NLH STT Home Game help

[EsDeSy]

Hi all
I'm looking for some advice regarding my approach to a no limit hold'em STT home game i attend once every month.

( apologies for the essay!)

The game:

The monthly home game is £20 buyin with 9 players.
We all start off deep stacked with 200BB and the blinds increase every 25 minutes.

The group allow rebuys for half the amount of starting chips during any stage of the tournament.

This game has been going on for about 5 months now

The players:

The 8 other players tend to play quite similar to each other which is loose with next to no pre flop raises.betting tends to start on the flop which at times can be quite on large side compared to the size of the blinds.

In the later stages of the tournament, preflop raises starts to make an appearance.

From the hands that i have seen go to showdown, a lot of suited cards ( low and high) & high card with poor kicker are played.
Most of these players will happily call a bet "to see the next card".

Most if not all of these players dont play any other poker games inbetween our monthly game.

I play a lot of online poker in my own time which SnGs are my format of choice.

I have yet to play a live Tournament other than a home game so live is mostly uncharted territory for me.

Im more suited to the TAG approach.
I tend to be tight early stage and loosen up a bit as the tournament progresses
I prefure opening with a raise ( normaly around 3 -4 x BB) and dont limp that often unless the circumstance suits ( e.g. Late position with spec hands)
I try to mix up my game from time to time to avoid becoming predictable.

Situation:

Im not sure if this is just the way live games go but especially in my most recent game, the majority of my cards were Trash hands meaning a preflop raise which wouldnt thin the field would be chips wasted

The average amount of players involved in a pot is 5 - 6 players.

As a result a lot of cards that most players just wouldnt play end up hitting.

My question is how would you guys approach this game with these players?

What style of play would you apply?

Do Live casino tournaments play out the same as these home games?

Thank you for your time reading this post, Any advice / feedback would be greatly appreciated

Kind Regards

 

[nabmom]

You have an advantage that you are playing with the same group of people so you can learn their tendencies. I would still advocate a TAG approach, with the modification that a preflop raise doesn't seem to generate any fold equity.

So you need patience and to play a good TAG range. Bet big when you are ahead (since others seem to call no matter what) and play as many speculative hands for as cheap as you can, hoping to hit and win.

Pay a lot of attention to the other players when you are not in hands with them. See if you can learn more about their styles and their tells. Over games this should help you win more.

 

[EsDeSy]

You have an advantage that you are playing with the same group of people so you can learn their tendencies. I would still advocate a TAG approach, with the modification that a preflop raise doesn't seem to generate any fold equity.

So you need patience and to play a good TAG range. Bet big when you are ahead (since others seem to call no matter what) and play as many speculative hands for as cheap as you can, hoping to hit and win.

Pay a lot of attention to the other players when you are not in hands with them. See if you can learn more about their styles and their tells. Over games this should help you win more.

Thank you for the advice

 

[eetenor]

Hi all
I'm looking for some advice regarding my approach to a no limit hold'em STT home game i attend once every month.

( apologies for the essay!)

The game:

The monthly home game is £20 buyin with 9 players.
We all start off deep stacked with 200BB and the blinds increase every 25 minutes.

The group allow rebuys for half the amount of starting chips during any stage of the tournament.

This game has been going on for about 5 months now

The players:

The 8 other players tend to play quite similar to each other which is loose with next to no pre flop raises.betting tends to start on the flop which at times can be quite on large side compared to the size of the blinds.

In the later stages of the tournament, preflop raises starts to make an appearance.

From the hands that i have seen go to showdown, a lot of suited cards ( low and high) & high card with poor kicker are played.
Most of these players will happily call a bet "to see the next card".

Most if not all of these players dont play any other Poker games inbetween our monthly game.

I play a lot of online poker in my own time which SnGs are my format of choice.

I have yet to play a live Tournament other than a home game so live is mostly uncharted territory for me.

Im more suited to the TAG approach.
I tend to be tight early stage and loosen up a bit as the tournament progresses
I prefure opening with a raise ( normaly around 3 -4 x BB) and dont limp that often unless the circumstance suits ( e.g. Late position with spec hands)
I try to mix up my game from time to time to avoid becoming predictable.

Situation:

Im not sure if this is just the way live games go but especially in my most recent game, the majority of my cards were Trash hands meaning a preflop raise which wouldnt thin the field would be chips wasted

The average amount of players involved in a pot is 5 - 6 players.

As a result a lot of cards that most players just wouldnt play end up hitting.

My question is how would you guys approach this game with these players?

What style of play would you apply?

Do Live casino tournaments play out the same as these home games?

Thank you for your time reading this post, Any advice / feedback would be greatly appreciated

Kind Regards

Thank U 4 Posting.

LAG play is better vs players who play weak hands passively. With few raises preflop you can speculate on a lot of hands that make the nuts. All Ax suited 87 off for instance. We are looking for the nuts however not pair of aces no kicker or 2 pair 87 with 3 overs on the river.

With players not folding we have to think of this type of game more like Omaha. Which means equities run closer together. AA vs 3 players can have only 40% equity for example.
Therefore we should expect the winning hands by the river to be 2 pair+ 80% of the time or more.

When you are playing calling stations you want to get your value later in the hand in dangerous spots that way you have clarity as to the relative value of your hand and yet can still get lots of chips.

So protection betting the flop is seldom going to work ie getting draws to fold. Instead we bet flop smaller, draw misses turn = pot+ bets, missed rivers 2x pot dependent on reads and relative hand strength.

As an example we raise pre with AcAs flop comes 4d6d8h Villian 1 has Qd5d
equity is 52% 46% villain will pay to see all cards. We cannot know villain does not have 44 66 88 86 So we bet small flop 1/3 pot again we cannot protect so no need to bet larger.
As the other poster said we should know villain tendencies. If villain raises all 2 pair plus hands in this spot and only calls with draws.
Turn Qc as per our read of no raise we now can bet 1.5 pot, villain will call.
Equity is now 61% -38%

If villain does fold we denied 38% equity in a loose unpredictable tournament, woooohooo for us.

River blank we get to decide how much to bet based on this villain.
If this villain is a calling station 2 x pot will get called.

Just remember to fold to passive players who raise turn or river. Again as to the other poster know thy villains.

It is necessary to remember you will lose big pots like this but you will also win more big pots than you lose if you refine your reads on these villains.


The key is to remember you cannot protect your hand on the flop. So do not use protection bet sizing. Use blocker/ pot builder sizing vs passive callers.

Of course all of this changes when the villains change their game strategy late stage. Then you get to play your fav strat TAG.


Hope this helps.