A few hands from my last session - table was always 7 or 8 players (never full, never 6 or less) with mostly middle aged white guys, all playing very tight & ABC style.

Players are rarely raising preflop - most pots are having 1-2 limpets with blinds calling.

Most preflop raises are winning pots without a flop or getting flops heads-up.

Most preflop raises are $10-$15.

Hero would like to play more LAG-ish here, but Hero is not great at LAG.
Hero HATES playing big pots OOP, and avoids it.

Villains all have $150-$400. Hero has $300.

Is Hero playing too tight ?


Hand 1
Villain 1: ($500) second most tight / solid guy at table.
Hero: ($300)

Villan UTG raises to $13
Two players fold
Hero MP: AT
Hero?
(Hero folded ... All action folded)
Too tight?


Hand 2
Villain 2 is tightest player at the table - has not raised PRF in 1-1/2 hrs
Two players fold
Villain 2: ($200) MP, raises to $20
All players folded
Hero ($300) SB w/ 99
Hero puts V2 on very narrow range of JJ+/AK and folds.
Too tight?


Hand 3
V3 ($200) limps (loose passive rec player - not impressive)
Hero ($300) in SB with AJ
Hero simply completes to $3
Mistake?
(Hero hates playing OOP)
BB (new player, no read)($200) checks

Flop 89T, rainbow w/ one
Hero leads $8
BB & V3 both call

Pot: $30
Turn T

Hero doesn't want to get raised off his OESD + 2 overs and checks.
Mistake?
Hero checks.
BB & V3 both check.

Pot: $30
River: T
Hero?


In general, is the Hero playing too passive / weak OOP?

From the description it looks like you were having fun on the table all night passing the blinds to each other. Hopefully there was a nice discussion gòing on to keep everybody awake ☺just joking.
hand 1: its not a bad fold in general since a very tight player raises utg and there a very good chance your A is dominated.
Hand 2: definetely the raise denies you the odds for set mining so again the fold is not that bad since you put him on such a narrow range.
Hand 3: Not a good play I think. AJs is a very good hand and you want to play HU if OOP. So raise pre something like 12-15 and cb all the time with ur straight draw and back door.

In general the two first hands are not that bad, the third one is. But it looks that either you play very passive or scared money. if you are forced to fold hands like 99s or limp with AJ in a passive table looks like you are doing something wrong.
Personally in such a table I would open my range for raising pre and pick up all these small pots. raise and pound them non stop. pick the small pots of 30$ or so otr and dont give them the chance to see family pots. then you cam fold ur 99 pre flop witg no remorse :-)

Hand 1 and 2 are fine and actually good folds obv depending on villains but normally AT suited vs utg opening range is gonna be behind. If you did call hand 1 probably not a huge mistake regardless

Hand 3 though cmon man raise that sht up pre flop.

Grunch.

Depending on how accurate your reads are, both folds could be fine. As played with AJcc, why are you leading the flop in this situation? If seems pretty counter intuitive to your concerns. You don't want to play big pots OOP? So don't lead from OOP when you don't have a value hand. Your draw is rather weak/obvious when it hits and you won't be getting many folds on that board for one bet... just check. As played OTT and OTR check, the board ran out poorly for bluffing.

Oh yeah... and probably raise pre in hand 3 as others have mentioned.

Big picture question:

In this nitty game I'm describing, is it more profitable to:

A. Change gears and try LAG style vs the Nits, or

B. Just leave the table and try a new table selection to find a game with more action?

( After an hour of this monotonous action, I did ask to sit at a different table)

Folding ATs and 99 to a single standard raise in position is a mistake. The third hand is fine. Check river.

Sounds like the table isn't really playing at even ABC level. Before you force yourself to play "LAG", whatever you think that means, I would try to play solid TAG ABC. There's an ocean size gap between mucking 99 pre to a single raise and playing LAG. Also just bluff/float more in position post flop versus weak nits. Also play more straight cards in position (65, 64, 75, etc). There's just a ton of stuff you can do to print money vs boring tight passive nits.

