so I play live 1/2 I have to say the players are soooo bad most of the time that they have no idea whats going on. Even if I sit out 100 hands in a row and then all of a sudden bet I will still get three callers and none of them have the slightest idea that i have a good hand .. its pretty funny actually

I can understand that at higher limits I wouldn't get any action but at 1/2 it seems to work

OK, be a nit then?

If you want to fit in with the cool kids and be accepted on 2+2, don't be a nit. If you want to make money at microstakes, be a nit!

Nits get a bad rep on this forum. I don't think you can play nitty and do all that well against good players, but at the lowest stakes against fish, it's a surefire way to profit. Nothing wrong with it!

Kamikaze.. thanks but I think everyone on 2+2 has the same goal and that is to make more money playing poker. I just think at these levels playing nitty will get out of a lot of bad spots and save you money

Like kam said at the micros playing a nitty style can be profitable.
The problem is when you move up and play better opponents your tight nitty style is to predictable and players can capitalize on this.

Ive played live tornys with a lot of regs for over 5 years now and there are quite a few nits in these games,The problem from there point of view is they very rarely get paid of with there big hands because they have such a thin range of hands they will open with pre-flop.

Also the problem in live games is good hands don't come along often enough i've seen time and time again nits waiting for aces or kings in a torny only to have them cracked by a set of 44's.Somtimes its worth having a gamble and playing a little looser,The guys who raise a lot with a wide range of hands tend to get paid more too if they have that loose or aggresive image plus its far harder to put them on a range as they are not just playing 10s+ .

Because amazing players (like most people here and i'm one of them) exploit nits like you

TBH, if you're a good player you're making more money playing 25% of your hands than 5% obviously

But when you play loose you become a better player and progressively becomes more and more profitable in tough spots

this

Is it obvious? How about this:

If you're a good player you're making more money playing 50% of your hands than 25%

Is that necessarily true too? If so, where does it end, what percentage of hands can you play profitably by being a good player?

If it's not true, then where's the cutoff?

Basically I think if you graph vpip for someone with a given skill level, there will be at least 1 "bump", maybe more, that is a local maximum. 5% is probably too low, for most really loose games, 25% is probably too high, but there's no "obviously" about it, you have to work and figure it out.

Lol Rusty, I was about to say exactly the same thing.

What French Donkey says is not 'obvious' at all.

Expand on your logic OP...

Why not play super nitty and only play AA? You still get action when you play AA so why bother playing KK?

The answer to that question is because KK is still EV+ even if it's not as EV+ as playing AA. The answer to your question is the same but replace AA with nitty and KK with smart tight-aggressive play.

huh??? you lost me Blah

If the players are bad enough then playing 25% or more of hands profitably isn't too difficult. I think the point is just to dispel the notion that the worse your competition the tighter you should play, which "obviously" isn't true. I mean, if you only have a buy in or two worth of cash to play around with that night then maybe you play a little different but if the idea is to abuse every edge you're given no matter how slight (and in cash poker that basically is the idea) then sitting around waiting for 99+ AQs+ at a table full of passive live donkeys is silly.

Why are you playing KK when you can wait for AA and still get action?

This is slippery slope bs taken to the extreme.

OP has a very credible point. As a live player there is a lot of truth to what OP says. Is it exploitable? Absolutely, however less than 5% of your low stakes players have the skill set to do so.

Imo there is an optimal looseness % that will maximize your winrate... However your winrate will QUICKLY go south once you exceed that threshold. The opposite is not true. It is better to be a little bit too nitty rather than be a little bit too loose.

+1. In order to make $$$, you need to find profitable spots that you are comfortable with (this will vary by player). There is nothing wrong with switching to nit mode, if that is the only option you see as profitable. However, if you walk the tight rope correctly, you can win more (just do not slip). Whatever you do, remember that your goal is to protect and try to grow your trading capital, not necessarily be a great player (well maybe someday in the future).

Obv it's taken to the extreme because being a nit for reasons stated in the first place is extreme. How else is OP suppose to see how ridiculous it is to be a nit because you can still get action? This is NOT a valid point to play nitty.

I'm not sure what you guys classify as nit but if your refusing to iso raise obvious EV+ hands IP because you're still getting action on your big hands your leaving money on the table.

Play nitty because there's some maniac 3betting like nuts behind you, play nitty because your on the bubble of a satellite, play nitty because you think any wider hands are EV-, but don't play nitty because you're still getting action on your big hands.

If playing 5-10% less hands or so means you are giving up a small amount of equity but also losing a lot of variance and staying out of somewhat marginal spots you may not be comfortable in, then DO IT!! In the long run you can and will make a little more by playing some more hands in the right spots, but wait until you are more confident in doing so

id tried it today not by choice but really card dead. pick up KK utg, so make it 16 to go get three callers. J high flop i go all in, guy who has been in every hand calls and flips AA. lol great timing on my part.

I don't really agree with this. There seems to be this idea that variance = "swinginess" but it takes a large decrease in variance to make up for a small decrease in winrate when looking at size and frequency of downswings.

Nits get eaten alive by the invisible antes.

THIS


I dropped a random (25%) percentage to give the idea that's it better playing loose than playing nitty if you have a nice edge on the table
As for this percentage it depends on a lot of factors (stacks sizes, aggressiveness of players to your left, etc) but i really doubt that playing 5% of the hands can be the optimal strategy (except if you play on a tables of complete maniacs/calling nits' shove with any 2, etc)
And even in these conditions playing 2* more hands (vpip OF 10 instead of 5 ) will be more profitable if there is a guy calling your shoves with any 2 every hand (because even though your equity will be lower you will have 2* more ev+ spots, even though they won't be as profitable as if you would play tighter, it will be +ev on the long run)

I frequently play 1-2 and by no means do I consider myself a great cash player, but through my experience(which is minimal, haven't even turned 21 yet) I have found that play the nit game is a lot more profitable for me as I get paid off on most of my big hands. That could be that I just haven't found my proper range yet but in my current situation I find that's have a very high success rate playing 1-2 as a nit

That is a valid adjustment for you to make based on your own skill limitations.

A chimp could be trained to signal an all-in bet with QQ+/AK while folding everything else, and in some games this strategy would be profitable.

Its a theory forum though, where we talk about what is theoretically best, not best based on the fact that we just learned how to play poker this morning.

The fact that you CAN win by being a nit is not a reason to be a nit no more than the fact that you CAN survive by walking the streets bumming change. The bum is better off getting a job unless he is so stupid that he can't do anything right other than panhandle and the nit is better off opening up his game to wider ranges that will yield him more profit unless he lacks the skill to do so.

Not sure if I made this point in this thread, but the best advice I can give, which I feel is appropriate for this thread is the following:

It is better to be a nit that slowly loosens up over time than to be a loose player that slowly nits up over time.

Being a nit that slowly loosens up is the most profitable way to learn Low Stakes Poker.

IMO, this is the best way to optimize your poker game. Start with a super nit platform, and one by one, add dimensions to your game. Increase your raising range in late position and then observe your results. Once you got a handle on that, move on to c-betting your air more frequently, from 40% to 60% to 80% until you get a handle on which situations and board textures and villains are ripe for c-betting. ONce you get a handle on that, move on to widening your calling and raising range in mid position... etc. etc.

The biggest mistake I see with noobs is that they are trying too many things at once before they properly understand the basic fundamental concepts. Since all the variables in poker are linked, this results in the noob not properly seeing how one variable (widening your raising range) impacts another variable (your c-bet fold equity) or how one variable (position) augments another (post flop play)