I'm struggling with a player type in my home game. In this game most people buy in for 200-250BB so stacks are deep and get deeper. The deepness of the game is key here. The game plays quite loose overall.
There are 2 players in particular who probably play something like 45/5 VPIP/PFR. So very loose and passive preflop. They'll both limp/call and flat raises with a wide range. I've seen them limp/call with as strong as QQ/AKo, and flat KK once. Of course they're also doing this with a ton of garbage like low suited gappers, J8o etc.
Both play aggressively postflop, but nothing crazy. They tend to favor PSB's so it's easy to get into bluff catching spots vs them which is tricky because their wide ranges can have tons of different value or bluffs. Both are capable of bluffing including check/raise bluffing any street. To be fair, I feel they play postflop reasonably well for the ranges they choose.
I've been losing to these guys over the last couple of weeks and I'm not sure if it's because I'm making mistakes or running bad. I'm gonna lay out my strategy below. What do you think? How would you play?
IP and OOP have their own challenges so I'm gonna discuss both.
IP: This is mostly going to be in a limp/call situation but can include blinds play as well. In these spots, I find myself playing very aggressive in order to take advantage of my range advantage. On textures that strongly favor me (e.g. AKJ), I'm firing 3 barrels with a wider range than normal. I am also cbetting at a high frequency on most textures just because of the range advantage.
I've found myself getting owned both by value-betting worse hands than theirs, and by getting caught bluffing. In the above example, QT, AJ, and AK could all be in their limp/call range. However taking advantage of all the foldable crap in their range seems like something that must be done.
OOP: I find myself playing passively and mixing in a ton of check-raises. I find that when I cbet, I often get called. When they do call me, I end up in a sticky situation where they have position on me with a range that can make a ton of random hands (also keep in mind I've seen KK be flatted before). Since the game plays very deep and they like to make PSBs, making a cbet with a marginal hand can get us into very tricky and expensive bluff catching situations.
I've been preferring to check most flops with the intention of making a delayed bet on the turn if it checks though. I'll check/raise flops with hands as weak TPGK in order to take advantage of their tendency to make large bets.
There are times where I do get stuck in bluff catching mode and it's quite difficult. As an example, I raise TT preflop, flop comes 667 and I either make a bet that gets flatted or I check raise. Turn comes a 2. I bet and they raise me. In this spot they have WAY more 6's in their range than I do, and since we're so deep I can easily get punished if I'm not careful.
So what do you guys think? Are my strategies sound? It's possible I'm just on the wrong side of variance here but I'd like to plug this leak if there is one.
Some of this is probably running bad. This sort of play runs up variance so swings will be bigger. Getting it right against this sort can be tough though, particularly if they are good enough to adjust their play based on who they are playing.
When IP you have the right idea but don't go too far in c-betting air or barreling. You need to have some give up hands at every street. And if the only hands you give up are air they will pick up on that and bluff your checks so you need to balance that with slow playing some value. The goal is to keep from value owning yourself often enough that calling down with middle pairs is a good plan for villains.
One important thing to track is how often they fold the flop. Some players who call too wide call any pair, any draw and some hands that could just improve every time. Against this type c-bet air less and keep the pressure up on the turn and river more. Others see too many flops but fold the flop unless their hand has real potential, middle pair+ or a reasonable draw. This type you can c-bet air more but need to give up more often if they get past the flop.
Make sure your not bluffing too often on scary boards. If the board was AKJ how many hands would you actually bet 3 streets? You should have a lot of AQ/KQ/AT- that figure to be good but don't want to build a big pot. This limits your ability to bluff on these boards because your barreling becomes a clue that you don't have a big hand.
OOP one of the important methods for playing these bluffy guys is checking more strong strong hands. Play more hands to punish their bluffing. Don't get carried away with things like check/raises though, you want to give them a chance to bluff river also. Save the check/raises for wet boards and make sure you have some monsters in your check/raise range.
