From what I've seen, it tends to be the tight players who make spewy plays more than the loose players.

We think of nits as tight, but from what I've seen, they "blow up" and run the large and extravagant bluffs in the worst situations and end up getting it in with almost no equity.

My theory is that their frustration builds up after they don't have anything for a while. Or they play tight at first and think that everyone will automatically fold when they start betting just because they've been tight.

I can't even count the times I've called down a nit who reps nothing and everyone goes on about how bad a call I made against a player who never bluffs.

well you have to check there aggression as well.... i rarely see this. most reg nits are playing 12+ tables

If they blow up then they might not be "tight" ducy?

I meant that the most spewy lines that rep nothing tend to come from the super tight players (pertaining to live play, not online).

Aka a nit will play fit or fold for several hours and finally decide to spazz out on a 6 high flush draw from the BB and overbet shove the river when he misses. Then, he wonders why he was called.

I used to be like that. It was because I would wait and wait and wait... draw dead... wait... get AK and something happens where I don't win the pot ie. missed flop, sucked out, fish called down with a lowly pair. anything could set me off because this was supposed to be my winning hand. Even if I did win the hand in a small pot I wasn't satisfied with winning such a small pot. So playing tight isn't working may as well bluff, but wait I didn't know how to bluff well because all I knew was to play tight. They get mad cause they think they know the game well or perfected it because they adopted this beginners strategy. Yet little do they know how transparent they play.

-a lot of tight players don't know how to bluff that's why they are tight

@bubonicplay
Why does saftey goggles suddenly appear on the kid right when he begins to spray? lol

I'm a nit and that doesnt sound like the way I play, I just fold more, because I know I can get really bad players to call my pot size bets on every street and make it look like a bluff.

Tight players who "blow up" are the ones who way overrate their nit image and go into a hand with a certain expectation of how their opponent's should perceive their range and play accordingly.

This is compounded by the fact that tight players generally will feel more frustration of sitting there waiting endlessly due to their narrow ranges of hands and feel more attached to a strong hand once they are dealt it.

Imagine being card dead for 2 hours, picking up KK and facing heavy action on an A high board. They don't want to fold this premium hand they've been waiting for so long, and somewhere in their head they justify playing it by saying "I've been so tight for so long, I can make people fold Ax here, they just have to fold".

Then it becomes a recipe for disaster.

Speaking as a top flight, grade A nit myself, I think it comes from a combination of

- overrating our image/ the ability of our opponents to lay down strong hands ("how the heck did he call me down with a set when I was obviously repping a flush!?!"). Or, similarly, not realizing that our tight image means that our opponents won't give us credit for a big hand on a low/rainbow board because our range should never really hit that type of board particularly hard.

- feeling that being patient and waiting for good hands somehow entitles us to win every hand that we enter...

- in very loose games, I often have to fold strong starting hands when it's obvious that someone has outflopped me... After you do that a few times, it can start to feel like maybe the whole table has pegged you as a weak player that can always be bet off your hands, so you decide to "take a stand." Sometimes you do it at the right time, but sometimes you don't...

To the orginal question....I play quite a bit and don't see tight players "blowing up". I'm a pretty observant player and notice many things associated w/ the game. Occasionally they will show some emotion, like frusteration, as all humans do.

But the players you're refering to are generally very patient and pick there spots well. Often times I will play tight, win most hands I get involved with, have a very high sucess rate on my bluffs, and the overwhelming majority of the time I leave the table as a winner. However more important to me is long term winning,....so playing "tight", playing many hours of "ABC style, and occasionally hitting some aggresive chump w/ a 2 gapper that connected into a str8 makes it fun...and then hearing them whine about the "tight" player, LOL.

Admittedly, I am guilty of blowing up as a tight player from time to time. I have spent some time thinking about it and may not have it completely figured out, but I think I know why I do it now.

Now I play a tight style naturally, but since I am constantly looking for these spots, I can be a very active, albeit "tight" player. When I blow up, it has always happened in one of two situations.

It happens when I have run, what I call, situation dead. It's kind of card dead, but instead of just being card dead, I also have no situations where a play would be appropriate or something unexpected happens. For instance, MP has been opening quite a bit pf and calls a lot of raise pre, but is very passive post flop. MP raises, I 3b in position with intention of bombing one or two streets. I do this, but then sb cold 4 balls. OR someone else takes the initiative in 3b'ing and I'm left in a more complicated spot. That's just one example, but after being situation dead for a decent period of time, I can become impatient and tilted that not only have I not gotten cards, but the times I also had good opportunities for plays, something got in the way. After a while, I become frustrated and also realize that I haven't played almost any hands. I think I have a very tight image and I use that to justify a bluff that I make out of frustration. No longer am I thinking about all these factors, but rather I think, "f$&k I've been playing so tight, he has to fold here". My line of thinking ends there and Before you know it, I've punted off a stack.

The other time this would happen to me was if I was stuck from previous sessions or desperate to build a roll.

I haven't blown up in a very long time, but these problems used to plague me. The funny thing is it would rarely happen in tourneys, but in cash games it was common.

Nice post; I can relate to all of these, haha. From my experience, it can often be a combination...where we've made up our mind to take the stand preflop, regardless of the board, and then that low board hits that makes our three barrels pretty unconvincing.

Definitely the biggest leak in my game...formerly anyway. Hopefully formerly

thanks for the contribution to my poker vocabulary

To TS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qw9oX-kZ_9k

I think you're wrong dude. It's the fishy loose drunk players that spews the most.

nits are just tight fish.

they basically just read some random internet site on starting cards and now they play those cards. they feel like if they have a good hand, they should win the hand, so they get frustrated when they don't. they feel entitled to win hands (i.e. they think the best hand should win 100% of the time instead of their actual equity). they also think of themselves as highly skilled, and tilt easily over every lost hand because in their mind, they played it perfectly and should be raking in millions

examples:
raise AK, flop comes 987 and they feel all disappointed. now psychologically they want to find some way to win the hand even in the most gross situations. omg villain checks back, lets barrel
raise AsAc, flop comes JT9hhh in a multi-way deep-stacked pot. can't fold AA, and if we lose, it's just bad luck. time to rage-quit and type angry chat at the pot winner

Hi guys,

I am very new here..just enjoyed reading your well put thoughts.

Agree with a lot of points above.

was able to use the frustration of an incredible nit against him in a live mtt yesterday. where he just shoved with 2 pair all in on a obv. flush board (flush turn) that i was raising and beting from preflop to last street. i had AK he called with 45 preflop. flop came K45 two diamond ( i had the A of diamond)...i bet he just called..turn 6 diamond...i bet he just called...river 7 heart... i bet a little less then pot size and he shoved all in (Pot was 12K i bet 10K he shoved 23.3K after asking me how high my flush is ?? i told him i can not say before he calls and click click...he just shoved.(he lost just few hands before...startingstack 30k). everybody on the table except 2-3 was shocked, why and how he start to make that move...well...its what it is.

Just a little example...

will keep reading about your expierences under this good thread.