another strange holdem game looking for optimal strategy

[knifeandfork]

.25-1.00 spread limit game. .25 ante no blinds 10 handed to start. very passive witha few players running bad bluffs. most of the time preflp betting doesnt exceed .25, thus i folded once or twice preflp in three hours. literally every hand went to a showdown. players happily call with bottom pair or ace high. suggestions? currently im goign with almost never fold preflop and try to play perfect odds poker post (rarely folding the flop unless i missed completely and have no reasonable draw or someone show a lot of stranght (this almost never happened. thanks for your help.
jason

[LokiV]

Preflop hand selection is the most important part of Hold 'Em? You have none. How can your odds from then on be any good? You'll waste whatever you win $.25 at a time everytime you don't.

If you want to play 'who can get the luckiest' then keep having everyone just call 25 cents and see a flop. If not, start raising preflop and folding when you're not raising.

[Michael Davis]

You are simply not looking at the structure of the game. I suggest hero's strategy of calling $0.25 preflop every time in a game like this is closer to optimal. This game is definitely not a luckfest. In fact, because hero can so often see the flop, if he plays well, I expect him to easily make more BB's per hour in this game than at any B&M hold 'em game in a regular casino by a large margin.

Hero should be passively calling along the small bets pre- and postflop when he has the odds to do so, which will be a whole lot of the time against bad players who will pay off max bets with garbage like bottom pair. Hero should never, ever bluff but should play his good hands hard, making it a buck to go every time the hand warrants it.

If there is rarely any betting over $0.25, you can play just about anything preflop. I'd shy away from off suit hands that have no straight potential and don't have an ace or a king. The caveat of this is that you must play these hands well postflop. Also, be willing to surrender hands when the pot gets raised to $1 after you just call $0.25.

-Michael

[knifeandfork]

thanks MD,
i was mostly looking for confirmation of my strategy, and subtleties that i may be missing. i definitely only called maxbets a few times mostly from a habitual bluffer(he just wasnt thinking....) so on that part i definitely agree and i think there were two max bets preflop all night that were not mine. the cards ran me over a bit i think but it was hard to tell because all those flops where one might think dam why couldnt i have played my 84 just this once hit me like bricks because i was in. i played for 3 hours and cashed out +75.00 after tip. i dont think it will be this good everytime of course but i doubt any of these players are going to be working on their games. two semi interesting side notes first hand of the night TTTT was the winner for a lovely red headat one point a guy offered me $5 to trade seats as i was lucky i accepted, and then we negotiated all the way down to .25 before he decided not to switch lol. more ideas greatly appreciated while i look forward to the next time this game convenesthanks,
jason

[Louie Landale]

You still need to be reasonably selective since hands like 85 are not going to "flop big" very often (maybe 4% of the time), and aren't going to win all those times either. It would be hard to imagine playing more than half the hands.

Be sure to raise PF with anything reasonable; almost all good suited hands like QTs: you need to negate he opponents HUGE implied odds they get against YOU.

- Louie

[knifeandfork]

you are sort of right louie i think but an 85 need not flop big to continue just a piece or draw gives me enough odds to call another quarter(the most likely bet), and that 4% of the time i can jam and will get paid. i fold the turn alot when drawing no longer makes sense compared to the size of the pot. im still looking for good advice though, at this point it is interesting to me form a discussion point of view and perhaps for once i can teach some folks on the forum something, or just cause them to see the a strange (but corect )strategy all this imho of course. thanks for all the responses!
jason

[LokiV]

if you are playing 100% calling stations, by all means.. flop everything and jam those 2 pair and 3 of a kinds.

it sounds boring though. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]