HOME POKER GAME ISSUE.

3 days ago I was in a 6handed homepoker sit&go with my buddies. The blinds were 25-50 early stage 30m levels. Initial stack of 2000 chips.
I considered them below-average players, except one.
This guy thinks he knows all about holdem, hes 21 years plays for 8 months he tries to play tight-agressive style and reads some books i gaved to him. However, 3 days ago i was in a hand with this buddy, lets call him Mr.X:
- I was UTG , with 99 raised 5x BB(isolation,value,etc...)pottotal=325
- Mr.X was right next to me and re-raised to 1200.
- everyone folded to me so ( this is one of my doubts) i had 1600 left so i´ve pushed all-in.
- He called me with AQoffsuit. ( i think this was personal )
- FLOP KJ6 TURN 2 RIVER A
- he sucked out.

What i did wrong is my question, and how can u improve your game so you dont have lose against this kind of dispute between yourself and below-average players in a HOMEPOKER game.How do u supose to play with friends and should u play for money ?? these are my questions.
I forget to say that we´re playing a 10$ buy-in sit&go with rebuys 6 handed.

3 days ago I was in a 6handed homepoker sit&go with my buddies. The blinds were 25-50 early stage 30m levels. Initial stack of 2000 chips.
I considered them below-average players, except one.
This guy thinks he knows all about holdem, hes 21 years plays for 8 months he tries to play tight-agressive style and reads some books i gaved to him. However, 3 days ago i was in a hand with this buddy, lets call him Mr.X:
- I was UTG , with 99 raised 5x BB(isolation,value,etc...)pottotal=325
- Mr.X was right next to me and re-raised to 1200.
- everyone folded to me so ( this is one of my doubts) i had 1600 left so i´ve pushed all-in.
- He called me with AQoffsuit. ( i think this was personal )
- FLOP KJ6 TURN 2 RIVER A
- he sucked out.

What i did wrong is my question, and how can u improve your game so you dont have lose against this kind of dispute between yourself and below-average players in a HOMEPOKER game.How do u supose to play with friends and should u play for money ?? these are my questions.
I forget to say that we´re playing a 10$ buy-in sit&go with rebuys 6 handed.

OK, he's tight-agressive, and re-raises you to 1200. At this point you have to put him on a hand. My range for him would be TT,JJ,QQ,KK,AA and then AK to AJ, and KQ. Against any of them hands it's almost a coin-flip, you are ahead on some hands, and behind on others. Do you really wanna go for a coinflip when you still have 1600, and the blinds are only 25/50? I would have folded and waited for a better hand. As it was, he had so many outs after the flop, that there was a big chance he would spike something, which he did.
Be wary of below average players in a homegame, as they do not think or play like a normal poker player.
By all means play your friends for money, but keep it friendly.I play in a friends home game every fortnight, and the buy-in is £1 for each 30 minute game, these games are some of the the most fun games Ive ever played.
KD

What you did wrong:
1. raised to 5x the bb
2. re-re-raised w 99

Why don't you raise to 150 (3x the bb), and then fold to his reraise?
You put yourself in a situation where you are either:
a) 50/50, (lucky you it was this one) or
b) totally crushed.

You did this by making a huge raise, then reraising a huge reraise.
You are playing a giant pot for all your money w 99. Did you know that JJ is 50/50 to see an overcard by the river (all five cards seen)?

You have 99, and your reraise has zero fold equity: you didn't think he was going to fold after reraising 4x your 5xbb raise did you?

Oh, and since it's about 50/50, you can't really call it a suck out or bad beat, btw.

I guess you could avoid this kind of situation by folding - seriously, you're at best a coinflip here. Facing a hand like AQ is actually about the best you could have been hoping for.

If you're playing with rebuys, maybe you do want to get your money in on a coinflip here, but you've got to be aware that it is a coinflip situation and half the time you're going to go broke.

