Sit in traffic and curse at moped riders?
True enough about needing at least 1 or 2 other players in order to control table dynamics. Well said. I do wish you’d see more squeeze plays to punish the limpers though. Any combination of plays to punish people for every time they limp in with 10/5s or something silly like that. Id even be ok with administering mild electric shocks as negative reinforcement behavioral therapy 
lol, new kind of poker therapy. perhaps someone next to them with a whip could help too 
Open your hands at a bigger raise to about 5x to 6x the bb
lol… way to much info
Turned out to be a fantastic post, kewl… learning stuff! You guys are alright!
Perfect example of leaving the door open enough for a donk to squeeze through and see a flop because of excessive callers. Flatly absurd play in the 10K/20K rings from about a month ago (I was researching a player): https://www.replaypoker.com/hand/replay/304790450
What are you gonna do? Silly limp to start with but because of the multiple flat callers to the initial raiser, this dufus was actually given a decent price to see a flop. What happened afterwards was just ugly but the hand itself is set up by the crazy number of people flat-calling every freaking hand from every freaking position.
I say again - you want to stop getting donked around? Stop pricing the donks into the hands! Don’t give them great prices and then pretend to be offended that they make crazy hands. Had there been 1 other caller, this guy couldn’t really see a flop. With the raiser and 3 other flat-calls already, he needed less than 20% pot equity to see it, never-mind the implied odds which is off the charts here I’d think.
The dufus played horrible poker but he wasn’t the only guilty one in that hand.
But Warlock,
Part of the problem is completely different strategies, can and do intermingle… when this happens, your post hand debrief can be off… and yes it deff looks at excessive calls … try this…
Something you can read in depth but applies here, is the difference between 1 person only looking @ 1 MTT, vs another person who’s only looking at tourn-points …
After recently dropp’n alot of levels, then playing differently, you get to a point where rightfully so… ppl seem to price in what they will pay to see the flop no matter anything else… or ppl that are enuff below thier Broll, that a 3x preflop raise… is thier standard, I’ll play this hand bet…
Normal bet sizing, or poker play goes right out the freak’n window… the problem is Warlock, I started to see alot of what I saw up high, down low… but from a different person’s perspective, so to speak… and I almost died laughing ( @ myself )
Also think of this person’s play… they go to a bar, they are willing to pay the limp every hand, and see a few small raises… ( duhhhh, to see flops ) even if they never win a hand… thats thier gameplan going in.
So then you try to add in the (3+limpers)x bb, and this really does nothing to help… all you end up doing is pricing in more ppl to see more cards, and deal out more bad beats…
In some ways it stops being so much about odds, real or implied… but becomes more about situational psychology…under the guise of a poker table…
Sarah - Happy anniversary.
I’m not quite sure I get where you are coming from on this one. Can you maybe give me a little clarification? This isn’t an MTT and the dufus was the guy playing way above his bankroll. I’m just not seeing where you are faulting my reasoning and I definitely want to know.
If you are talking purely about psychology, then I can see it. It would be along the lines of what I posted in another thread, that people don’t log on to fold. There is also the aspect of people not caring about the chips but instead getting rushes out of hitting long shots. Everyone does indeed have a different utility function and it can be a mistake to think that everyone approaches the game the same way. I do forget to remember that quite frequently (man that sounds like something Yogi Berra would say).
Please LMK if I’m getting any of what you are saying right.
ohh sry… yes it was an analogy, not meant to mean MTT… simply put, 2 ppl playing for a different goal. I wasn’t really faulting you, but if 3 of the 5 callers every hand, dont give a rats behind about your bet sizing and are on a different approach, correct bet sizing is impossible and thats where it turns more to table/player psychology.
How many times, in a row, on a 50/100 table, do I have to min raise the blinds, before the whole table knows… I’m basically playing PL, and just potbuilding for post flop action ? Anyone at that point who folds, thinking my raise meant what a normal raise means… is not paying attention enough. You see Warlock, its after ohh say 100 of these raises… I start laughing at myself…
Seriously Sarah, isn’t that basically what unranked was doing, just not for chump chg… ohh wait it is chump chg to him, duhhhhhhhh… Facepalm
The guy took a really long time to call initially then once he seen the diamonds he was committed, Im surprised he didn’t push all in. If there are a bunch of callers in a hand once in a while (didn’t watch the tournament) I think its ok, who knows what hey had but if there are a bunch of callers to a raise every hand it really PMO because I didn’t join a limit game Im here to play NL and when it happens every hand the dynamics of everything change and its very difficult to combat (all I can say is Booo if the other players follow suit and its a calling party).
