Over aggressive players Commerce $9-18

[sternroolz]

I moved up to $9-18 HE a few months ago after I built up a several thousand dollar bankroll playing $6-12 HE for a while. Mostly I play at Commerce Casino on the weekends. I am doing ok, but I think I can be doing better. My biggest flaw is against players that are over aggressive. I have gone from typically being the most aggressive player in the game at $6-12 to being one of the most passive players in the $9-18. When I do become aggerssive now, I usually lose.

The situation is that there are usually a player or two at each table who has seen play in very high limit games and decides they must play that way at $9-18. Usually these players will raise preflop with any two face cards in any position with any number of limpers in the pot, including in either of the blinds. About 1/3 of the time with two of these players at the table, if one raises, the other one 3 bets preflop. I have not been playing well in this situations.

Post flop play is not so much of a problem as the play becomes much less aggressive after the flop

My thoughts are:

1.) I need to get a seat to the left of these players. Unfortunately, that is not so easy since even the fish do not want to leave a game there perceive as an "action" game.

2.) I can employ a check raise preflop if one of these guys is still to act when I enter the post, particularly with ace-face suited type hands.

3.) I need to tighten up my starting hand requirements. This is a real difficulty for me as hands where one of the aggressive players does not raise preflop tend to result in a multiplayer flop. An example of this is a hand I played last night. AP #1 calls in first position. Four more limpers. I have K5s on the button and call. SB raises(turns out to be KJo) and AP #2 three bets on the BB(turns out to be A2o). Everyone calls, but I muck. I find it very difficult to muck this type of hand on the button in what is going to be a seven way pot, but due to the aggressive nature of my opponents I feel maybe I have to.

So please help if you have any thoughts on a better strategy to employ in this type game. Thank you.