How to beat a preflop tight player?

The type of answers Im looking for is very theoretical. One way of saying it is I would like to know the maths of beating a preflop tight player. For example: do you have to play a tighter range? If no, then what do you do? Any answer that's not too anecdotal please but examples are welcome of course.

My assumption is that if your playing (seeing flops, turns and rivers) against someone that has a tighter preflop-range than you, then you're loosing money. Then, the only solution I find is: dont play against this player postflop.

I think that tight players are the easiest to beat: they are bluffable, rarely bluff and never fold an overpair to the board regardless of the betsizing. I try to play 76,78,45 against them rather than a10, aj, kq,77 (when i hit i generally know they likely did not improve). I also think tight players tilt more after losing a big pot with a big hand (he waited all thus time for aa and get them shoved up his ass by xx). I know its not a math related answer.

Never call their all in bets without the nuts.

This assumption can not be universally true. If it was, then you could beat him by playing tighter than him.

It's wrong to think of a player from one attribute (preflop tightness). But in general there is a comfortable PFR range where below that is "too tight" and above that is "too loose". If he's outside of that range then you can beat him with a looser ranger. If he's inside that range then you may be able to beat him playing looser but playing better post flop. There will probably be an upper limit to the PFR you can beat him with, provided he is a reasonable match for you post flop.

If he is tight and plays worse than you, then you can probably beat him with a looser range. How to beat him will depend on how he's bad. Some tight players will play every hand they see a flop with all the way to the river, never folding. Some are very tight post flop and will fold to any pressure and so forth. It should be clear how to beat players with those tendencies.

So in my question Im referring to a player capable postflop with a tight range preflop. So Im assuming he is not bluffable that easily.

Interesting. Do you know how much +EV that is? I mean, are you clearly positive on those moves?

Say player A plays only As, player B plays only Ks and As. Postflop, player A beats play B.

So to clarify for everyone, Im removing from the equation any profit a player can make preflop. Im referring only to the winnings postflop assuming hero start postflop with a looser range than vilain. Whats the theory now? Everything being equal, vilain beats hero right?

Why do you say that?

I'm not entirely sure but hero is trying to get better than villain by asking all those questions. So hero cant say: "If villain has a tight range, I'll be better than villain postflop." We cant assume hero is better than villain before the answers I think.

If someone is a little too tight preflop but plays well thereafter, a GTO opponent's's only edge is that he will win more hands uncontested than he should. And he will give some of that profit back from the flop on. A perfectly exploitive player will win a bit more preflop and give back a bit less. All other players will lose to this tight player and even the best players should want him to quit a ring game.

The reason why most great players welcome players who are too tight pre flop is that such players tend to also make mistakes of one sort or another postflop. The too tight preflop, play good postflop player, is rare because almost everyone who plays very well postflop actually plays a little too loose preflop to take advantage of his skill. Tight prefop, good postflop is normally only encountered when playing someone who has bankroll issues or early in a tournament (especially at a tough table that will soon break up).

Thank you for your time and the effort to understand my question which probably wasn't expressed very well. I really like your answer.

If someone plays too tight preflop, I think it tends to mess up their postflop ranges in such a way that you can comfortably put a lot more pressure on them on e.g., low connected boards. A GTO player will not exploit those too-tight ranges, but I think an exploitative player can.

Oh that's interesting. Even Adam (the villain that plays only As) gonna be scared on a lot of boards: "are they cracked yet, are they??".

Steal their blinds, but be much more cautious than usual if they raise first in, or call/3-bet your opens.
Pre-flop the nits fold too much, but post-flop they usually have a range advantage, so you rarely want to play big pots with them. Most of your EV will come from not seeing flops, and by winning small pots (by stealing the blinds, and/or making a one-and-done c-bet).

I thought about that once. Since you're supposed to take pots early, if the pot is big, that's not a good sign.

Why do you say that?

Because of villain's piramid.

Take Adam for example (villain who plays only As). Adam got dealt every 1326 possible combos, that's the base of the piramid. It's the largest possible range. Now Adam folds everything but 6 combos. And then, armed with his As, Adam is not gonna fold on many streets right. So his piramid look like this:

+ river
+ turn
+ flop
+++++++++++++++++++++ preflop

Your winnings should be according to villain's piramid issues, so if you're playing lots of big pot with Adam, then something's wrong with your strategy. Or generalised, if the pot is big and you're playing against a nit, you better know what you're doing because it's not where you're supposed to make money against him most of the time.

