Title is the best way I can describe the strategy briefly. To explain, this V will call widely pre, to include raised pots. Check call until board gets scary, then check raise and/or bet pot or more. The effect of this strategy is that it punishes a lot of non-nut hands. Hands which other players might put a lot of money in the pot with thinking they are premium.

2 questions:

1) How common is this player type? Right now I’m at a $1-3 table against a V with this strategy. I’ve been at a table with another V with a similar strategy (who employed the strategy more selectively and frankly better).

2) How best do we combat this semi-maniacal player?

My strategy right now is to keep a tightish range pre, pot control on non-bitter hands, but then call down his raises pretty wide, perhaps with 2nd pair or better.

(Note: just had my first real hand with this player. After limpers, I raise pre $20 from CO with KQo, V calls one limper callsflop comes Qd6d5c, I bet 1/3 pot, he calls. Turn is 7s. He donks

1. Not that common. It's one of those strategies that can punish regular fish players but falls apart against better ones.

2. There isn't a single strategy but there are some standard parts. First get position on this guy. Having position on this sort of strategy is a huge advantage because you can check behind for pot control. Second, bet your draws more often against this type so it's more likely you hit when the board does get dangerous. Third, don't slow play your huge hands, play them like your marginal hand and try to get him to raise.

How often is he bluffing? If he will stick around with ATC and bet any time a flush or straight become possible then you will have to call down a lot. If he only sticks around with hands that have some potential then read the board carefully and consider how likely the hands are. Call down less against this type in general.

How big is his sizing? If he is making pot sized or bigger bets then you don't have to pick off many bluffs to make money. Don't feel bad to give up marginal hands that might be ahead. As his bets get smaller then you need to call wider.

Get as much read as possible on what he plays preflop. If he plays any two suited cards then 3 to a straight is much less dangerous then a flush coming in. Also A-rag suited becomes more valuable if he is likely to play lower flushes but don't pay too much here, flush over flush is unlikely just because of card removal. If he plays unsuited cards then look at how widely to see what he could have. Also, low connectors become worthless if he is likely to have a higher straight. High connectors become more valuable because villain is likely to bluff into you when you have top straight.

Against this type bets intended to induce a raise are often deadly. When you do have a huge hand bet the turn small and let him raise. Make a reluctant call and get him to bet the pot on the river.

Is he paying any attention to what you are doing? At 2/5 and below you will run into a fair number of players who have a particular style and are reasonably good at it but don't adjust to what their opponents are doing. Once you figure out their strategy you can play to counter it and crush them. If they are paying attention then you have to adjust things on the fly to counter how they are adjusting to your play.

The specific example you give is one too call down. The 7s is unlikely to complete a straight. If he is calling flop wide enough that could help him he has a lot of other hands.

Thanks for detailed reply, this is great. This player has left the table but I expect to meet similar in the future.

This particular V was hard to range because people folded to his big bets so often. Not a lot of showdowns. I was mostly card dead, and I only got into 3 hands with him really. Hard to say if he knew what I was doing, probably just assumed I was weak tight unless I hit TPGK+.

One hand the board was dramatically connected (5 flush hearts by river, easy fold since I didn’t have the suit, he showed Q9o but had Qh which was the nuts). He’d hit it on the turn and actually played passively OOP, likely hoping to check raise.

The other was the aforementioned KQo vs AKd hand, player very aggressive on turn.

Lastly ran into a rivered set of Jacks. Played very passively. No 3bet pre, check calling all the way. Straight-y board flop, turn put 2 FDs OTT.

So I noticed tendencies, opposite poker mostly, weak when strong, strong when weak, but was unable to capitalize. I can say he probably limped 60% of hands if allowed, seldom raised pre, and seldom folded to raises pre, (called like 75% of raised pots, especially if he already had money in) even when the bet was large. We can probably extrapolate that it’s not just suited connectors he’s calling with.

Edit: Also, if we plan to call the KQ hand down, was shoving before flush got there good or bad? My thought at the time - if we aren’t folding scare cards shouldn’t we just want to get it in good?

So from what I gather he's just playing bingo poker right? He's calling very wide hoping to catch any piece then trying to outdraw someone no matter what he has. If thats the case you can play quite wide against him. Just establish a range thats marginally better than his. If he's playing any two suited then lock your range at 7suited or better. If he's playing as low as Jack rag then you can isolate him with Q9o+. If he's playing all unsuited double gappers like 58o then you just play all suited gappers 75s+ and unsuited J9o+. Basically you're looking to hit the same textures as him so when he turns into a station he's always severely behind your draw.

Immediately back down when he shows counter aggression, no matter how obvious it seems. He isnt exploiting you, and even if he eventually takes a stab hopefully it's at the wrong time and you have one of your stronger draws and can play back.

