(and if so: How? When? Who?)


Hi. Online it seems the mass-multitabling nits are fine and happy with just playing <15% vpip and winning mostly smallish pots with a cbet or occasionally slowplaying rare monsters or calling down vs a bluffaholic... but LIVE it's different.

Live you are one-tabling. And you have way more accurate info about your opponents' current emotional and financial condition... but less hands to take advantage ( vs. online, in a typical let's say 4-6 hour session ).

So HOW do you most efficiently, and effectively, CONSISTENTLY get your opponents to stack off to you? And I guess that also is asking WHEN?



In your experience, do you see it mostly happening on the flop by overbetting the nuts vs a tilted nit who has seen you bluff all night and finally decided to punish you? On the turn when a brick gets thin-valuebet by a LAG after your nitty self FPS-checked a flopped monster on the super-wet flop? Other scenarios you repeatedly, intentionally strive to make happen?


Really I am wondering about the experiences of others including when do you see other people stack off even to others... and then working backwards, how do you set this up more intentionally more often?

Is it mainly OTF or OTT, or when you luck out a sick 2pair OTR vs a pot-committed TAG who sees the flop draw missed? How much does wild/bluffy image of aggressor come into play when y'all are sitting 150-400 bb deep and PFRs are averaging 5-10bb (when not straddled). Yes that's what live 1/2 nl games are like here in Alberta!


Obv. I'm loving live poker, the friendly talkative atmosphere and of course the action, the gambling donators happy to play sub-GTO because they have a break from annoying spouse or children or job or w/e... Just want some opinions to help me see what I should be doing more of (and what traps I should be avoiding more too). Not happy nitting it up and playing 4 hands an hour and settling for a few tiny pots every hour or two (i.e. equiv. to what would happen one-tabling online as a safe TAG)... Nope, I WANT STACKS!

...So... Do you even?

Winning in live poker isn't about stacking people.

Yes it certainly is! Maximizing ev means stacking off.

<150bb I'm looking to stack off whenever possible.

> 150bb, I'm much more cautious.

I'd say game selection matters a bit for this topic. Just making sure your table is heavily populated by people who can overvalue top pair as well as other hands that are less valuable than they think.

The best thing about live 1/2 is that you can so often play incredibly nitty and still get tourists to give you way more action than you "deserve." Sometimes it can get annoying to see the most obvious nit in the world who plays 10/1 and just spent 5 minutes talking about why he doesn't like to play AK from the SB get that action when he raises UTG and a player with TPTK decides to donates $300 on a Q39ccx flop after he 3bet shoves OTF. Sure, QQQ might be 100% of his range from my point of view, but to the tourist he decided to fold hands for 4 hours just so he could use that image to bluff them this time with JT.

If the spots haven't come up for you yet, don't worry. They will. Just try to make sure you do things that lead people to think you're not an ultra nit. Talk with people at the table, don't dress in clothes that are overly conservative, maybe order a drink (if you're concerned it will affect you, just use it as a prop and let a friend take sips).

I see my most consistent winnings during weekdays at my local casino against regs whose games I know fairly well, and who play preflop way too loose and don't stack off postflop light at all. I don't really rake in huge pots left and right in these games; I just consistently win a lot of medium-sized pots.

If you want to take a bunch of people's stacks, drunk weekenders in touristy casinos are a great source, though these tend to be higher variance games where, in order to maximize profit, you have to be willing to lose fairly big pots 50% of the time you get to showdown.

Wow. Sick level?

Idk about that....maybe its just what works to your personal play tendencies?

But i love me some droolers

Do you buyin with 50BB?

Buying into live poker games especially 1/2 for short is -ev

Get most of your value from getting paid off in 1/2 imo...

TBH, my experience pre-Black Friday was that it was much easier to get a micro stakes online player to stack off than a live player. The biggest reason is the pain factor. For most players, losing $5 to $25 isn't a big deal. Losing $200 to $500 is different for casual players.

Getting a stack off at 100BB requires a raise and call somewhere in the hand if there is only one villain. With 3 or more, only betting each street will get you there. The biggest mistake people make is that they decide to slow play good hands like sets and straights.

Thats my point. 150BB < max buyin where I play

I frequently buy in short, 50-66bb, then top up after 1-2 orbits.

Agreed. Cash games are generally too deep to just be looking to stack people. One of the common mistakes I see from tournament players is overplaying their hands pre in such away that is suboptimal because they are used to just getting stacks in with strong preflop holdings.

I am most likely to stack someone when one of us is relatively short-stacked or when I under-represent my hand and let the donkey do the pulling instead of me doing the pushing. I like to think that I am very good at trapping aggressive players. A twenty-something drinker who looks like a frat boy and doesn't believe in participating in limped pots is pretty much my ideal target. Second-best is probably the unpredictable Asian LAG who makes random overbets that scare everyone else.

The best way to get stacks is with 3 streets of value against villains who overvalue top pair. If you size your bets correctly, you can suck them in and get them to call the river shove.

