Strategies for beating mid-stack, very loose, aggressive NL games?
Long winded title but it pretty much sums up my question.
I recently played at a 1/2NL game where the average stack was around $100, some higher some lower. (Come to think of it, this is bordering on short stack.) It seemed like every pot was raised to 10-15 with multiple callers. Guys were calling off large chunks of their stacks with any suited cards, any connectors, any Ace, any big cards. I could give many examples but I think you get the picture. These guys wanted to gamboooooooooooool.
If they flopped a draw, it seemed pot odds had no bearing on the decision to chase and I'm pretty sure they had no concept of implied odds. And we are not talking draws to the nuts but weak flushes and gutshots to the bottom end of straights. Bottom pair was pretty much the nuts to these guys. I know in the long run it is profitable to play against these donkeys but in any given session you can get stacked multiple times by the chasers.
Implied odds are kinda weak since you need to put in at least 10% of the effective stack to play a hand. There is a bit of an incentive to play drawing type hands with position since there are generally multiple players in the pot. I did try to get in with any PP from pretty much any position as long as the raise and number of players still gave me good implied odds. I would also play suited Aces and connectors with position for small raises. I think this pays off in the long term but has high variance. You couldn't just wait around for high PP since they don't come around that often. (Humourous aside: I saw AA from EP get 6 callers for $15. Somehow he held up after getting all-in on the flop against a straight draw and flush draw.)
What strategies do you use to beat these games? Short of finding another game, since that is not always an option. How do you play in THIS game?
I recently played at a 1/2NL game where the average stack was around $100, some higher some lower. (Come to think of it, this is bordering on short stack.) It seemed like every pot was raised to 10-15 with multiple callers. Guys were calling off large chunks of their stacks with any suited cards, any connectors, any Ace, any big cards. I could give many examples but I think you get the picture. These guys wanted to gamboooooooooooool.
If they flopped a draw, it seemed pot odds had no bearing on the decision to chase and I'm pretty sure they had no concept of implied odds. And we are not talking draws to the nuts but weak flushes and gutshots to the bottom end of straights. Bottom pair was pretty much the nuts to these guys. I know in the long run it is profitable to play against these donkeys but in any given session you can get stacked multiple times by the chasers.
Implied odds are kinda weak since you need to put in at least 10% of the effective stack to play a hand. There is a bit of an incentive to play drawing type hands with position since there are generally multiple players in the pot. I did try to get in with any PP from pretty much any position as long as the raise and number of players still gave me good implied odds. I would also play suited Aces and connectors with position for small raises. I think this pays off in the long term but has high variance. You couldn't just wait around for high PP since they don't come around that often. (Humourous aside: I saw AA from EP get 6 callers for $15. Somehow he held up after getting all-in on the flop against a straight draw and flush draw.)
What strategies do you use to beat these games? Short of finding another game, since that is not always an option. How do you play in THIS game?
Comments
I feel your pain here. These $100 max 1-2 games are different games to play and what you just described sums up what I consider to be a standard table.
What I normally do here is gamble a bit early in an attempt to get myself deep. If I drop 1 or 2 buyins early then double up to get myself in the 100-150 BB range it is very much worth it to me. There always seems to be a few donks with biggish stacks and I want to have the ammo in front to get their whole stack.
Here are a few bits of strategy:
- Always keep your stack topped to $100
- the 10% rule no longer has any bearing
- drawing hands have less value because you rarely have the odds to play them.
- raise big large PP. Play a very aggo preflop game.
- find the players at the table who are capable of folding.
Just a start but this could be an interesting thread. Good Question
I do still believe some drawing hands can be played profitably with position at the right price. You do have to be careful though.
Regarding raising large with big PP. I tend to agree and it makes post-flop decisions pretty simple. Sad example - there's a bit of raising in EP, a call or two, then a tighter player in LP raises to 57 (!) and gets called by the painfully loose aggressive EP, who has only 50 behind. Flop comes J93 rainbow and EP pushes. LP can't fold, of course. EP ends up with a FH with J9o and LP fires his AA at the guy. Too funny! No way you can put SB on 2pr there. He had such a huge range most hands but calling more than half his stack with crap definitely cemented his image.
Agreed. In the right spot and at the right time.
I was generalizing the typical situation of 4 to a flop for $10. Say you have 6c7c. If you flop either type of draw you are likely calling a pot sized bet on the flop so you now have half your stack in there. Makes it tough to play these.
Raise BIG preflop, most likely all in after the flop.
I'm no expert but this seems like good advice.
Variance will be bigger than most people expect.
27o wins 13% of the time against your AA.