Home game enemy

v-bet hard and don't bluff him I would guess.. and pray he's not running like god forever. Gl

So all that happens here is the he gets lucky over and over and I should just bide my time playing tight against him? That is kinda my approach right now, but I was hoping there would be a better way (short of not inviting him any more )

Sounds like the perfect approach
You can obviously play any two against him and try to outplay him postflop, but the tight aggressive style seems to have more value to me.

I just won a home game tourney a week ago open raising every single hand preflop. I think the others hated me, but I had a lot of fun. ♦

I sure could all-in any hand against him from the start, and hope my luck beats his, but that seems just a tad wild of an approach...

As another event is around the corner I went through the last few tournaments in my head to analyze him better. Maybe someone feels inspired by this to give me a pointer for a better strategy:

He probably considers himself a tight/agressive player, whether he calls himself that or not. He will only play if he thinks he has a valid hand, and then he will pay anything that is being asked for. Which in reality makes him a bit of a wild calling station, but he does not see that.
So he can easily call even a 4BB bet preflop if he holds 87 just in case he hits his straight later. On the other hand, as soon as he decides he won't get anywhere he tosses his cards, rarely even when noone has bet before him.

As he does not usually raise I came up with this:
If I manage to go against him solo I will have to make sure that I have a made hand of sorts or some rather solid draw, unless he bets high, which I should usually take as a "I just hit my fourth 7 / 7s over 2s full house" and just drop my hand. If I feel sure enough about winning (can you ever??) I should milk him for what he is worth.

It seems a generaly rather bad idea to try and bluff him, as he pretty much never lets go of a hand no matter how bad it actually is, and on top is known to hit the wierdest runner/runners.

What I am not sure about is whether it makes sense to try and see cards cheeply with him in the play or not. I have half a mind to try and isolate him where I can, so as to focus and eliminate the chance of someone else hitting yet a luckier draw.
On the other hand, that could cost me most of my chips early on.
Plus, that would change my usual playing style in a tourney (very tight at first and rack up the heat as the tourney progresses) and that just seems a bad idea all over..

And lastly: I could just as well ignore him, not think more of him than any other player at the table and just play my game....

Options, options, options... ideas, anyone?

Like i said it should be most valuable to play relativly tight against him while at the same time adding some speculative hands to your preflop range as well. Keep the pots small with your mediocre holdings and squeeze as many chips out of him as possible as soon as you hit boards that are in your favor. Play your hands for value and let him pay for his midpairs/bottom pairs/whatever. If your hand does not hit stay passive since he is not folding ever.

Cliffs: Play him postflop, play it straight for value, keep the pots small unless you have what is most likely the best holding

Regards,
Asaban

I feel like I'm qualified to add my 2c as I'm the king of home tourneys, so much so that I am banned by all my friends cos I only lost one in about 30 games. By lost, I mean I didn't come 1st, I came third. Honestly. Mind you, my friends like to do 20 to 50 dollar buyin, rebuy as many times as you like within the first hour and a half type deal, with some players rebuying and open shoving 200bb blind 1st hand, rinsing and repeating. Insanely profitable, and I hardly blame them for not letting me in anymore. Before anyone asks, no, my friends aren't going to want any pokerstrategy members joining their drunken poker nights, just as much as they like me playing.

Your guy sounds like my typical home game villain! They're all the same to me. Asaban is dead right, you don't need to do anything special against him, you just value bet him to death with your good hands. Don't try to bluff. You already identified his weakness, he is a calling station! You can just play a bit of a tighter range and you will smash him, his luck will run out! Just make sure he's not marking cards or got something up his sleeve. Hopefully your planning will pay off. Most importantly, the reason I felt I had to chime in was to your last query about ignoring him. If you find the other players are just as bad, then yeah it probably won't hurt to "ignore" him. But if he is the "fish" as you have indicated, then you must play him and try take his chips. It is a BIG mistake to not try to exploit the worst players. Best of luck to you.

Thanks for the input, you two. (Boy am I jealous about you and your former home group... )
I did not mean "ignore" as in let him toss his chips at other people, no. I DO intend to be the one the breaks him, no mistake. I was just wondering if I put too much tought into that and should just play him as a straight calling station that simply was way too lucky for his own good, is all

Yes, I still wish I could get that action in home games for sure! From what you said, yes, your guy is so bad, putting thought into it is great, you can play him perfectly, but more or less you can play this player straight up and down really, he has just been lucky previously. Never forget though that this type of player can improve quickly, something to watch for.

Just to finish this off:
In this weeks tourney the player dropped out as the first player, placing 10th. He played his usual catastrophic self. I ended up placing second after a good start, two unlucky losses (where one player hit runner runner for a straight to beat me, another got his second pair against my pair of aces). Coming back form an M<2 to place second sounds like a decent night, and I am happy.
I ended up sitting two slots ot the left of MrX and decided not to do anything special about him, which worked. Then again, we did not play any hands together, like I said, he dropped out quickly.
His two successful tourney were sheer luck then, and all is well

Thanks guys.

Sounds good! Hopefully you can win next time

Regards,
Asaban