Loose Players and Game Selection

[Walter]

If you are playing with very loose, very bad players in a small-stakes game, what do you think is the most profitable game to call? Or is there an even better game that is not spread in casinos that would maximize your edge.

[Dynasty]

Stud high only should be better than either hold'em or Omaha. The mistakes loose players make on 3rd street in stud are much more costly than the mistakes made in the flop games.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Walter:

I don't think it's even close. You want to play either razz (seven-card stud for low) or jacks-or-better to open draw poker without the joker (but playing with the joker is still pretty good).

Best wishes,
Mason

[chaos]

Lowball (5 card draw low) is pretty good also if your opponents will regularly draw 2 or even 3 cards.

[Billy LTL]

Not exactly poker but 7-27 is pretty much a guaranteed money-maker if you know how to play it.

[spiral]

I think variants of H/L stud with no qualifier and a declare are far and away the best. Put in the option to buy cards and escalate the betting toward the end of the hand.

Another devastating game that incorporates Mason's observation about how good draw is would be the following:

5 or 7 card draw, H/L with a declare, roll at the end.

The order of action would be:

get cards
bet
draw
bet
arrange your 5 card hand in a face down pile
everyone turns over one card
bet
repeat until each player has 4 up and one down
simultaneous declare for High, Low, or Scoop
bet
show

This game should yield a monumental edge against bad players

[bad beetz]

In home games there's a game called three-fifty-seven (I won't go into the rules I'm sure they're online).

It's a gold mine, this game creates the biggest edge possible for a thinking player. I pick it about 75% of the time the deal gets back to me.

[Clarkmeister]

7-27 RULES.

Billy, do you play ins beat outs or outs beat ins?

[Clarkmeister]

I played Indian poker with my girlfriend and daughter the other night. Her daughter had a tell. I crushed em. lol.

Forget about draw, tells have to be more important in Indian poker than any other game, right?

[Jimbo]

Clarkmeister you laugh but in the early 80's we would play pot limit Indian Poker!!! You gotta love it when you are the one sitting in front of a mirror! LOL