For a rec, is a home run strategy the only defense left vs the way NLHE is being played now? You can answer just off the question alone but I added some thoughts below.


If they are active and come in for small 2x type opens, they're gonna get 3 bet to death and not know what to do in those spots.

Isn't that type of player better off
-tightening up their range
-opening bigger (2.5-3x)
-throwing away about the bottom 25% when 3bet
-calling 3 bets in position with their medium strength hands
-doing the repopping themselves with the top 50% or so of their range?

Leave aside the concept of deception and varying these plays for now (such as smooth calling with a big pair in late position after being 3 bet).

What is a "home run" style?

I think he means playing for stacks pre-flop / flop against a player who will 3-bets light vs playing "small ball" where they would try to win many small / medium pots.

If you are at a skill disadvantage the best thing you can do is increase variance. You are not going to win long term regardless of how you play, but increasing variance will increase your likelihood of actually winning in the short term. It also will increase the likelihood of a massive loss in the short term though too. If you are willing to risk bigger losses to increase the chance you’ll win, then yea, play the “HR style”. But instead why not find a better game, possibly at lower stakes, where you aren’t at such a skill disadvantage? Failing that, why not study and learn to play better, and take some smaller losses in the process, chalking it up as the cost of learning the game? The HR strategy might net you a couple winning sessions but it’ll be more costly in the long run than just learning to play better.

I appreciate the advice but I've been playing a while. It's a theoretical question, and yes while it concerns defense vs small ball types, I also am wondering if it is the way to combat the rash of GTO/solver/whatever you want to call it style that is infecting the game.

It won't make much of a difference. The #1 weakness of recs is that they're bad at judging relative hand strength (which is based on ranges and how prior actions narrow the ranges). It doesn't really matter how tight or wide your range is if you don't understand what the relative value of your holding is on each node.

Also if you're a rec you're playing this game for fun. I don't see how folding more would enhance the fun.

No shoving all in a lot preflop will not conquer GTO if anything it will make it easier on the person trying to play GTI as they no longer need to worry about flop turn or river which is where things get complicated

If you're a rec then the best playstyle for you would be being a nit since all of the marginal 0 EV hands are going to perform bad for you. Sadly it's also by far the most boring playstyle, and it's still not good.

personally id rather just quit poker then be a nit. Seems like a miserable way to play poker

I’m not sure I agree with this. If you’re at a skill disadvantage, nothing you do will turn you into a winner. It’s sort of a corallary to the idea that no betting system on blackjack, craps, roulette, etc. will ever turn those into +EV games. What you can do on those games is generate some short term wins if you are lucky enough.

Playing the nit style vs a superior opponent has the advantage of minimizing potential losses, but the disadvantage that you almost certainly will never experience even a short term win. In mathematical terms, nitty play lowers variance. As a result, observed win rates will be closer to the true long term win rate. Since foe the rec vs pro, the rev will have a negative true win rate, this will make short term losses more likely.

If you want to experience the thrill of “beating” a pro, you need to increase variance, not decrease it. For a marginal 0EV hand, that might well mean shoving PF and taking the coin flip. You may well lose much more by playing this way, but it gives you the best chance of a short term win.

Consider a strategy for playing a heads up NLHE sit and go vs a pro. You could try to nit it up, but that’s not likely to help much; the pro will exploit your nitty play by overbluffing. A better strategy would be to determine which hands have at least 50% equity against two random cards and shove pf with those hands, folding all others. You negate the pro’s edge in postflop play and give yourself a reasonable chance of winning the sit and go when the pro calls. You still aren’t favored since the pro won’t be calling your shoves with marginal hands, but you have a better shot than you would by trying to play poker against the pro.

It really depends on what you are hoping to achieve. If it’s to play with the pro at a minimal cost, then yes, nit it up. If your goal is to have a winning session vs the pro, then ratchet ip the variance and hope for good luck.

So then is this basically a yes to my opening question?

The thing though is that on roulette every strat is as -EV as each other, but in poker that's not true.

If you're a rec you're always -EV but being a nit is less -EV than being spewy, although being spewy has more potential for short term wins yes.

Also I know some hardcore nits that beat midstakes (the whole 13 PFR, 0% bluffs on any street and 60% folds to any flop bet), but I'm sure if they played more reasonable ranges they'd be losing heaps, because yeah of course they're losing to pros but they're game selecting well enough to actually grind some rakeback and end up in the green post rb.

Having said that I'd rather kms than aspire to be one of those players, but it's just objectively the best way of not losing much/maybe winning with minimal knowledge and being an overall **** player

wouldnt call this nitty but i remember a player from 2nl on acr that was 44vpip/1PFR over a few thousand hands in my DB