Stealing a few pots is "the game within the game".

Eventually someone will get tired of it and look you up.

That's when you change gears - for a while.

But for me, I find another game, I don't get to play all that much, who wants a game like that?

Hand 1. Easy fold. Effective stacks means you don't have the implied odds to fish for a good flop and you will be dominated by an EP raise too often.

Hand 2. With nobody else in hand, fold. With a few more calls this is an easy call to set mine but here your not getting the odds and your OOP.

Hand 3. Lots of different ways you can go with this. I prefer a raise preflop but your line is OK also. As it played out, give up on river. Villain isn't likely to fold at that point.

Hand 1) Fold is fine against UTG tighter player. If I am in co or button and he plays straight up (check missed flop or checks with overs to his pair) I may play the hand.

Hand 2) Fold is good heads up. If effective stacks are $300 or another caller with stack of $200 or more I get involved.

Hand 3) This hand I raise in this situation. If the table is full of limping/calling stations with multiple V's limping I check as Ido not want to bloat a pot OOP. In this situation I take the initiative with a raise. This hand is well ahead of most limping ranges. This is a good hand to begin working on playing OOP. Just be aware that it may take more than on street of betting to win hand. As played I think flop lead is fine. Against 2 V's I probably shut down on turn.

Hand 3 I am raising pre . CBet ing then shutting down.

Hand 1 and 2: Are correct.

I would either change tables or go home and do dishes. Both are better options.

If you stay. I would be raising, almost any 2 cards from button and CO. Raising % 35 from HJ.

I'm surprised at the prevalence of incorrect responses here. Playability of hands depends a great deal on position, stack depth and opponents' skill level. No good player who plays 5/10+ full time would suggest mucking hands 1 and 2 EVER, hand 3 is whatever, you can raise or not.

I understand the fold for hand 1, I think that could go either way tho (I would call we are IP and I guess you know rest of table is folding)

Hand 2 eh I don't hate a fold

Hand 3 raise it up

Mikko is right tho change tables or bounce

Can't really see advocating OP to call here. He obviously isn't comfortable playing either hand vs a tight opening range. Therfore it is not a huge mistake for him to fold. Stacks are shallow.

Can easily find better spots to play.

Your opponents in hand 3 have a MUCH weaker range of hands than they have in hands 1 and 2. I'd fold the first two and raise #3.

Your responses are interesting because I think not raising hand #3 is terrible against a loose-passive player who limped in. AJs destroys his range and villains will call with a lot of hands we dominate.

Edit: Thinking about this more and even if you're right about folding the first two hands being a mistake, I often see players at 1-3 go way too far and call with all kinds of junk because they think they're Phil Ivey, even if they play a terrible game.

I don't think I'd call a raise to $20 in a 1-3 game standard. At some tables villains will think it's a huge raise. Most villains I see raise around $6-$15 dollars in these games. Maybe exceptions are if the game has at least a $500 buy-in (most place I play in its $300 max) or if the table is wild.

Stacks are also not big at all in hand #2.

ATs is close, if you aren't comfortable navigating an A or T high flop vs a utg range and don't really exploit fold equity then folding isn't bad...although I do back flips inside when I see a hand like this and I'm playing in position.

99 is awful fold, we are getting at least 10:1 on our hand in implied odds and our opponant has kindly announced an extremely narrow value range that consists primarily of hands that like to stack off on 9 high flops. When an opponant announces his range even more than opening from a position by adjusting his raise sizing and we have a hand that destroys a flop with 10:1 implied then I'm never folding. Suited connectors should be folded tho bc those typically need fold equity + turn and river play to be profitable.

Raise pre with AJs, AJo meh don't mknd check. I personally don't like leading open ended here bc a T98 flop hits like 80% of their calling range so betting really doesn't accomplish too much other than building a pot. I like check raising much better and barreling most of not all turns. Fold equity is your friend...always remember that.

