I have recently been having trouble and getting poor results during my regular grind against a particular subtype of bad player in 1/3 live NL. These players have the following characteristics:

- Extremely loose preflop, not particularly aggressive though - these players play 60-100% of hands, raising with the top 10% and generally limp-calling the remainder.

- Aggressive postflop

- Low win rate at showdown (frequent bluffing as well as overvaluing medium-strength hands, and bluffing hands with showdown value)

- Like to float

- Like to call or raise with weak draws such as gutshots

In these games, a raise to 6-8x is standard and is still likely to go multiway. An open to $30 preflop is typically needed to thin the field down to heads up.

- Would you be more inclined to open-raise higher?
- Would you be more inclined to go into call-down mode even if you hit the flop (say top pair)?
- Would you try to get to showdown with say a second pair on a dry board, calling a couple of streets?
- Would you change your raising range?

Any advice is greatly appreciated, look forward to hearing from you!!!

Value bet the snot out of them pf and flop. Check the turn and collect their bets the rest of the way. Print money.

I answered yes to all your questions except the last one. I wouldnt change my range. But i dont know your range so...

I would only check top pair to them on very dry boards where i have a good blocker. Like I have AhKs and flop is Kh8h2c

This sort of villain is a vote for raising more preflop but your already going pretty big so you shouldn't need to go any higher.

Post flop a lot of bet/check/evaluate lines work well. Don't do it with every single pair but a good number. Mix in a few big hands to catch them when they have two pair. This works well with draws also, because they will bluff at river scare cards it's easier to get paid on your draws.

Second pair is very situational. If villain is spewy though you should call with some middle pairs. You really want position for this so you can check turn and keep pot small.

Raising range preflop is more set by the general conditions of the table then any one villain. Post flop it depends on how they play. If they tend to get sticky with second rate hands then raise them for value with your strong hands more. If they tend towards bet/fold bluffs then throw in some bluff raises.

One thing to looks for is bet sizing tells. A lot of these guys have pretty blatant ones but the pattern varies. Some will bet small with value and big with bluffs, other do the reverse. Try to get a sense for how often they bluff river on blank cards and scare cards, it often varies.

In any case, expect more variance. You will have to call them down lighter, so your going to be wrong more often.

My quick thoughts would be to tighten up preflop, play in position and don't bloat pots preflop unless we're at a stack size that can comfortably commit with one pair postflop.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Basically bet as big as you can for value only on flops & turns. Check/call most rivers to allow v's to bluff.

Usually from what I've seen of these guys they don't understand bet sizing at all & typically go really small relative to pot size on every street, this allows them to realize their equity cheaply when there's 110 preflop & everyone just flats their $20 lead instead of raising them. You gotta punish them with raises & all ins & ride the variance train.