How to Beat Your Friends at Poker (Home Game Strategy)

You check the river with the best hand and Sam turns over bottom pair and says, I'd have called anything. He would have because your friends make the same mistakes every single week. So by the end of this video, you'll have seven simple adjustments built for exactly that table, your friends, not a casino. They call too much. They chase every draw. They play every hand after 11 and one bad beat sends them straight back to the re-buy and you can use every one of those seven on the next hand you play. No math, no poker face, no fancy bluffs. And number seven is the one that saves you the most chips. It's what to do when the quietest friend at the table finally raises you. Number one starts with the friend who calls everything. You've got top pair on the river. He's already called you twice and you check because you don't want to keep pushing him around. He checks too and turns over a worse pair. Then he shrugs and says, I'd have called anything. And he would have. That one polite check just cost you a whole bet he was happy to pay. Poker players have a name for him. He's the calling station and almost every home game has at least one. He's easy to spot, too. He's the one who shows down bottom pair on the river and says he just had to see it. So against the calling station, bet your good hands and bet them bigger than feels polite. Bet the flop, bet the turn, and bet the river again because he's going to call all three. You already know not to bluff him. That's in the beginner mistakes video, so this is the other half. Top pair is worth a bet on every street against him. And never try to trap him by checking a big hand because he's not going to bet it for you. He's going to call it. So just keep betting and let him keep paying for the privilege of seeing your cards. Number two happens before the flop. You look down at ace king and you raise to three times the big blind, the size every strategy video tells you to use. And four of your friends call. Now the flop comes nine, eight, seven. You've got two high cards and nothing else. Five people are in the pot and somebody almost always has a piece of that board. The best starting hand you'll see all night just turned into a guess. Three times the big blind works when people fold to it. At a home game, almost nobody folds to three. So raise bigger. Make it five big blinds plus one more for every friend who already called. Now you get one or two callers instead of four and your ace king is the favorite again instead of one hand in a crowd. And if a hand isn't good enough to raise that big, it's usually not good enough to play at all, so fold it and wait for the next one. Number three is about where you sit. You're first to act after the flop with king jack and you check. Someone bets, someone else raises, and now you're stuck guessing on every single street because everybody gets to see what you do before they decide. That's called playing out of position and it's how a decent hand gets you into trouble you can't see coming. The dealer button is the best seat at the table. After the flop, the action always starts to the left of the button, so the button acts last on every round. So play more hands when you're on the button or right before it and fewer when you're one of the first to act. From the early seats, stick to big pairs and big cards. From the button, you can play a lot more hands because you get to watch everyone else decide first. Same cards, better seat, and the hand gets a lot easier to play. And if you're stuck in an early seat with a hand like king jack, just fold it. You'll get the button back in a few hands and it'll be a much better spot to play it. Those first three are about getting more chips in your stack. The next three are about reading your friends and number seven is still the one that saves you the most. Number four is the friend who chases every draw. The flop comes with two hearts, you've got top pair, and you bet small just a couple of chips to be safe. Three friends call. The turn is a heart and suddenly your top pair is losing to somebody who called with two random hearts. That small bet was a cheap ticket to the next card. With one card to come, a flush draw only hits about one time in five, so a tiny bet is a good deal for them and a bigger bet is a bad one. When the board has two of a suit or cards that run in a row, bet at least half the pot. Then every friend who chases is paying more than their draw is worth. And when they miss, which is most of the time, those chips are already in the middle and they're yours. Number five has a time on it. It's past 11, the snacks are gone, and the friend who folded all night is suddenly playing every hand. Everyone's calling more and raising more and nobody wants to fold a hand. And the trap is that you start doing it too because you're tired, the game feels faster, and folding for 20 minutes is boring. [music] So keep your 9:00 hands at midnight. When the table gets looser, you don't need to bluff or get fancy at all. Play your good hands and bet them because late at night more people are going to call you. And decide when you're leaving before the first hand is dealt. Not when you're up, not when you're down, just the time. The worst decisions of the night happen in the last hour from the players who only stay to try and get even. Number six. Your friend loses a big pot, pushes his last chips in and says, I'm back in. He rebuys and on the very next hand he raises. Then the hand after that he raises again. He wants the whole night back in one hand, so he's playing cards he wouldn't have touched an hour ago. You can usually see it coming because he's grabbing chips before he's even looked at his cards. So for the next few hands after a rebuy, tighten up against him and let him come to you. Don't bluff him because he isn't folding anything right now and don't try to beat him with a weak hand either. Wait for a good one and then let him raise it for you. And watch the friend who's up the most too. They usually start playing scared, folding to protect their stack, which makes them the one player at the table you can push around in the small pots. And now number seven, the one I promised. The friend who's called all night and never raised once suddenly raises you on the turn. You've got top pair with a good kicker and you think he could be bluffing. So you call and he turns over a set [music] and the only person at the table who's surprised is you. Players who call everything almost never bluff with a raise. When they finally raise, it's because they've got it. So when the quietest friend at the table raises you, believe them and fold your one pair. It feels wrong because you've watched them call with nothing all night long, but those calls are exactly why the raise means something. So count their raises. If it's the first raise you've seen from them all night, that's your answer. And one fold like that can save you a whole stack in a single hand. And there's one more part to beating your friends, which is still getting invited back. So never explain to the calling station why he keeps losing. Don't gloat, don't slow roll and flip your winner over right away. And when somebody new sits down, help them through their first few hands. And when it's the time you pick to leave, go. Even if you're up and say so at the start of the night, so nobody feels like you showed up, took the big pot and left. The best player at a home game is the one who's on top at the end of the night and still gets the text for next week. And if you want to know whether you're actually beating your friends and not just remembering your best night, you need the numbers. That why I built HG Poker. It keeps the results of every game, so over a whole season you can see who's really on top. And it takes no bets, holds no money, and moves no money. So tell me in the comments, who's the calling station at your table? And if somebody at your table is still learning, watch how to play poker next. >> [music]