1/2 live unreal loose

I recently found a 1/2 live game with the worst players you can come across. The game is usually 9-10 handed. Players will call off their entire stack with any little piece of the board. Pots of over 500 being taken down with very weak holdings is very common. I am not bankrolled properly for the game but it is too good to pass up. I was wondering what is the best approach to the game considering my low bankroll? I also find myself second guessing strong holdings when scare cards hit because any of these players could be holding any two cards regardless of previous bets or raises. Any feedback greatly appreciated.

trust me i have played against these kind of people live at home games....they would bring their friggin paycheck and play any and every hand the best thing to do is sit back and trap them, usually top pair or two pair is good enough for them but if you nailed a flush or straight even a fullboat let them push every thing in and you do all the calling....

#1 Don't play if you can't afford to lose.

#2 is sort of obvious. If you must play, wait for a big hand then get really aggressive.

A very tight short stack strategy is probably your best bet.

And for gawd's sake, don't make any crazy bluffs. If they're paying you off with rubbish hands, resist the temptation to get tricky and just play straightforward poker with your good hands.

Buy in short, raise a lot with a good hand, and either try to get your stack in or at least get everyone pot committed to call a turn shove if you hit the flop. You could still lose to a flush or straight draw hitting, which is why most of the time you shouldn't play over your bankroll because you don't have enough money to let the long run come. But if you don't get incredibly unlucky, just play like that. When you double up a time or 2 and have a normal sized stack, I'd raise hard preflop to isolate. If you have to raise 10x preflop to get rid of most callers, do that. Basically extremely tight and extremely aggressive, and oh yeah, you'd have to be a moron to bluff a calling station, so if these people won't fold, no use in even throwing in a continuation bet if you miss the flop. Oh and if you do get a big stack, set mine the shit out of the table. If it's multiway and they'll pay you off, you're getting extremely good implied odds.

exactly.....exactly.....these people trust me will be calling machines and i hate it because sometime s ilike o make a nice bluff for a nice pot..but don't bluff!!!!!

Thanks for all the feedback. Played on monday night and lost 200 when my aces were cracked by an open ended straight draw on the turn. Playing 2 rags despite a 15 bb raise? Anyways, think I'm gonna give it a miss from now on, the money is better spent padding my online roll (which isn't much more than I lost on that one hand). Hope the game is still going in a year or two.

The result sucks, of course, but it's not uncommon to be up against this kind of thing live.

I've mentioned this in another live game thread, but it probably bears repeating: in casinos, especially at the lower levels of the game, you'll be up against a lot more players who are in the game to gamble.

They didn't leave their homes, come to the casino and then wait for a seat to fold their cards - they came to get their money in the pot. Maybe they normally play craps or roulette and they're just at the poker table tonight for a change.

They're used to taking the worst of the odds against the house (if the odds they're taking have even occurred to them), they know that any two cards can win and... well lookey here, I've got two cards!

Just accept it as the nature of the beast, get your money in with the best of it when you can, and be prepared for there to be the occasional swing. Remember that for every time they suck out on you with garbage hands, they'll pay you off and then some when you have their average hands crushed.

Based on what you're saying here you are obviously not ready to get in that game; to play in a game like that successfully you need to a) have a big enough bankroll to support AT LEAST a couple of rebuys, and b) you CANNOT be afraid of pushing and losing your whole stack with a premium hand. If you are second-guessing yourself because you're in over your head (or bankroll), you are almost guaranteed to miss valuable opportunities. Also, if someone sucking out on you with "any two cards" -- which might very well happen -- will put you on tilt, you'll end up either playing just as badly as the rest of them, or possibly worse. Remember, the regular players at this game are used to playing like that, and they either don't worry about losing money because they don't think of it in terms of a "bankroll", or they have bankrolls that are sufficiently large to support that style of play.

I would move on and play somewhere else where you're comfortable, and keep this particular game in mind for later on. . . .