, the games exist on the internet. Have you ever played in play money games? Have you seen BM games looser than that? How can it possibly be looser than play money games?

[ QUOTE ]
Quote:
Online almost never gets even remotely near that loose.


"4-7 players per game? Are you crazy? There are definitely games like that.

Four to the flop or river is nothing like the B&M games being discussed. Nor is five or six to the flop. At seven, now maybe we're starting to talk.

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly, that was my point. Those were the OP's words, not mine. He seems to think 4-7 players per flop is crazy, and he is the one I'm responding to. If you're talking about something other than what the OP is talking about, then you're changing the subject. But since you are....

[ QUOTE ]
As to those games that actually ARE being discussed, they are far from the norm online. I've never seen one yet. Nor am I so anxious to do so that I want to go play 2-cent and 4-cent games and find out, according to your suggestion, whether they are -- ahem -- "unbeatable."

[/ QUOTE ]

The games that ARE being discussed are games with 4-7 players per flop. The OP started the thread, not you. And, if you're not willing to play in the play money games or .02/.04 games online, then I'll guess you'll have to take my word for it rather than saying they don't exist based on whatever arbitrary notion you have in your mind.