Quote Originally Posted by khabbi
Also, I don't think I have ever been in situation where gappers are something to look for. There aren't too many hand histories (that I have seen) that focus on the super loose table strategy. I guess because of that, I was at a disadvantage in this game.
It's one of the hardest things to get used to... but once you figure it out, those tables can be VERY profitable. I played a recent home game that was like this. Here's a summary of all my wins in a 3 hour span:

- very first hand, pocket kings; I re-raised the initial raiser all-in and took his stack (he was raising & calling me with A5 suited)

- limped from the button with T9o; saw a flop with five other players of 67x, and it checked around; turned the 8, and made a huge pot by just straight-forwardly betting (but not overbetting) the nuts

- limped in from middle position with JQ suited; flopped 89T rainbow and nuked the table who were calling all around with middle pairs and crap like that

- limped from late position with 46 suited, flopped a gutshot + flush draw and bet it like a made hand (to juice the pot up)... eventually made my straight and took down a huge pot

That's about it. There might have been one or two other minor victories. The rest of the time I was folding bad hands (your king-tens, ace-nines, etc.) or limping/folding hands similar to the ones above.

If I was going to rather pretentiously propose a good starting hand list for a loose game, it would go like this:

level 1 (raise from any position): AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKs, AKo
level 2 (limp from any position): KQs, KQo, QJs, KJs, QJo, JTs, QTs, T9s, 98s, any pocket pair
level 3 (limp from middle position or later): 87s, 76s, J9s, T8s
level 4 (limp from late position only): 65s, 54s, 97s, 86s, 75s, 64s, JTo, KJo, QTo, T9o, 98o, 87o

Also with pretty much any of those limping hands you can call a modest raise (depending on your stack & the raiser's stack, up to 3xBB). This is partly due to the implied odds of going after a monster hand, but also due to the number of calling stations that will get in the hand no matter what and makes every pot a big, juicy meatball. The key element to these games is to still play somewhat tighter than the table - don't play T5o and crap like that even in late position - but play your suited connectors and gappers as often as possible when it's cheap, and try to go after your good draws while folding your bad ones. Calling stations stay in with gutshots and backdoor draws; you want to still calculate good pot odds and play a better version of the game they're playing. And because of the way they play, they will pay you off every time.