I guess you know all that but eh, you asked the question

I think what I see people do wrong is they try to exploit the tight pre flop players by playing to loose. And that is exactly what a tight pre flop player wants is you to get off your game and play more trash hands vs him. Sometimes they start off tight and start loosening up. I just stick to my solid game and they can try to adjust to it how they want. But I am not going to try to exploit them thats how you get yourself in stick spots and it leads to tilt. You got to be patient vs tight players. It takes a long time to beat them but if they get down some a lot of times they start loosening up realizes its not working.

I think its a little more involved then the answers so far?
is he 1st in raising with no callers to you ?
is he 1st in with 3 callers to you?
were there 4 limpers and then he raised ?

Ex: he open raises to $10 folded around to you in BB , you look down at 76 suited?
Ex: he open raises to $10 , 3 callers to you in BB , you look down at 76 suited?
Ex: he open raises to $10 , 1 caller to you in cutoff , you look down at 76 suited?

You're supposed to make money wherever it's available. As stated earlier, someone that plays too tight pre-flop rarely turns into a perfect player post flop. They remain too tight on the turn and river so you can bluff them, or they get wedded to their "premium" hole cards and don't fold so you can extract value when you hit your hand. The trick is figuring out what kind of opponent you are playing against.

100% aggreed on that. The only downside I find with this is the following: "How to be better than villain? Easy, just be better.".

It's not always the case. Sometimes, you also gonna face a player who is both tighter than you preflop and perfectly sound postflop. In which case it's good to ask: "how to beat that guy?".

I, like most everyone else, assumed you meant the player was "too tight" in your original post. A tight player who plays well post flop is hard to beat and sometimes just best to avoid playing against with marginal hands. There are some too tight players that i wont call w aq off or worse because i know they only raise aa,ak, Kk. I just move on to the next hand.

Generally, big pocket pairs have more value on the early streets. To beat a too tight player's superior preflop two card holding, you generally need a four card or five card holding (2 pair, straight or flush), which is easier to achieve on turn or river.

Some players overfold in middle or late position preflop, but overdefend their blinds against perceived steals. The overall vpip number might be only slightly less than optimal, and hard to notice.

Unopened pot, middle seat. A nit might openfold JTs, but lose an unnecessarily large pot when defending JTo in the BB.

The fallacy is that the player will not risk "his chips" in middle position but will overly defend "his chips" from the BB, when the actual BB does not belong to him, and he should be acting upon his equity in either scenario.

Since it can be hidden in vpip preflop I think many learning players misplay their blind defense and blind steals but never notice the leak, which is often huge.

Eliminate a bunch of offsuit combos from his range (16 vs 4) + won't have defends/enough nut combos on mid-lowish board textures, ****s me up playing vs nits/tight players instead of fish sometimes lol.

We exploitative players could make profit post-flop against the tight player even if he were playing as close to GTO as is possible after the flop comes down. Your mistake here comes from not knowing which hands the player is omitting from his range.

If he leaves out hands whilst managing to keep his range balanced I suspect that we would have to give him back some of his money. Not that it matters... There is no such thing as a player who happens to play a perfectly balanced, yet tight, preflop range, and happens to know how to use that range to play as close to GTO as is possible postflop.

In the real world, I've never met a player that is too tight pre-flop who I don't obliterate postflop -

A tight pre-flop player will not hit enough flops. JJ7, my flop. 28T, my flop. 783, my flop. These guys are missing hands preflop, which means that they miss more flops.

What you want to do is make it look as though your reasonably tight yourself, but secretly design a preflop range that destroys his range postflop. He is playing all the AQ AJ type hands so we get rid of almost all of our Ax. We still pretend to hold them, this is key, but we secretly replace these hands with things like 9T, 89. Low suited connectors are our new best friend. Controlling the size of the pot will be very important post-flop. Its important to make sure that he isn't the one controlling it!! And so position is very useful against a stronger range.

... Don't give them back anything. They are making the "mistake". Obliterate them.

You should be getting involved in pots mainly with fish.

They are your main source of profit. Avoid 8/8 rock players.

Playing live, you will not see enough hands to beat the tight player. The tight player will crush you. Better to take the advice of the guy above and concentrate on fish.

Logically, if you do not see enough hands to beat the tight player (this is illogical, but whatevs), then how do you see enough hands to know they are a tight player in the first place?

If live players are in general easier to beat than online players, you would actually see more flops in order to profit more. If a live opponent has a shared reputation as being tight and balanced (not sure what such a player would look like) then you will have to at least play your standard game against them preflop, otherwise you are playing an entire table of supposedly weak players too tightly.