Home Poker Tournament that I cannot beat...

[The Legend]

Hi.
My name is Dave, and this is my first post to this forum. I have had incredible success online thanks to the advice of you fine people. I have about 50% ITM and 37% ROI on party 10+1's. However, I have found I cannot win in real life. Now, bare with me, I have only played a home game with friends, never at a casino. Now, these players are absolutely awful. They are loose passive to the extreme.

Now, here is how we play. It's a tournament, winner take all. Each player pays 20 dollars for 100 chips. Usually its only five people, but this week it was seven. It starts at seven o clock. If you run out of chips you can re-buy another 100 for 20 dollars until ten o clock. After ten no more re-buy. Blinds start at 1-2, and every 45 minutes increase to 2-4, 3-6, 4-8, and finally 5-10. Sometimes when 3 way or heads up the blinds are raised to 10-20. And sometimes they are also raised to 20-40 , but thats it. How would you recommend I approach winning this format?

This week I had KK and went all in and got called and beat by AA, and I had AA, went all in, and got called with a K3 offsuit, and got beat when he turned a K and rivered a 3. Now, that is just bad luck I know. But I have played tight aggressive, playing pairs, broadway, and limping with ace anything or greater than K 10.

The problem seems to be that since no one except me knows how to play, they see the flop with almost any hand and quickly two people build a huge stack lead, and I can't seem to overcome it...
I just keep folding the crap I'm dealt and eventually get blinded to death. Well, if anyone has any advice, I will be grateful. If you would like to know anymore of my situation, let me know and I'll be glad to share. I have read so much and studied so much on poker, yet I can't beat these fish who know absolutely nothing. It devastates my confidence. Bottom line, help me please...

[smoore]

OK dude, you're beating the party $10 STT handily but now you can't win against the local fish. You can play 10 STT's in a day easily but it would take you 2.5 months to do this home game 10 times. You may just be in a downswing for it. However, I can tell you my experience with the same problem.

1) I play too agressively. These people don't know how to lay down mid pair. Don't try to make them.

2) I don't trust my reads. They are very easy to read but I second guess myself far too often.

3) I don't bet my modest hands for value often enough. If I could just throw out another 3BB bet on the river more I could make more money. It's difficult to do this after they get that weird two pair on me a couple times.

4) I take my opponents for granted. This is the big leak in my game. These people wouldn't know a pot odd if it hit them on the head so I play like I'm playing against children. This is a huge mistake and I have nearly eliminated this particular problem from my game.

Your tournament sounds like a gold mine, LPP all over the place and a nice slow blind structure. As a STT player you know it's hard to win every time so I would suggest trying to flatten the prize structure some (homepokertourney.com). I assume the prize pool is pretty damn big because of rebuys. Since it's unlimited rebuy for 3 hours you should play a little crazy and try to double or triple up during that time. I wouldn't want to go to hour 4 with less than 400 chips.

After the rebuys you tighten up like a nun's fanny unless everyone else has tightened up in which case you steal as many pots as possible. As people start to get shortstacked/knocked out you can wake up and start really playing poker ala the STT forum. You'd better be playing some poker by the time you have 20BB and I'm sure you know about the 10BB rule. When you make it to the last blind limit then you're golden... just be patient and play your game. You will never reach your late game for STT play, the blinds are just too low to do that stuff.

edit: welcome to the forum, watch out for the zoo [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[homegame]

Responding to the response. Good stuff, could use the advice myself. Just need some clarification on your terms etc...

- LPP all over the place
- 10BB rule
- the zoo

thanks dude.

[smoore]

LPP = LOOSE PASSIVE/PASSIVE LP: play too many hands preflop, don't raise enough. /P: Passive after the flop, those weirdos that never raise you even though they caught two pair on thier strange hand. You love these guys, they are the ones that are in 50% or more hands and they think that raising before you see the flop is worthless. I can be categorized as a SLAA - semi loose agressive/agressive. I'm in with almost 30% of my hands and I'm always betting or raising, rarely calling.

the 10BB rule = If you're in a tournament and you have 10BB (big blinds) or less (some say 7BB) you either push or fold preflop. You don't screw around. If the blinds just went up to 50/100 and you have 900 chips you either push or fold. Although it sounds odd it's pretty standard and is a sound strategy.

the zoo = the "Internet" forum here at 2+2. It gets wacky.