Now I assumed he was bluffing with other folks. He would let them overextend themselves on those scary boards and place a well timed check raise or IP bet for pot+ and get folds. Most of those boards had both straight and flush possibilities. I thought the chances of him having nothing in these spots was high. Maybe not nothing but not what he repped. He wasn’t exactly a station, he was selectively aggressive in spots that were tough for the other players. I thought I should call him down (or players like this, cause I’ve bumped into one other) lightly.

One thing I have learned from you and QuadJ both is to pay more attention to his exact hand range. I was paying attention to the table when I wasn’t playing, but there wasn’t much that I thought was notable outside of the scary board play. I thought just classifying his range as just “wide” was enough. Seeing how knowing exacts is beneficial.

As said above, this isn't common at 1/3. It does cause problems for 1/3 players who play and stay in with marginal hands. Imagine how tough this strategy would be if he played pf with a tighter range then the table and was raising pf instead of calling. Something to consider.

The key for him, that I find an interesting wrinkle, is that he punishes hands that appeared to start as premium and became marginal on the turn or river. He let passive players shovel money, pretty obvious these players had overpairs, then laid the hammer down when the board got scary. They'd call turn but fold to a huge bet on the river.

And earlier this week I went up against a player with similar tendencies who could hand read better. Spent too much time (and money) adjusting to his game.

I either did not see this tactic when all the tables in the area were $1-2 (inflation has killed the 1-2 game here I guess, all $1-3 now), or my awareness is improved now.

So...loose passive w/ bluffs on scary boards? V will be playing a lot of garbage so 3!/value bet relentlessly and play passive when you have nutted hands on scary boards to induce bluffs. Don't let him push you around, be prepared to make some light calls. Or let him push you around when you have great hands, Be patient and don't let him tilt you, you'll score huge pots against him eventually.

60% is a stupid wide range. That isn't just suited connectors, it's any pair, any suited ace or face card, any suited connector and 1 gapper, any 2 unsuited face cards, some unsuited connectors and 1 gappers and a bit of other random garbage.

How often does he continue post flop? He can't have good draws very often with that sort of range. Do remember that he has roughly the same chance of having one pair on the flop as anybody else, don't get entirely carried away with calling him down.

Against this sort of opponent you will mostly not want to shove. You want him to continue with his bluffs and shoving forces them out.

This strategy depends heavily on exploiting that default "call once and give up to continued aggression" strategy. Expect this sort to barrel at least twice once they get aggressive. If you call their turn aggression then you need to be planning on calling the river also.

Perfect. Very succinct, and easy to develop a strategy against his strategy. Thanks again.

Ehhh, the last thing you want to do in a live game is become the station. Who are the players that we chase? The guys who call down too much, especially river bets. Dont be that guy. V is going to turn up with some hands.

IMO you simply attack this guy and maintain initiative. Once that battle is lost you give up, because you *too* will turn up with some hands. Let him be the guy who thinks he can exploit you with a river bluff failing to recognize you've adapter your range to outdraw him every time he tries.

If villain is going to habitually call flop with any pair/any draw and some air and then bet/check raise the turn if he has value or any possible draw came in then sometimes you will have to station him off with single pairs sometimes.

The goal isn't to be a station in general. The point is that when you do call the turn you have to be planning to call the river against this specific guy because he is probably going to bet no matter what he has.

If villain check/raises the turn on a Jh7s6h3s board and you call with QQ you need to be ready to call any river. This heavy bluffer type is going to bluff any H, any S and most other cards T and less. He may bluff J+ but might give those up sometimes.

Which isn't to say you are not allowed to reevaluate. If a terrible card hits and fills in 4 to a straight flush you can give up.

Selectively station, but don’t pick up bad habits. Just like we’re selectively TAP against a pure maniac, or we overfold to nits.

Well yeah I consider that to be a very strong hand vs villain. I was speaking more towards the lighter call downs like you have 97ss. In that case if you whiff river you're probably folding if he bets.

Another strategy if you don't want to bloat the pot with turn and river call is to check-raise V with marginal hands. Generally this type slows down on the turn or even fold to turn bet once his 'victim' starts fighting back.

You didn't whiff, you have 2nd or 3rd pair (board Jh7s6h3s) depending on river. This is the kind of hands V's trying to river bluff off. (Incidentally this is a good hand to check-raise turn per the last comment.)

You're gonna call and lose sometimes, that's the downside to playing against this type of V. The variance is going to go up since you're going to showdown with more marginal hands. In return you win bigger pots with marginal hands.

As already stated, another strategy is (if the variance isn't acceptable) to make strong hands and let V hang himself, though some V do learn to slow down against nitty players waiting to trap.