Trouble adjusting my play....

I play in a few differnt hoem games in my area. Usually about 8-12 people in each of the games. We will play low buy-in NL tournies.

2 of the games are with people who play holdem regularly. In these games my TAG playing style works well. I usually finish in the money and win my fair share of tournies.

The game that is killing me is the one where we go to my friend's house for dinner/BBQ/football/whatever and someone invariably suggests that we play a holdem tournament. The players in this game are weak at best, many are downright terrible. We almost always have at least one person who has never played before. Arguments often erupt about which hands are better than others ("What?! I thought a straight was better than a flush!" or "What do you mean you have a better kicker? what is a kicker?")
Some players are hyper-aggressive with really weak hands, others are passive(dumb) enough to check the nuts from the button after the river, still others are predictable calling stations with strong and/or weak hands.

Anyway, I'm sure you get the point.

What is frustrating is I cannot seem to beat this game. I've tried my TAG play with poor results. I've tried loosening up...still no luck. The only thing I haven't tried is playing like a rock. Is that the answer? Or in a game like this where no one really knows what they are doing does it just come down luck of the cards?

Thanks,

Toad

i had to adjust my game to play the local idiots i play with . passive aggressive has worked well since most of them are calling stations i wait until later rounds after i am sure i got the best of it then push a lot of chips they still call somtimes with nothin. easy money lol

By passive/aggressive do you mean laying back early (tight-passive) and then getting more aggressive as people drop out?

Yea I kno what you're talking about topic creator. When I play HU against a player with poor sharkscope stats I often lose but against + ROI players I usually win. You said you normally play TAG, try playing tight passive (unless you have a very strong hand then bet aggressively of course). Playing aggressive, like making a continuation bet against one opponent, is less likely to work against poor players since they will make bad calls. So don't try to bluff as much against poor players.

Thanks...

I'll try that and see how it goes. Makes sense to be a little more passive since my raises/c-bets don't seem to induce any folds.

Don't be more passive, just be passive with bad hands. Don't bluff, and only play good and premium preflop hands, getting away quickly if you miss the flop. You will have plenty of opportunities to take their money down the road, and when you hit, value bet the crap out of it. If they're calling stations, let them call you down with their bottom pair vs. your TPTK or set. Sklansky did a pretty good job of dealing with this in NLHE theory and practice.

Basically there are multiple levels of thinking. The 1st level is simply "what cards do I have?". A 1st level player bets good hands and folds weak hands. The 2nd level of thinking is thinking about the hands opponents can have. This is the logic behind a bluff "he probably has a bad hand or at least a hand he can't call with". 3rd level is thinking about what your opponent thinks you have, for example "I bet hard preflop, he probably doesn't have me on 37o...".

Your goal is to be one level above them. If they're just playing their cards (level 1), and you're thinking about what they think you have (level 3), you're going to lose. He'll bet hard, you'll think that maybe he thinks you have a bad hand and run into a good hand. He didn't think about anything other than his hand and you were trying to analyze his thoughts about you.

Basically, in this game you have 0th level thinkers. They don't even think about their own hands. So there's no use playing on the 2nd level, trying to put opponents on hands when they don't even think about what they have. You just have to play solid fundamental 1st level thinking poker. It may be extremely boring just betting good hands and folding bad ones, but that's going to be the profitable game against players you're describing.

Enter the pots cheaply with lots of hands such as suited connectors. Only raise with big pp. Then fold flop if you dont hit and be willnig to chase draws since you will get paid with them. You want to be passive until you hti a big hand, then be aggressive knowing you will get all the money in