[jojobinks]

i'm with smoore on most of his points. i have posted about this before, and sometimes share your pain.

my rules:
1) never bluff (or semibluff) unless the point is to get a competent player to fold.
2) never overplay a hand. because i think i'm the best player at the table, why go all in facing a raise with TT or AKs? he won't fold, and i'm just increasing my volitility.
3) value bet decent hands.
4) just because they suck doesn't mean they don't get big hands. also known as: just because you're better than them doesn't mean your KJ isn't facing AK.
5) tilt control is a must.
a story: you raise 3xbb with AQ and get one caller. flop comes QT3 rainbow. you bet 2/3 the pot. he calls. turn is an 8. you bet 1/2 the pot, he calls. the river is an 5. you bet (or check), and he calls (or checks). he flips Q5 and takes the pot.

what to do: take a deep breath. count to ten. take a leak. do whatever you need to do to keep from steaming. this is when i overplay hands if i don't watch myself.

6) keep on playing in this game. even as the best player in the game, you'll never win more than, say, twice your share. aim for that. if the game is usually 5 guys, aim to win 40% of them. if there are 11 guys, you'll want to win 20%. it may seem like you never win; but if you're being reflective and analytical about your play, you'll get there.

[The Legend]

Thanks for all this good feedback. Yea, I definitely am playing real tight, even during the re-buy period. Perhaps that needs to stop. So, smoore, you said you play 30% of flops. So by my estimation, would that be any pair, any ace, any broadway, any suited connector. Or even more than that? You definitely understand the game I am playing. They NEVER raise pre-flop unless they got something really good, and even then, its a rarity. And if they do, its a minraise. In fact, everyone almost always minraises when they do raise(aka 100 chips in the pot and raise it 10 or whatever). Anyone else will call all day long. By the end of the 3 hours, everyone else is usually drunk and wasted. I don't drink, or I just have one beer. So, any advice on how to handle drunk, horrible players would also be sweet.

Anyway, when I do get a decent hand, I'll raise pre-flop(sometimes) 2 or 3 BB, and early in the game when its 1-2 or 2-4 blinds most everyone will call anyway...

So, with five people playing, for the first three hours during re-buy time, what hands should I play? The thing is, if anyone has a flush draw, they will chase, usually even with pot sized bets. A week ago I went all in with trips on the turn with 2 to a flush on the board, and someone called with just the flush draw. I won a nice pot there...

I just want to know how crazy aggressive and how loose I should be during that re-buy period. There is always one or two of those crappy players who gets a huge stack by getting lucky earlier, and I can't compete with my short stack due to tightness. Re-buying then becomes worthless because 100 chips agaist two 400 and 500 stacks isn't much...

Oh, and heres the funniest thing all last night. One kid called an all-in with pocket 5s with 5 overcards on the board. He lost obviously. Lets just use that to set the bar of my competition here. This is another reason why losing to these fish devastates my confidence...

One more thing- Last night, with seven people and re-buys everywhere, there was 360 dollars in the pot. It usually gets into the upper 200's even with 5 people. So there is a ton of money to be won from bad players. In the last three times though, I've lost $40, $40, and this week $60.

Another side note, this game is also really slow, due to the guys being drunk and what not. Probably only 15 hands per hour , if even that.

So... to sum it up
How Dave drunk people beat, win money, buy lap dance???

[jojobinks]

btw, you should definitely be aggressive with strong holdings. if you raise 5xbb with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, and AQ, you may still get 5 callers, but at least you'd be forcing them into big mistakes. consider it a value raise.

in my game, btw, although players like to play every hand, if i raise 5xbb, i'm sure to get heads up or at least a 3way pot. unlike suited connectors/suited aces, that's what i want with big holdings. with 2-3xbb raises, you're enabling the fish to suck out on you. they don't know 3xbb is a good sized raise. they do recognize 5xbb, though.

[coyote]

You need to loosen up a bit. You're not playing at a full table. With only 5 players in the game, hands that are easy folds at a table of 10, can become calling/raising hands. If you sit around and wait for premium hands, you will get blinded off, just like you said.

[The Legend]

Oh yea, with AA , KK , QQ, AK , I'll definitely start pumping out 5x BB. But with seven or five players, here is a situation that messes me up. I have top pair , low kicker. Should I bet or raise with it, or fold or check. Or if I have middle pair, should I fold it to any bets. Last night I found many of my middle pairs which I folded to an early bet would've actually held up... in 3 or 4 way pot. Maybe that was simply a rare case. Personally, I usually don't value top pair low kicker much with that many people, but one time I folded it to a bet , and it would've held up for quite a nice pot, and another time I called, and I got beat by quad aces, which crippled my stack!!! Also, how bout top pair good or top kicker but its a low board, like 10 7 6 with two to a flush and I have K 10 or A 10? Muchas Gracias.

[jojobinks]

i bet tpnk if it's gonna isolate. if it has no chance against a large field, then forget about it.

middle pair? just b/c it woulda held up the other night doesn't mean jack, right?

i play for value with marginal hands. maybe passively call the fishies teeny tiny bets and hope to improve. then pound em if you make something strong. it's always cheap to draw in these games, right? what with the 20 chip bets into 200 chip pots.