Now... speaking in general, I'd be giving below average home game players more credit for their raises. And I wouldn't expect to be able to bluff them out of too many hands - too many of them will call you down with any pair. Maybe they'll take a few more small pots off you than is absolutely necessary in the process. But when you finally get your money in with a monster hand, you should be able to felt them.

Yeah thats right.

Several things here.

- Your first raise should be 3-4 big blinds. You set yourself up to lose more money on a reraise. You bet 150-200 here and it is just that little bit easier to let it go. This should be enough to get weak hands to fold and makes someone who wants to reraise not raise it so much to put you in that hard of a decision. Your overbet made the reraise amount more and put you to a harder decision.

- You are not in a race situation yet. I think you had 1850 when you started this hand and the blinds are not that big. You have 30 min blinds. This is a slow escalation. FOLD!!!! You will still have 1600 which is plenty with how slow the blinds are.

-If you think you are better than everyone else keep the pots small and outplay them, don't just push all your money in on a 50/50 hand. Pick and chose when to be aggressive.

-Your suckout is not that bad of a bad beat. Pocket pairs vs two overcards is right around 50/50. Why risk that this early on in a tournament? I guess with rebuys you can take this risk.

-Playing for money with friends is fine. Keep it to an amount that everyone can easily afford. You should not be using rent money to play your game or banking on winning that homegame to pay bills. The amount should be enough to make it bragging rights and an amount enough to make them want to win it and keep the game semi serious.

Yeah guess u´re right. Mt first pre-flop raise was that big, cause i know them all and i really like to make them pay to see the flops with popular hands like ( Q9;Q8;Q7, and i was in first position UTG.
However, i´ve could have played better. But if were u sitting with AQoff , what would be your decision. I would like your comment on the AQ play of my friend. Is the re´raise the right move to make in that situation ?

AQo is roughly a coin flip going in, and has a 60% chance of hitting one of his cards. If he had some read on you, like maybe he has seen you raise mid pair like that before, he is justified in gambling here.

And you had to know that possibility existed!

His reraise should have started all the alarms ringing in your head. He was fishing for info for what was probably a very playable hand.

I agree with Titans response, I would add, "CHECK YOUR EGO".

In Doyle Brunson's book on Poker Wisdom he talks about a couple of experiances with pros teaching new players or sitting in on a beginner/intermediate game. Everytime a pro gets that attitude, "Don't you know who I am?" or I know what I'm doing ... the newbies haven't a clue.

Tricks and moves you use against knowledgeable players don't work against clueless newbies. They don't understand pre-flop odds raises, post flop bets for value or to define their hand or to represent a flush catch or draw. When they are calling with anything and catching against you, there is nothing you can do. sometimes they just "think" they can win and lady luck smiles upon them.

Check your ego, play smart, it's easier to play in a casino than at a home game in my humble opinion. Casino players are more predictable, home games involve not only your ego but your friends egos too, it can sometimes get dicey.

Good luck, don't expect it to favor you, play smart and be gracious win or lose.

I agree with all of everyone opinions there , but i would like to know if a top player will fold the AQ after my re-raise all in. I think that u are missing the part of playeing my 99 like if i had KK or AA , dont u think ? I think he should have folded. And i still think that in a 6 handed game theres no place for a re-raise with AQoff after a 5xBB open bet (incorrect but showed some strenght). I will agree if he had AKs.

Thank you.

Let me add this pot up: blinds + your raise + his reraise + your all-in = 75 + 250 +1200 + 1600 = 3125. He only has to call 400 more to win that much. This is an easy call for him. He is getting 8:1 on his money at the end to call the last 400. It is a bad play if you don't call at that point.

Here is where your initial raise of 5BB gets you in trouble. You raise to 150 instead, then his reraise should be around 500-700 (not 1200). Now if you push with 1600, you are raising the pot by about 1000 over his bet (not just 400). This will at least make him think. You are leaving him with fold as an option with about 1000 in chips which is a decent enough stack to play with. Hope you can see this all started with a larger than normal initial raise.