Another common way to get stacks is with Vs who constantly move in with draws. A lot of casual tourney players who make their way to cash games love shoving their draws. A lot of rec players will call off on pair-draw hands, too. Two days ago, I had a transvestite put in $300 to a pot that was $20 on the flop with 65o on a 643 board against my set of 3s. Of course, he/she hit, but I'll take those odds all day.

There's not a ton you can do to set things up because you need the cards in order to stack people. On the plus, you can play as nitty as you want and still get plenty of action. You normally don't need to create a laggy image to get action on your monster hands. Yesterday, I saw a guy literally fold for 3 hours straight. Then, he raised huge pre-flop, got 3 callers, and stacked one with his pocket aces.

At first I was like: wow! 15 replies in 7 hours!

And then I was like: dang, I think I was unclear about my hope for this thread.



So to help out, let me describe Alberta 1/2 nl games.

Especially in response to Venice10 and PokerIsTooEasy.

(PS: AsianNit and Jesse123: thanks, THAT is the kind of replies I am hoping for!)




Maybe 50% of hands are limped around, and maybe half of those a button or SB/BB raise to $20 or $25 or even $30 -- sometimes that gets all folds or 1 caller but more often 3 or 4 callers. I will often joking say out loud "in for 1 blind, in for 15..." and a few others chuckle knowingly while they fold their limp. The OTHERS don't seem to get what we find ao funny. Those limped pots often get big post-flop, not uncommon to see Paint-rag win a $100+ pot OTR with TPNK vs 2ndPair when a 3rd player chased but missed a flopped draw. Sonetimes a greasy flopped 2pair loses a lot to a turned set when they bet $15 into a $10 pot and the pocket pair is skeptical and/or gamboly.


The other 50% are straddled to $5 with a raise to $15-$25 getting cold called by more than half the table. Or there is a re-raise to perhaps 2x or even 4x that raiser. Virtually nobody folds to a 3bet (which is why TAGs make it 4x the raiser when they have QQ/AK).



So what I am saying is: the MATH of getting stacks in is definitely there.

Minimum buyin of $100 or even $50, maximum $500. But almost everyone sits with $150 or $200 or $300, as an apparent personal preference. Occasionally a true gambler buys in $100 or $70 or $50 and repeatedly shoves pre after aa small raise and possibly cold callers, or he PFRs to $10-$15 (or calls a PFR) and then lolshoves the flop (even if multiway) until he gets a stack of $200+.

This is Friday night thru Saturday night in a province where tons of umder-30 unmarried men work in oil/gas industry so have cash to shoot with. Not many OMC or silent elderly Asians (I fold AQo preflop if they PFR... again there is usually 3 or 4 others calling thoseraises preflop so bluffing is virtually out of the question).


SO... based on above I see flops a bit more often than what is correct online -- because only playing <15% of hands means I am truly leaving money on the table. The OMCs and elderly Asians sometimes cash out with $200 profit, maybe $300. But never $800+! -THAT is what I am striving to do -- so wanted others' opinions of how to collect those $200-$300 stacks from those willing to stack off. *I am not expecting to regularly play for stacks $500+ eff, just focusing on those $150-$300 stacks, a few of those in a session = the real goal.




TO BE CLEAR: Not interested in "safe" tips about playing premiums for huge preflop iso-raises and one-barrel cbets for 80% pot. Winning $20-$50 profit once or twice an hour is fine, but this is slow-paced LIVE poker, I know and have seen firsthand the potential in these weekend sessions is far greater -- just trying to "scientifically" analyze the HOW.


HTH. Looking forward to post-flop experiences/observations being shared, rather than stale online-geared mathematical-based preflop strats. The implied odds in these games is huge compared to any current online games out there, and even most LLLNL games too I bet.

Piling on, since I partially agree.

It really depends on your villains. I've had some ~$1,000 winning sessions at $1/2 where I almost never play for stacks. I'd rather win a $60 profit 5 times with almost no risk than win a $300 profit once where I'm a 60/40 favorite. And at $1/2 with loose, gambooley villains, there are a lot of situations where you can take down medium-sized pots with very little risk.

-You'll need to play LAG instead of TAG. TAG is profitable too, but involves a ton of waiting around.

-Be willing to raise with any pocket pair, suited connector/suited one-gapper, and face cards. If your opponents start three-betting, then change gears. But at 1/2, they often won't start three-betting. They'll just start calling with a massive range.

-You're going to be bluffing a lot, so position matters. Avoid building big pots where you'll be out of position.

-Establish reads on which players like to slowplay/trap. Establish reads on which players fold too frequently, and which players overchase straights and flushes. Adjust your flop betting and two-barreling based on who you're facing and the texture of the board.

-If there are other legitimate players in the game, watch out for them running plays against you. But the nice thing is, there often won't be any.

-Don't play for big pots unless you have a big hand/big draw.

Bottom line: your opponents generally aren't going to invest $300 into a pot unless they actually have a strong holding/are massively on tilt/are a gambling addict with cash to burn. So if they're willing to commit their stack, you're usually up against a hand that has some actual equity.

