This hand has been on my mind since last week. The villain in question is MAWG who is a NIT, but somehow was sitting on $600 when i joined the game. He was l/f pre flop very often, only really stuck around on the flop and folded on later streets unless he improved.

My basic plan vs him was b/f, b/f, b/f.

About 3 hours into the sesh he makes his first raise which made alerts go off in my head before even looking at my hand. We pick up JJ and we just flat (considered 3b/f pre but decided against it).

To the hand:

Nit ($550ish) opens to $13 from EP, hero (covers) decides to flat from MP, BU joins, and SB ($400) calls.

Flop ($52): 943
SB (who is another nit/tighter player) leads out for $30. I don't think he's ever leading out a draw or a set here, it's usually always over cards and a 9, so not super concerned with his bet at this point in the hand. EP calls, hero flats, all else folds.

Turn ($142): 4 SB checks, and EP makes it $35....
This is obviously a weak/blocker type bet. Is this a good spot to try to apply pressure here? I don't know how often he folds QQ+, I doubt if he even has AKdd here as he's 1) likley not opening AKs for a raise PF and 2) wouldn't make a weak bet like that on the turn. So if his range is primarily QQ+ and we have one street left to go, is it a optimal to try to get him off his hand?

Or is this a get to show down/fold spot with our hand vs this particular villain?

You're probably behind his EP opening range so the question from the beginning is, does he pay off a big bet at the end because he's been waiting for those aces for 3 hours and isn't giving them up for nothing. If so, set-mine. If not, or in other words if he will fold those aces to a big enough bet at the end, pretend you're on a flush draw and bomb the river if it hits. Just remember, you can't have it both ways.

I don't like the b/f line against a nit. That works better against a someone who is on a weak range, who will reliably let you know (by raising) if you fall behind. Neither one applies to the nit. They are typically on a strong range, and they are more likely to be passive-aggressive, by smooth calling with the nuts. For the precise purpose of exploiting your line.

If the NIQ (nit in question) has any chips, you can take at least some of them regardless of whether they are the stubborn sort of nit or the foldy sort of nit, you just have to get a read on them and act accordingly. You won't make much because they aren't in many hands to begin with, and there is a low probability of both of you having hands worth playing at the same time. So don't get too excited.

Possible villain ranges?

AKs, QQ+

That's about it I guess. I wouldn't discount AKs here. It will indeed be a peculiar line if he waited 3 hours for QQ+ and then play so meekly when they finally have the "nuts".

In any case, given the super tight range you put him on, just call turn and give up river if he bets half pot or more at river.

Don't really like this texture to run a bluff here.

Like it even less that there are multiple players

We also have very very little equity.

Yeah that's a huge problem.

How to isolate the nit is problematic. Hero perceives that he has to raise somewhere, but where?

-You can raise pre to iso, then hope he doesn't notice you're uncapped. And then deal with the fact you're pumping a lot of money into the pot pre and OTF and hoping for a payout at the end.
- Raising OTF is generally kind of stupid, he folds AK and calls with QQ+. You might like the dead money out there and to be clear, half his range could be AK and sometimes you might could get it with a cbet. But not here. Whatever he's calling with, he ain't folding to a raise so forget about that.
- Raising OTT gets pretty durn expensive. Other guy might fold, nit's not folding until the scare card actually hits and you gotta watch stack sizes, he'll shove on you if you aren't careful.

This is why I kind of prefer the stubborn kind of nits. If I happen to find myself heads up against the foldy kind of nit, and he's not betting too strongly, I'll take a swipe at him. But that doesn't come up very often. And sheesh you gotta get a read first.

It's fun and all but at the end of the day, it's important to remember that nits actually have a kind of good defensive strategy. They don't make much money but they don't lose much either. That's what makes them nits. Are there any other people at the table? Are there any other tables going?

AP, fold OTF. You missed.

This is a bad hand to bluff with. we don't know if this guy is a folder yet, and I'm not going to use a 5%-equity-when-called hand to find out. Just raise next time when he makes a weak bet on the turn after raising pre and you have a gutshot.

Flop seems like the perfect opportunity for a parlay raise (i.e. the raise is a bluff against the nit PFR and a value raise against the flop donker).

I would put a raise in ott a lot. That bet looks super weak, I think it's almost 100% draws and 9x. I'm not super clear about whether this is the hand that we have JJ, but if it is than flop would've been the time to put a raise in to charge draws.

To be clear facing that weak of a bet ott I would be OK w a raise w atc.

That's how.

Folks, before you bet into someone OTT, stop and ask how strong their range is.

A TAG playing in position is usually weak OTT and might fold to a raise. A TAG playing in EP, and a nit playing in any position is by definition on a strong range.

There's usually a correlation between bet-sizing and aggression, but not always. Remember, the nit's strategy is to disguise the strength of his hand. Which is ridiculous, I know. I guess they get tired of people turbo-folding when they bet, so they slide those little teeny sucker bets out there and hope somebody falls for it.

I think given that he raised PF, we can safely discount AKs here for this particular villain. His raising range imo (specifically EP raising range) is likely just QQ+ AP, I did choose to call turn since any J I still think I could've stacked him





It's hard to put NIT on a 9x here, and even less likely he semi-bluffs if he somehow ends up having a draw on this board.

Very interesting point.