Hand 1 is a clear call. in LLSNL, our profits will come from prison raping our villains when they hit inferior draws or strong hands when we have the nuts. The nice thing about ATs is that if the board hits K Q J then our villains have strong enough hands to pay us off with as they aren't folding 2p combos or T9 straights . And when they have a flush, we prison rape them with the nut flush. Obviously, we aren't playing for the ace and if the Ace hits we really need two pair. But again, we hit 2p aces up we get to prison rape AK and AQ. So yeah, for 3BB I'm calling with ATs all day every day and twice on Sunday. Easy call imo. We have the implied odds for it and these are the sorts of calls we need to be making when the price is right and eff stacks are 100bb. Lastly, if the original raiser folds on a T high board then we own the lesser Tx hands that call. And if we are really lucky we get a T T X flop and can stack a Tx hand. Yes, all the scenarios I envision collectively probably account for 15% of flops/turns when added together (flopped flush draw turn flush, flopped straights, flopped flushes, flopped trips, flop TPTK and original raiser c/folds) but that is okay. If we get favorable conditions 15% of the time we only need to make back 20bb-ish to be profitable, and with multiple villains in the hand (likely domino effect of us calling) we can easily get back 20bb if we bink and potentially even win the occasional 200bb - 300bb pot when we flop/turn gin.

Hand 2 is right on the line. We barely are getting 10:1 on a call to set mine which is close to the threshold of profitability for set mining, so set mining getting 10:1 odds is really close to break even. So folding here isn't terrible by any stretch. Calling is meh. Heads up vs tight player, I fold

Hand 3, I like a raise preflop. Yes, we are OOP, but our hand is still stronger than our villains so I don't mind raising preflop. I'm a big fan of raising preflop becuase our villains will put us on AK so we can destroy them when a Jack hits and they stack off with their QJ or KJ or J9 bs because they put us on AK. Not to mention we have a nut flush draw and nut straight draw hand that again can prison rape lesser hands. So I don't mind a raise and probably raise AJs in this spot like 90% of the time.

Thanks for the clear analysis. Thanks to all for the feedback.

Sounds like my takeaways are:

1. The deeper effective stacks are, the more profitable calling is with these PPs and Nutted potential hands.
2. Nutted potential hands can be very profitable considering any "domino effect" with multiple callers, if calling the initial raiser would be a close EV call. I could dominate draws of any additional callers.
3. AJs is obviously stronger than the range of one limper and the BB, and I should be raising Pre
4. I need to improve playing OOP.
5. I need to work on exploiting boring Nits who play "fit or fold".

Anything Else?

6. Improve playing in position first.

The first hand is easy call for anyone that is comfortable playing post flop. However if you are posting it here. Then you obviously are not comfortable playing raised pots post flop.

So I suggest you raise more hands in late position. Where you can play raised pots in position with initiative.

Good luck.

Hand one is a trivial preflop fold for me to a tight UTG raiser when pot is not going to go multiway. ETA: I actually thought raiser was shortstacked, didn't realize we were 100bbs deep. However, I still think a fold here is fine since we're only in MP and don't want to be the first one calling the raise. If we were in LP (especially after callers) then I'd much more likely see a flop.

Hand two is also a perfectly acceptable fold. We're putting in 10% of our stack preflop which sucks. The only benefit we have is that Villain is super tight and probably on an overpair and thus will probably stack off most times when we flop a set (however, even that's not guaranteed, such as when he has KK on AJ9 flops, etc.). I think folding here is fine.

Hand three, I also hate playing bloated pots OOP but typically in deeper stack situations and against tricky players. Here, stacks are short (limper and BB are only playing 66 bbs) plus limper seems a fairly non-tricky type. So this is an easy raise to $20 / stack off with TP, otherwise hopefully take it down with a 1/2 PSB cbet scenario, imo. As played, I'm fine with postflop (although I might bet smaller on the flop).

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