And many of your opponents (1) don't want to wait all night for a great hand, (2) don't want to be forced out of every pot by the guy who is constantly raising to $10 preflop, and (3) don't want to lose their whole stack, because then they'll have to go to the ATM/stop playing poker for the evening and drive home to their lonely apartment. So you should exploit position, take down a lot of small-to-medium pots on the flop and turn, and avoid traps when they actually hit/won't fold to your betting.

That's how I make my money at 1/2. Very little stacking opponents. Plenty of $50-$150 pots, where I'm betting fold equity against opponents who fold too much or betting for value against opponents who overchase. So long as no one starts playing back at me and I can get a good read on their visual tells, it's a pretty easy win.

I think you have an unrealistic expectation of your potential winrate. What you are suffering from is selective memory. You're remember those times when you saw someone get up from the table with $1000+. Your thought is, "they played like crap and won a fortune. I can do it too." You don't remember the multiple times they came in, lost 4 BIs in an hour and went home. Either you didn't see them because they were in and out so quick or it didn't register to you that the same player spewing BIs was the same player you saw winning big before.

I don't know anyone in this forum that is consistently winning 15-20BB/hr, let alone the amounts you want to win. You're not going to find the answer you seek here. Feel absolutely free to tell everyone they suck because the can't win over 20BB/hr.

i think I break even outside of the rare hands where I stack someone

i don't think this is because i'm too tight i think it's because everyone else is

like... people say don't bluff because people call too wide. it's paradoxical. it's true, they call too wide -- small bets. and they fold too wide to big bets. difference between a winner and a crusher is crusher knows when to put the screws to people.

the only time you ever see people stacking off "light" is when the victim is very obviously a fish, and that ties into the entitlement idiots have about fish (this guy sucks, i'm gonna get his money *limp-calls3b 55 oop*) you see a LAG that has two brain cells to rub together and you see people folding to him even when he's triple barreling 100%.

in short -- no, people don't stack off light -- you can't force people to stack off light -- therefore the adjustment to make is to learn to bluff. it seems like suicide and people here don't recommend it, because, if you do a bad job at it you're lighting money on fire. but if you do a good job of it.... it's good...

Grunch - obv it depends a lot. Sometimes you get the kids stacking off pre with qq against your aces. Otf is usually when you make the >20bb stacks gii. On the turn of a wet board and on the river after raise pre/bet/bet/gii

Folks, I am not expecting to regularly cash out 500bb+ profit all the time, or have 90%+ equity whenever stacks go in. I am not expecting a magic secret formula to get everyone to stack off 200bb+ light. vs my nuts.



Read my clarifying post: not your typical 200nl!

Instead of a usual online 2-3.5bb open (i.e. 1/50 up to or 1/30 of 100bb eff. ) at my weekend live games most PFRs are 5-15bb (up to 1/10 of 150bb-200bb eff. ) but more importantly they are OFTEN 4way (or more!) OTF. So the SPR is uncommonly LOW.

There are LOTS of folks who over an 8 hour session ARE consistently getting others to give the rest of those stacks post-flop while for the most part staying out of trouble (i.e. not having to rebuy 2 or 3 times before building huge stacks) ... these games are $1/2 by name but are PLAYING more like $2/5 ( or sometimes even $5/10 if straddled and 3bet often) ... with eff. stacks $150-$300. Math.


So I am just asking folks what patterns they see happening repeatedly. Obv. not thinking the tiny limped pots are always leadng to a stack-off.

I do like a few responses so far though. To encourage more like those, let's focus on the situations where there are 3..6 players seeing the Flop with remaining stacks ranging $130-$290 but the pot is already $30-$100 ... that is the common scenario. (Remove the $ and switch to BB if that helps you imagine the math involved.) Stacks go in post-flop OFTEN, trust me. And not just by LAGtard multi-rebuying gambolers.

HTH.

To get people to stack off, bet/bet/bet. Set up your betsizing so that the river bet is small enough in comparison to the pot so that they crying call, even though they "know" that you have them beat.

It's not rocket surgery.

In the situation you describe, don't bluff post-flop, not even continuation betting. Be willing to fold top pair. If the blinds like to pump it up, that's a good spot to overlimp with a strong hand with the intention of reraising. Some players think that if you limp on the button after several limpers, then you would have raised with aces and must have AK or a medium pair, so they call your reraise with a hand like 88 or KQ hoping to flip in a big pot.

My impression is that some aggressive players bet too much and too often with one pair hands in multi-way pots. They don't know how to adjust to multiway pots, so aggressive play that would make them formidable opponents when most pots are heads-up turn them into trappable fish in a multiway pot.

If there are players who seems to be consistently stacking players without losing much, are they winning big pots with medium-strength hands? Are they winning pots by betting the nuts and getting paid off? Are they winning pots by trapping with the nuts? When they stack someone, is the money going in on the flop or later in the hand?

+1

After reading this thread...

Uh, I never try to stack off...

Nope never.