My 2 cents lol
Honestly, it is a good problem to have if people are calling to hit with bad odds. Even, if you get sucked out some (which you will), in the long run this is printing money the times they don’t hit. I guess part of the problem also is your talking about multi-way pots. This is why when you often see limp, limp, limp at these tables it is quite terrible because you will have to make a stronger hand to win against so many other hands. This is why you should be isolating players with your strong hands and raising large pre-flop, so 3 and 4 players are not seeing a flop, and you don’t have random trash hands making two pair etc.
If you have found an initial open bet size that works, please share with the class because I don’t think anyone else has. Sure, there are the bizarre 10BB+ openings but that is also horrible poker. Great - you take blinds and antes, unless you are re-raised with AA or KK. Horrible. Other than at the elite stakes tables (and only sometimes there) do you see anything resembling decent pre-flop activity. Everywhere else you see limps all around or a raise and 3+ flats afterwards. 3-Bets are rare and seem to be QQ+ and AK.
I am not arguing against your premise at all - isolation is key in playing poker as something more than simply a game of out-flop-em. The issue we seem to all be struggling with is the counter strategy to the “schooling” phenomenon SPG has identified several times before. What results is 4+ out of 9 seeing flops and too many hands going all the way to the river, and even to showdown. You can narrow the ranges your opponents may be holding to “probably been dealt 2 standard cards, but maybe not”.
In an actual poker game I would be opening around 3x, however in these games that is going to result in 4 and 5 way flops all around. From early position I think opening 4x is fine, since your range should be strong from utg or utg+1.
This can be adjusted base on how the other players react. Sometimes with very strong hands you can just open ridiculous amounts if you know u will get called and you don’t have to balance your range at all (i.e. opening 15x or something crazy with kk or AA).
If their is a game where your getting callers no matter what then you have to play your good but not premium hands more passively pre-flop once their are a bunch of limpers (i.e AT, AJ, KQ). In these games all you have to do is set mine, try to make 2 pair, straights/flushes and value bet like crazy. Raise super large with nutted hands (don’t even try to be balanced) and try to create a low SPR where you can easily get stacks in post flop.
Thanks - Sadly, this seems to be the common answer though. If you cant beat 'em, join 'em and just make better decisions post flop than they do. Bet more for value on your strong hands than the passives do and get away from your hands cheaply while others chase. Its a valid strategy, and probably the one being employed here most frequently for people who wish to do well.
I wish there was a better answer, but I think you are probably right. For the most part, we should play the game in the stylized manner it is being played here and not as we would traditionally, unless at tables with higher level players.
I mean the only real counter if your ok with dealing with variance, is you can start open jamming hands like AQ after there are 5 limpers and see if one of the people want to look you up and take your 2 to 1 odds if you do get called by random hands (maybe they have a pair and your flipping). Depending on the game, because I do see people on here that limp AK in 7 way pots thinking their trapping or something.
Honestly, this isn’t terrible with hands like TT or JJ since these play terrible in multiway pots if you don’t hit a set.
Probably not my thing but I see your point. If I wanted to flip coins for chips, I’d play another game. Also, I’ve seen tables where someone open-jams 100BB and gets 2+ callers. You know he’s on JJ+ and likely only AA but you still have every pocket pair calling, a good chance any A-rag calling and sometimes any suited connector. I’d rather have Michael J Fox shave my privates during an earthquake than play a game like that.
If you have thoughts on how to play say top pair or over-pair to board in MWP post flop, would love to hear that. Got to run for a bit but will be back later. Thanks again. Very helpful and honest.
This is to generic a question to answer. The answer is it depends…lol. When we say multi-way, do we mean 3 way, 4 way, 5way etc.? What is the effective SPR of the pot? Have we just sat down at the table and have no reads on any of the other players in the pot? Is it a 3 bet or limped pot? Are we in position or out of position? What is the board texture (dry flop A28 rainbow or wet flop QJ9 two tone)? If you have a specific hand or hands, I’d be happy to analyze them. Post it on here or you can private message them to me.
One thing I would add about flipping for chips. If your going to always get multiple callers, it is bad. But if you can take the pot down a good bit without seeing the flop or only get 1 caller its profitable in the long run. You have to be playing within your bankroll to take swings though. If you can get it all in pre where at usually at worst you have maybe 45% equity but sometimes your getting it in with 65% (possibly 80% if its pair over pair) your winning more than you lose and also when you do lose your losing say 100BB, but when you win your profiting maybe 106BB. Also, the times you are not called your winning the 5 or 6BB. So overall, in the given scenario in the long run it is profitable.
Let’s go with post #12 on this thread since its already there and people have had a chance to think about it. Only added info I guess was that you aren’t familiar enough with any of the players yet to have a read on any of them. No one has made big moves and the few pots played to this point have been MW limped.