So I've noticed a tendency of players in live low stakes poker to bet a lot of marginal made hands like 9T in a 3 way pot on a KT3 board. Do you think this is a common tendency in your games and what is your adjustment? Do you start raising with top pair good kicker, call lighter, or semi-bluff more given that their betting range is weaker.

at low stakes OOP i ch/raise more semi semi bluffs & pure bluffs (ie i raise from EP and a LP or blind call and its less than 3 to the flop) Ch/call more TPWK hands. Sometimes ch/raise TP w/ BD draws sometimes just call.

Basically my ch/raise % increases a lot vs players like that

IP i call and float a ton more use almost every flush as a bluff, look for spots to raise rivers if they try VB thin and small.

When a weak player raises your river bet your 99% of the time no good - that principal also applies and most like bad recreational players will talk themselves into seeing MUB often.

I am ignoring balanced play in these spots and pretty much focusing entirely on live exploitive strategies.

A lot of these bets are feeler bets. A raise just causes them to fold. So the exploitative play is to raise when you have nothing and call when you have something. Just resist the urge to show.

Lol ok raise them with nothing and get torched by a king. Maybe some will lead with a 10, but a lot more often a lead into a multi way pot is just obvious top pair.

Only adjustment to these guys is eventually going for thin value with 2nd pair otr imo.

Most players that donk middle pair into the field are terrible and are not "range-merging". They flopped a piece and want to "see where they are at". These players usually have bet sizing tells (usually tending toward smaller bets with weaker holdings). If you pick this up and distinguish hand strength, obv venice is right - bluff raise them off middle pair and call when you are WA.

Most reply here seem to have missed the point Imo...
Op asks about merged ranges in multiway pots, not about how to play against donk fish....
Playing against a properly merged range is tough, and you need to assign the range appropriately to work out where your at.... The point of the merge is to widen the value range because we have an appropriate bluff range to compensate for our 'usual' value range.....
Ie: if villan believes we are polarised perfectly and have exactly the correct frequency of bluffs to value hands based on our bet size, he can work out the % of time he should call with any hand that beats our bluff range....if this % is above zero we can begin to add in more hands that beat villans bluff catchers......we are merging our value and sub-value ranges that beat villans bluff catchers.....
The appropriate response to this is to either call less with weaker holdings, ie don't call with less that tp.....or raise more bluffs getting villan to fold a higher % of his merged value range......

Not sure what stakes you play but very few llsnl players are thinking about merged ranges, most don't even consider polarisation, and certainly dont ascertain pre-emptively tgat if the make a bet they will be polarised.

There are several things I do to punish this, but they arent all things I do just to punish this.

I tend to check back TPNk type hands basically whenever the hand isnt too exciting (like A9 on an A64 board), figuring anyone who hits the 2nd pair on the turn will bet it and i can just call down and win an ok pot.

I also raise my draws aggressively, but thats true against all opponents.

If you see weakness you raise. Donk bets and blocker bets are great opportunities to do so, although I wouldnt necessarily bluff raise as much multiway.

Floating. Basically call with gutshots, overs, bdfd+1 over, lots of hands that have a good number of reasonably exciting turn cards. Again not as good to float multiway, although you can normally glance over and see the other guy is gonna fold or call.

Ok so I may have screwed up by writing "merge" implying that villains were not in fact "donk fish" when I was in fact talking about donk fish villains.

I still appreciated the write up ronrabbit as I don't think I previously fully understood why one would use a merged range.

I think you mean condensed range not merged. In your example the donk leads with a condensed range of marginal made hands.

A merged range is adding hands from a condensed range into a polarized range.

Ex: River is

K4:QT:9

One's betting range here should usually be polarized towards air and Js. But one can add hands like KQ to create a merged range and get thin value from other 2p or possibly even get sets to fold.

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A decent rule of thumb is to never expect a donk fish to fold tp..... Of you have tptk raise them for value is you know they have tpnk, but don't bluff raise they just won't fold top pair often enough for it to ever be profitable.

If you substituted "very few" with "virtually none," I agree. Anyone at the table trying to impress people is going to use the term "GTO" instead of "merged" range" these days. You can be assured that they don't know what they are talking about.

Play tighter preflop and bet your made hands hard

Note to self....don't post while drunk.....
That reads back terribly!
We get alot of young Internet kids playing and they always have there little clique conversation about ranges and Gto play....I like to chat with them also, most of them think I am a fish (I probably am).... But I seem to own there souls.....
It's an interesting dynamic in alot of ways when they discuss hands and talk about balance, it's all just free info..... But very few of them really talk about merging ranges... You can spot the inet kids, they never ever limp.... The ones to watch are the ones that do Internet but also limp, they understand the theory behind online play and the explorative nature of live play....
But back to merging I think I have played with two villans that I think are capable of merging on purpose, one is an inet pro, and one is a middle aged pro..... Recs usually stop off at polarised.

Still not clear if OP is talking about condensed ranges or merged ranges. Seems like he means condensed ranges.

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^ I think he just means donk fish that value bet tpwk in multi-way pots....
Not sure we should be calling the range merged or condensed, just I haz tp, I need to bet type range

I would say he means wide ranges of nearly exclusively made hands. (generally fish dont bluff or semi bluff but will bet their 2nd pair)

Which, actually, answering this question sort of gave me a thought on how to think about playing back at this:

When V's betting range is basically 100% made hands, it means a ton of turn and river cards caps their range. Like if a flush or straight hits the turn its very very unlikely they have it. For that matter if an overcard comes its unlikey they have it unless they hit a two pair, which is why floating works so well, you can take it away by bluffing half the deck on the turn.

The best "adjustment" to make is to play solid poker, IMO.

Recognize that when someone bets, they are forcing you to either fold, or continue with a narrower range. Generally bad hands will fold and good hands will call/raise. If you are betting with a hand that can't beat very many of the hands that you get called by, you are bluffing. Bluffs are generally close to neutral EV. When you bluff with a hand that had value as a checkdown/bluffcatcher you are turning a +EV hand into a ~0 EV hand.

My point is that you can beat them without adjusting at all.

As for actual adjustments, don't hero call with the bottom of your range even if you believe the opponent is overbluffing, because they're probably bluffing with middle pairs or even top pairs quite a bit. Raise thinner for value and bluff more.