Finally, remember that if they are making pot sized bets you don't need to pick off many bluffs to be profitable. I have more then one session where my entire profits can from picking off one or two big bluffs. Don't be afraid to give up on the flop fairly often but if you make it to the river you should be calling fairly often.
Great post QuadJ. Alot of your suggestions are stuff I started questioning as I was typing out my post, which is good.
Good point about AKJ not necessarily being a board that wants to build a big pot. That hand was just an example. Another one I considered was A22. However in both of these situations, building a big pot is not too desirable when you are 250+ BB deep. With 100BB and AK on A22 you're getting it in all day and feeling great.
I think I definitely have one leak where I'm using 100BB bluffing frequencies and not balancing that with my value, because when I actually have those value hands, I am intuitively exercising more pot control.
Preflop:
Raise bigger with premiums to take advantage of the loose preflop calling range. Over-raising JJ+/AK is okay. If you like to bluff-catch, buy in shorter if allowed to lower variance (easier to bluff-catch for 50-100BB than 200BB).
Flop+ play:
Cut down on your brick c-bets/bluffs if they are loose (they're gonna call no matter what making them -EV). If short (see above) play more aggressively with TP+ as they'll be calling with worst. Play more hands in position so you can pot control when you have iffy hands. If deep value-town them big with two pairs or better.
If they're just out flopping you not much you can do. Rebuy and play snug until they cool off or you flop a monster. It's going to be a high variance game.
Playing looser against loose players validates their strategy. Bluffing against calling stations validates their strategy. Value betting light validates their strategy, especially on the river.
If you're playing poker and they're playing bingo, the way to beat them is not to buy a whole bunch of extra bingo cards.
Deep games are complex. Oversimplified approaches won’t solve them.
It sounds like you are trying to beat them by making static changes of your own game. Instead, you should be more observant of their game and make adjustments accordingly.
Figure out when they are aggressive and when they’re not. Study their bet sizings and position awareness.
There are a lot of information given out to solve these guys.
Playing looser against loose players validates their strategy.
This is not correct, though the rest of your post is sound. You want to play more hands against LP players, as long as you keep playing a stronger range than they are. It doesn't need to be +++stronger. Hands like KJ that are often trash against better players can be gold against LPs.
This is less true with the Vs OP describes, since they are tricky post, but for average LP Vs, there is huge value in having (for example) KJ against their K8 and getting multiple bets called post on a K-high board.
This is not correct, though the rest of your post is sound. You want to play more hands against LP players, as long as you keep playing a stronger range than they are. It doesn't need to be +++stronger. Hands like KJ that are often trash against better players can be gold against LPs.
This is less true with the Vs OP describes, since they are tricky post, but for average LP Vs, there is huge value in having (for example) KJ against their K8 and getting multiple bets called post on a K-high board.
I would still disagree with your first paragraph. It is OK to play lots of hands against loose players, as long as you play in position and wait to hit big before you put serious money in. Loose and bad players will blunder into situations where they have second-best hands they don’t want to fold for big money.. As long as you don’t do that you have the edge.
Well yes. Fundamentals still apply. But the point is that the worse your V's range is, the wider your range can be and still have a range advantage. This is especially true of Vs who will pay off a lot post-flop with weak made hands.
OP, i think your question is more about playing against these two specific players postflop rather than a type of player, so i would suggest reframing some of the tendencies you have observed in terms of what they mean for the villains range and what kind of mistakes that means they are making. for instance, you said that when you are oop your cbets often get called - lets say often means 60% - that means villain is calling with a range that is like 25% of all hands! then take an example flop and go through what hands that would include, its gonna be some crazy stuff. then think about the turn play, etc. basically if these players are that wide pre and arent folding a lot on the flop, they are going to be putting money in bad a lot one way or another. it also sounds a bit like you are uncomfortable playing big pots deep against them, which honestly would be kind of a big leak. (why xr the tpgk? just xc down if they like to bomb)