You didn't play it like AA or KK. Who raises 5x with AA or KK? You don't want to chase everyone away with a hand like that, you most likely raise ~3x to chase away the horrible hands (so when the flop comes 237 you don't have to worry about a 2-pair or something) but you want 1-3 callers with a hand like that. You're hand is actually screaming 99-JJ or perhaps AK or AQ IMO. You suspect you're ahead but don't want anyone calling you at this point.

This all depends. Do you usually raise 4-5BB or 3-4BB? If that is his standard raise then I doesn't scream any hand. The problem is when you become predictable in you betting style.

I had a tournament where I caught on to a player's overbets with pocket pairs under 99. I saw him do this 3 times when he had to show. I saved that nugget and at the final table made a play against him that nobody could believe. He did a larger than normal riase, I was in the BB so I pushed with 10 J knowing I had two overs and hoping he would lay it down. He called with 66. Later got asked how could you push with that hand? I said I knew I had 2 over to what he had if he decided to call. For the record I won the hand.

Theres one thing that u guys are not reaching, these guys are really bad players, they dont fear 3XBB , so ive started to play like that when im UTG, its a simple way , a basic way of transmiting I HAVE A STRONG HAND to the fish. Matematically its an incorrect move, however this is a nasty home game full of bad players , that dont play POKER , they play the cards. My initial post was related to this problem. How can u protect your hand VS calling stations if u only raise 3XBB ? ? ?

Play better cards, throw your hand away if you don't hit the flop, and take them for all their money when you do*.

This wasn't a calling station problem though - the guy reraised you. If people who are normally calling stations start raising, alarm bells should start ringing.

Maybe they're bluffing, maybe they're over-valuing 55, but maybe they've got something good too, and it's usually going to cost you far more than it's worth to find out.

* now if only I could start taking my own advice... LOL

I like to actually like to play small pot poker with complete newbies. Keep the pots relatively small until you hit a flop hard or catch a straight or flush. You will have a hard time getting any reads since they don't know what they are doing so why risk a big chunk of your money until you know it is good.

Keep things simple. Don't check/reraise (they will not get what that means). Just dumb down your game some by betting when you hit and fold otherwise. Honestly they won't catch on. Don't bluff, they won't get that either.

I play under similar circumstances in home games. Total idiots most of the time. What i find is that because they will call you down often for showdowns it comes down to who has the better cards because bluffing rarely works and when it does it is usually very risky.

One way that worked for me is i limp most flops and only play real strength, you have to be patient but when you hit you know you'll get a caller to pay you off no matter how aggressive you are.

I definitely agree that when you're playing with noobs/beginners that they probably don't catch on to the more advanced plays. I usually play small tourneys with family and friends whenever we get together - it's basically a bingo shootout, but I still just wait for at least decent cards...or when the blinds are creeping up to me...before I play a hand. If I'm in for a flop, I'm usually out if I miss or bet out if I hit. I'm sure someone notices that, but since they're beginners, they will definitely play their cards...and hope to improve on their bottom pair, gut-shot straigt draw or runner-runner flush draw.

If lady luck shines on them...which will seem, if not actually happen more in a home game then in a casino, you move on...there will be plenty of future opportunities to pick them off when the odds are more in your favour.

As for your buddy playing his AQ...yes, technically he should have called the all-in since he was committed to the pot already. There's also the beginner mentality when you see AQ in the hole: They probably want to play it since it looks so appealing and they can't get away from the hand.

If they're calling 3x with crap you should be happy. The one problem you do have is if it doesn't isolate at all and you get like 5 callers. You win money when your opponents make mistakes. Calling 3x with K2, even if they are suited, is a mistake (assuming you're playing decent hands). If they make that mistake, you win in the long run. The only problem comes is when 5 people call your 3x raise and you hit top pair. Is it good? Now if this happens when you flop a set, I think you may have just doubled/tripled up, depending on how they play and how much money you can get out of them.