So I can get on board w that my initial read is probably not correct here, that his overall hand strength maybe much stronger than a typical player making a blocking bet. Which makes this hand actually much more interesting and tbh I don't have a good answer in this case.

I would be interested to know if we have reads on what his typical call down range looks like and whether we think this heater he's been on will make it wider or more narrow.

The reason I wonder is obv bc even if his range crushes Jj here, he has almost no 5 card hands in his range by the river, and I'm evil and would certainly like to exploit him if he can't call down w this big of a stack without one.

Very interesting.

If you think you could stack him on any J, then what makes you think you can bluff him?

Yeah we would need to get 25:1 by this logic alone. If we solidly feel like we're both behind and that we can't Bluff than turn is a sure fold.

I actually think the flop is just a fold. Against a nit who you're literally saying their range is QQ+, and a donk bet which is likely a draw now, our equity is ****, and idk about you, but trying to get someone to fold QQ+ on a 9 high board in 2/2/3 sounds like lighting money on fire.

Why do we continue after flop? Maybe we can get him to fold by raising turn to $180 and shoving river, but maybe not and the times we can't are just disastrous.

If our read was QQ+ we exploit this by just folding our JJ on 9 high boards. Not by shoveling money into the pot and saying "I have a full house, hope you believe me".

I didn't think I could've bluff him, hence the reason why I only called the turn, and double checking here if my logic was correct/incorrect. Looking back, folding turn is probably optimal because often we're only drawing to 2 outs, and like the poster above mentioned I don't have the odds to call in this spot.

Yes, with this logic fold makes more sense on the turn.

I wasn't ready to fold my over pair yet, and maybe that is lighting money on fire, but I don't mind continuing with JJ on the flop getting almost 4:1 on my money, after the NIT just flats. Again, maybe my logic is a bit flawd here, but I think peeling on the flop is fine.

Going back to the original question. Is this a good spot to apply pressure vs said villain. Some good insight from the answers so far

1. Is he the folding or stubborn kind of NIT?
When he limped/call he def was the folding kind of NIT, but obviously that's the weaker portion of his range he's playing compared to coming in for a raise from EP.

2. When a NIT raises from any position, his range by default is tight.
This is a great point AbqDave made, and it should make future decisions a lot easier vs NITs, Tags, Lags.

3. Fold turn
this is likely most optimal on the turn given A) I don't have enough IO's to call, B) I don't think I can get him off of an over pair here.... Maybe if I have the balls to ship over his $35 turn bet, but that's too fancy and won't risk that kind of money. But I doubt he folds to standard raises on the turn.

I highly doubt this villain is putting in another $500 with one pair. Full speed ahead! I think the harder question is whether to shove if our river bet gets called.

+1

How much to raise on the turn? and assuming we're anticipating a call, our river play is to always ship river (other than non A/K rivers)?

So we're not calling OTT because we've out our opponents on a hand stronger than JJ, specifically the narrow range of QQ-AA, because we've eliminated other pocket pairs from V's range preflop. Let's continue and assume this read is 100% accurate.

On the turn there is $142 in the pot, and we're facing a bet of $35, with the SB behind us, still to act, who could also have us destroyed, and we haven't even considered this and each player has ROUGHLY $500 behind.

A pot sized raise on the turn would be to $247, leaving you no FE on the river for QQ+, so we need to find a smaller size if we want to run a multi-street bluff with our overpair (lol) Raising to $150 or so sets you up for a $350 shove OTR, which seems like the right size to try this play but in your original post you already said "I don't know how often he folds QQ+"

The raise to $150 needs to work ~25-30% of the time to break even, and then if called the bet of $350 needs to work ~30% of the time to break even.

This is a high variance line that I HATE, specifically because of the hands we're trying to get to fold. Old nits don't fold AA. It's just science. Additionally, I don't know if you're that comfortable shoving $350 otr as a bluff. But that varies from person to person, and based on bankroll. $250 OTT may be a better play, it needs to work 33% of the time to break even, but if called I'm giving up on the river.

EDIT: This is also why I'm just folding flop. Against a range of QQ+, our hand is just as strong as 22. We set mined. We missed. Next hand. So many turns we hate as well. Diamonds and we could be drawing dead, any over card, 9.

For some reason I thought this was a flush board! If the turn is the backup 4h, I think a raise is good. As is, yeah maybe we should just give up.

never 3bet pre with jj against nits. kk is an easy 3bet fold. flat QQ-22 and ak pre. fold everything else pre. if its likely to go hu...id fold ak pre as well unless u plan to make moves. u just wont make money when ak vs qq jj when u hit TP.

as played flop is a fold unless u think he peels with ak aq.

as play probably fold turn without better reads. his bet is a scared TT+ but we have no idea if hell fold.

if we do bluff...u have two options. bluff raise to $180 and give up. Or rise to $100 and shove any river for ~$400 into ~$360 pot.

The call on the flop was a bit weird given the range of hands I had put him on. That range I'm expecting him to put in a raise to protect his equity in the hand with 3 players left to act behind him. It's possible it was AK, but unlikely.

The more responses I'm getting, the more it seems like I should've treated my JJ like 77 and folded on the flop. It's possible that having an over pair to the board made me make the flop/turn call, but I should realize that the relative strenght of my hand vs this villain and his range is like 77 at this point.


Thanks for the response guys, AP, I called turn, SB folds, river was a black, NIT bets $40, hero folds, he shows AA before racking up.