1/2, 6-handed nitty game

Tight reg Hero’s stack 400 (rest cover)

V is UTG2, he hasn’t played a big hand in forever, I saw him raise pre/bet 35/bet 65/check first to act OTR with KK on J64ss4xTx so seems really nitty/straightforward



OTTH....

UTG straddle 4, Hero opens 20 UTG1 with AA, V (UTG2) calls, BTN and UTG call

Flop (80): AJ6r
Check, Hero bets 25, UTG1 nit raises to 75, fold, fold, Hero calls

Turn (230): 4x
Hero donks 75, V snapcalls

River (380): Qx
Hero bets 200, V says “ugh you got there” and mucks in disgust


Preflop and flop seem pretty standard. I have the flop locked down so bad that I can’t imagine betting bigger. When he raises, I’m trying to hide my boner. Just calling obv.

Turn: his range looks good Ax, 2p+ and the standard play would obv be to check to him but if he checks his Ax behind for pot control, it’d be a disaster as we’d be unable to get stacks in. OTOH, he’s never folding if we lead turn ourselves, but if we go too big, he might get MUBSY and fold something like AK. So I bet the same amount hoping he shoves his 2p+, calls his Ax and if he just calls, shoving all rivers.

River: Stuck to my plan, but left $30 behind as some players fear the “all-in”. I don’t know if I can ever have any bluffs here but I can only hope that he calls whatever he has. When he makes that speech, it feels like he folded AK.


Did I play this okay? The only thing I could do different IMO was checking turn (to call or shove) but he’s probably bet/folding AK to a turn shove anyway so maybe I could check/call turn and donkshove river? Or maybe donk a little bigger like $125 OTT to get him more committed by the river? Or as played, bet smaller OTR? But then, if he showed up with 2p and just called the small bet on the river, I’d hate myself for not shoving/betting larger.

I just have a hard time stacking nits no matter how fancy/unorthodox I play. I feel the best play would be to just bet $100-125 OTR since he’s capped at Ax once he just flats my turn donk instead of shoving?

yeah i feel like larger turn sets up much easier river jam.
I'm also inclined to check to Villain on the turn rather than donking as i expect him to bet, and i expect him to bet >> $75. Depending on size you could either jam if he was committing himself or just call and donk jam river which, by the way, is such a tiliting and donk line in villains eyes especially if the river bricks...

Flop I'm probably betting slightly more. If he raises depending on the size I'm just calling here (lets say 100$).. but if I'm just calling I'm most likely checking the turn looking to x/r all in. He made himself the aggressor try to let him keep betting into you. You still have 2 streets to GII. If the flop is raised to 100$ and called then the turn makes the pot 280$ leaving you with a pot sized bet.

So with 280$ on the turn and about 280$ behind. I'm checking, anything he bets I'm coming over the top with a jam. Most likely he's betting at least 100$. If he checks back here sure it sucks but that's fine. You essentially have the nuts no matter what river comes here. No flush and only gutshots available and a nit isn't raising this flop with a gutshot.

If you check the turn and he checks back I'm donk jamming the river.

Calling the raise then donking looks pretty strong. He's probably thinking you're not going to put so much of your stack in there without a stronger hand considering he showed aggression and you keep fighting back (remember he's a nit, if he folds easily make him build the pot in this case). There are no real draws here. This looks like 2pair/set to me.

Stacking nits isn't easy.. but I feel like it's easier when they are in control.

i dont like the turn donk bet, he already raised flop and we are underrep. if he is raising with sets or 2pairs, he will sure bet turn then we check raise commit him and shove any river.

I think your decision to just call the flop is more geared towards people who might be bluffing or raising light. Against a nit, there's no reason to slowplay since they only raise when they have a super strong hand. So you should try to get as much money in as early as possible to avoid them getting scared by turn/river cards.

When you stack a nit for 200BBs and he doesn't have more than 1 pair, let us all know.

Turn donk is a disaster. If villain is aggro enough to raise TPTK on the flop, then he's certainly aggro enough to barrel his TPTK when he gets the safest, brickiest turn card in the deck.

We should be x/jamming turn.

Against a nit, we make the same amount by check/jamming the turn that we did by leading the turn (assuming villain bets $75 on the turn if we check. The nit is going to fold to a crai on the turn. Hero could've bet a little more though). The river Q was a really bad card and killed our action.

Hero's line is fine.

You won more than usual when flopping a set of aces, since you generally aren't going to win a large pot unless the board is very wet.

This is precisely why I think we should lean towards fastplaying the flop against a nit when he have the nuts and are raised.

The best place to put action in vs a nit is on the flop since:
1. They can think we have a semi-bluff.
2. They can think they need to protect their hand.
3. They can think they can improve if behind.
4. There are fewer scary cards.

On the river is the worst time to go for fat value against a nit and the best time to bluff them.

Nothing wrong with that either. In most hands there are multiple lines that are +EV and in a game of limited info there's really no way of knowing in advance which line has the highest EV.

As far as your final sentence, if OP is constantly losing value to regs and nits, which Ive seen him post about before, he needs to grab his balls and start making large river bluffs against them.

How much are his balls worth in chips?

Correct, but as you can see, he raised a single paired A here as I cbet only a quarter pot. So he’s definitely raise/folding to a flop 3! unless he has 2p. And there are no scary turns really.

Plus, a quarter pot cbet could even have induced a hand like ATs or even any Ax to raise my flop cbet to “find out where they’re at”. So we can’t be 100% sure that he has a hand that’s calling a flop 3! as often as we think.

In his shoes personally, I’m BET/FOLDING $100 on turn with AK. So I don’t know why you think check/jamming turn will get us paid off.

Your image makes me nauseous

If raise, barrel, barrel, check to induce possibly even to thin c/r is the best example you have to label a guy a nit he might not be a nit imo.

Why?

Not sure what you’re saying. Can you word it better?

Check jamming would be terrible. Hero was unlucky a Queen hit on the river. He got lucky that villain raised him on the flop though. Pot could have been much smaller and nit would have still folded river.

Exactlyyyyyyy. It’s funny what cbetting a lol-1/4 PSB in these live games can do.

I'm very uncomfortable with the turn lead, he was probably going to bet more than that and will just call whatever our number is without forethought, i think that is the spot where you lost value

check the turn and expect him to bet more than 75, if he checks, check river too, nits gotta get value somewhere and often overbet the times they think they are good

True nits don’t get stacked, they get bled and drained. If you stack a bit it’s a cooler. Don’t worry about stacking a bit, just keep the pressure on.

There is that ever-elusive turn ckc you know. Hero's line is horrendous once the nit lol raises flop. MUST ckc turn ck river with the expectation that we are in a set over set or set>2p spot while being able to get the max from AK and sometimes AQ.

Lol so true.

I would have preferred a XR OTT versus your donk. But as Mike states above, it is going to be very difficult to stack a true nit when they only have top/top.

+1