When i go to the casino i usually go during the week because i work the weekends. So i play with a lot of the old nitty regs and OMC's that are there everyday.

My strategy has always been to adopt a LAG style and just take down the small pots when they fold. Should i be using better table selection?

stealing their blinds relentlessly is profitable, whether you can find a more profitable table versus lagtards is a different question

Depends how nitty they are. If they continually fail to reach basic defense frequencies preflop and postflop then sure, it's profitable. Otherwise, probably not.

As said above, if they refuse to adjust and they are real nits, yes it's great if incredibly dull. Otherwise it's not a table you dream of.

it's a zero sum game... if they can't beat the game after rake, you just have to beat them, and then beat the rake...

Essentially you can treat all the nits as open seats leaving you to play short handed with the few fish that are at the table. I love nits.

Stealing blinds is largely unprofitable in the lowest stakes of live poker due to the rake structure. In extreme cases (such as in so cal) it could be an automatic $1 withdrawal for the Bad Beat Jackpot plus $5 flat rake for any hands that see a flop.

Since nits aren't playing GTO, yes it's potentially profitable to play against them.

On that basis, every single player in the world is potentially profitable. Since not one of them is playing GTO NLHE.

Right, so the question is easy to answer in a vacuum: always yes, unless there's someone so good they can't be beat for more than the rake (but my guess is any nitty strategy is exploitable for more than the rake). If OP asked in comparison to some other option (e.g. play vs nits instead of the table full of loose-passives), then the answer could be no.

Edit -- I might not have noticed this part before: Experiment. See how you tend to do at various table types. In live low stakes, probably yes you should be switching tables if you're at a nitty one. There ought to be non-nitty tables going.

The nice thing about those old live nits is that you almost never have a tough decision, their cards are always face-up. You seldom have to pay them off, and even less often do you get bluffed by them. This has value. If you can steal pots or maybe cultivate an over-aggressive image, you can definitely take those geezers for some good money. When you're never making mistakes against them but they're often making mistakes against you, that means you're crushing them.

Anyone who isn't so bad they don't even know the hand rankings who short stacks live should be mercilessly ridiculed. No exceptions.

Nits who don't shortstack are basically fine though.

If I met such a person at the table, I would go out my way to make them feel welcomed.

Any player who is so bad as to ridicule them should be mercilessly beaten in the parking lot. No exceptions.

Can't read (most people who talk about participating in parking lot beatings can't...) or have an unnatural fetish for short stackers?

WOAT, werebeer is correct, you are not. If you cant see that, it probably means you are the category that we don't want to ridicule, so ill leave it at that.

I'm hoping another one that can't read. If they are NOT in the group of players who are very terrible/complete beginner, it is ok to give them a hard time for short stacking. If they ARE a complete beginner they can get a pass.

If you're reading it that way and disagreeing to the point of parking lot beat downs, ok. I'm guessing not though.


eta - and yes, the art of shaming non-terrible short stackers is under practiced by live players. Is an essential skill. Nits on the other hand, eh, doesn't really matter as long as they sit with chips.

The problem is that they are not always betting the nuts. The other problem is one doesnt get big edges as often. One more problem is that there is less room for play, where most of the profits is, in marginal hands, really, because of air and larger ranges. The rake isnt beatable vs. nits but at high limits online. The other type of player who is commiting suicide is the overaggro.

The first time i became aware of these was at huhu lhe, the aggro figured to lose twice the rake and the overly tight but aggressive enough player had a strong enough range to handle most aggression, and so i was surprised one can nit even lhe huhu. Then there was the overaggro omaha8 limit player hu and supershort, the same thing. Then the plo nits that i also though that would be easy money but that never was true, and at sh limit holdem it was the same thing, that they let me play more hands like stealing as they folded earlier, or i got some free blinds or late defending, and they folded some too many blinds also, but surprisingly not so much more, and those are already profitable rather than marginal calls, and post flop they didnt just check it when they missed, so all in all it just was not profitable, too little marginal hands and too tight ranges to do nothing about it.

The nits are considered marginal players and they are considered losing players, and it must depend on competition and the rake. My bottom line is that nits are not profitable, so all nits or other suicide players and it isnt profitable, and even if there is one fish, it still might not be profitable, just that u will likely beat the rake then.

arjen, woat is correct. reread.

although i dont berate anyone tbh

OP is talking about live low-stakes nits in NLHE, who are beatable for much more than the rake. These nits aren't good, their tightness is the only thing they have going for them. They have nothing to do all day since they're retired, so they just sit around waiting for hands. A lot of them only think about their own cards. If you're betting in lots of pots you might take them out of their shell and get them to call you down light (so as not to let this young punk push them around). Even if your aggression isn't hyper, to them it looks hyper because they think normal poker is sitting around folding and trading pots back and forth. It was checked to you on the flop and you bet with just a flush draw? Wow, you're such a bluffer, good to know!

WOAT made a comment that was completely unrelated to this thread. Not once had anyone mentioned anything about short stackers.

However, since we are on the subject, no one should be berated at the table as we should be working to harvest a fun environment that recreational players will want to come back to.

Yes, table select better. Nits, by definition, don't give their money away. If they raise pre-flop, they have a huge hand. They rarely buy in for enough money to make it worthwhile to try to go after them. A nit with $100 raises to $15 from the CO, what are you going to do? Fold. You're just not going to see true nits buy in for $300 and stack off with AA these days.

Nits are winning players. Donkeys aren't smart enough to adapt to nits and they wind up paying them off. They're not big winners, but they're winners. I personally know several of them. 5 years ago, nits were crushing the Vegas $1/$2 games. Now, they're slightly winning players. A nit who knows math (set mining, pot odds, etc) and understand position is a complete pain in the ass to have at the table.

Like someone else pointed out, it's basically like an empty chair. I'd rather have that chair filled by lag fish.

Yeah you will. That's exactly how most nits play. They are very tight pre and can't fold overpairs ever.

Only in the softest game.


They may have been winning at a higher rate but they definitely weren't crushing. There were crushing players 5 years ago and they weren't nits.

Not really, they are very easy to play with. Just seat select leaving them on your left and you will be good.

The nits in live games don't know pot odds etc. The last time they used math was in algebra class 65 years ago. They don't fold because of bad pot odds, they fold because they know from experience that chasing usually doesn't end well for them. People here have to stop hearing the word "nit" and equating that with online multitabling nits when the topic is about live poker.

As for the shortstackers, in live games they're some of the easiest fish. They're not employing a good shortstacking strategy or using push/fold charts lol. For the most part they're buying in small because they're bad or inexperienced and don't want to lose too much money.

Except it was related. A poster said nits make the rake unbeatable in small, heavily raked games. I said nits with chips are plenty beatable in those formats, short stacks...not so much.

Berated is probably a bit of putting words in my mouth and/or misunderstanding. I do think it's fine to "psychology encourage" short stackers to not make games suck.

Nice read though...

Which is exactly why someone would have brought up (a completely unrelated, ) issue of shortstacking. To use your example, nits who can't fold over-pairs sitting 300 bigs deep are nice, sitting 30 bigs deep...not so much in the rake trap games somebody else brought up to start the conversation. Which again, is why I don't mind regs pressuring short stackers who aren't completely casual to buy full (all competely unrelated though of course, ).