Poker News

Ashley Adams

Just when you’ve tuned your casino game to take advantage of the tighter and more aggressive style of casino players, you find yourself in a home game. Should you apply your excellent casino strategy to the home game? Maybe not. It depends on the unique qualities of the game you’re in.

I’ve found over the years that most home games play very differently from the standard games I find in public poker rooms. Private games tend to be looser, more passive, and more susceptible to strategy adjustments based on thestyle of players in the game. If you can adjust to the style of play you find in these games, you can maximize your winnings. Here’s an example.

I was in Lynchburg, Virginia playing in a $10-$20 home game I had tracked down through some friends of friends. I was the stranger. They all knew each other.

My first task was to quickly assess my opponents. This takes some observation, but it’s not too hard. Just pay attention to how many hands players tend to play during the first 15-30 minutes of play. Most folks who are used to playing with the same group of guys over the years tend to have well defined habits of play. Notice and remember them. It’s rare for a home game player to deliberately disguise his true colors.

Moe, to my right, was enormously loose. If there was a bet he’d call. If no one had acted he’d initiate the bet. He didn’t raise. He rarely folded. The rest of the players tended to call the first and second bet in the stud game, before the betting limits doubled. They tended to be fairly selective after that.

The high hand was the Qs, held by Moe. In this $10-$20 home game the high hand had the option of starting the betting or checking. Moe, predictably, bet $10.

I was dealt a hand that I normally would toss without a thought in a typical casino game: (Ah Kd)6h. But in this home game I had to adjust my starting standards. I called, willing to take my chances that the other players in this relatively passive game wouldn’t raise. Sure enough, three of them called. Five of us saw fourth street.

Moe hit a blank, the 2c. My 7-to-1 shot came in. I hit the Kh, giving me a pair of kings. The other three players hit blanks. My king and ace were live.

I thought about my options. In a casino I’d probably bet the hand and expect everyone who missed to fold. But here, with so many loose players, I feared that for just a single bet the other players would call. I checked.

Everyone checked after me until it got to Moe. True to form, he bet. I had counted on it.

I wanted to isolate him. I figured that a double bet might discourage these guys from calling. So I raised. They folded. Moe called as I hoped he would.

My hand didn’t improve on fifth; neither did Moe’s. I bet and he called. On sixth I paired my door card, hitting a second 6. I didn’t get cute; I just bet and Moe called.

Similarly, on the river, with kings-up, I bet and Moe called again. I showed my hand and he nodded and folded.

The pot was about $200-a nice one for this game. Had I followed my typical casino style, playing only my typical starting hands, I wouldn’t have given myself a chance to win. Had I bet out on fourth street with four likely callers I would have been much less likely to win the hand. As it was, I took a chance because of the passive play I expected. I was rewarded for my observation and the adjustments I made to exploit what I had seen. That to me is the key to winning home game play.

Filed under: Poker News