Hi all,

I'm an occasional poster and have found this forum to be extremely helpful in thinking about poker. I'm interested in what you all feel is optimum strategy at my home game. This is a long-ish email, so please read through before you respond. Thanks in advance.

The game is your run-of-the mill loose-passive 1-2NL full ring game. A typical full table usually has 6-8 loose passive players, 1-2 loose aggressive players, and sometimes a maniac or two. We get a few tight passive players from time to time (guys who fold often pre and never open raise pre, even with solid cards) and almost never a tight aggressive player.

In objective terms, it's not unusual for a pot to be limped multi-way pre. If no-one raises it often goes 5-7 way. A baby raise up to $7 might get one fold from this group, but mostly calls. A bigger raise ($15) gets 2-4 callers, but almost never more than that. 3 bets pre are usually QQ+. Most players are not positionally aware and are just trying to hit a hand and build a big pot. Max buy is $200. There is a forced $5 straddle for the player who is UTG and holds a special colored chip (this chip gets circulated throughout the game via pots).

I play this game once a week from 6-11pm. This is limited by family obligations, so I can't go more often or stay later. At each session l buy for the max and my session limit is 2-buys, sometimes 2.5 if the players are especially bad.

My strategy at this table is based on my own study, experience playing, and weekly-or-so discussions with a close friend of my wife's who coaches me. Here's how I'd describe it:

1. I play tight. Really tight. UTG, UTG+1 I fold probably 90%+ of hands. Sticking around only with AJ+, KQ, 88+. I'd even fold KQ here if I felt like it would be especially tough to play post-flop. HJ, CO, BTN I'm way wider: suited connectors, one-gappers, 22+, suited aces.

2. I almost never limp. If I'm not calling a raise, I'm opening with a standard raise of $15, usually from in position given my starting hand requirements. I know this is a little big, but I do this in order to establish the lead in the hand, magnify my position edge, and to better range my opponents. If I raise to, say, $7, almost everyone calls and I don't have as much of an idea of where I am in a hand. Even a raise to $10 or $12 accomplishes almost nothing. With $15 I can almost always count on folds from junk, except from the loosest players and maniacs, who will probably still call with any two suited cards and 1-gappers. They also perceive me as having a hand with this amount.

3. I rarely 3-bet light. At this game, there's just no point. The guy who puts in a raise is almost always calling a 3-bet unless he's really deep. And in this game, I'm often working with low SPRs due to the buy-in limit of $200. In other words, I think that for 3-betting light to work, there needs to be fold equity, and in this game there isn't much. My 3-betting range is thus very small: AK, JJ+. This might be an area for improvement/discussion.

4. I will c-bet most any board heads up after the flop. If it goes 3 or 4 way it's very texture dependent and lots of times I'll let it check through if I missed. I've been saving money by c-betting less multi-way.

5. I bet when I have a hand, usually 1/2 to full pot depending on how strong I am and how likely my opponents are to have hit the board as well. I rarely slow play. Turn bet sizing is an area that I'm working on (trying to bet bigger)

6. I don't bluff or semi-bluff much. There's not a lot of fold equity in this game. At least that's my perception....It's not to say I never bluff...I certainly do, but I try to pick certain spots, such as raising guys who take the lead on paired flops.

After about 7-8 months of play at this strategy, I've had mixed success and am currently on a down swing. Not yet showing a profit. Part of this is due to my own mistakes, some of it is run bad, but I want to know: IS THIS A SOUND LONG TERM STRATEGY FOR THIS GAME?

The one thing I don't really like about this strategy is that it can get extremely dull when I'm card dead. I'm already folding lots of hands pre when I'm getting hands to play, so when I'm not, it can turn into a fold fest. If I lose the few hands I do play when card dead, it can get especially discouraging. My down swings can be up to $1200-$1600 in size if I'm on an especially bad streak...thoughts on how to improve the above strategy?


Thanks--

Solid strat.
Good poker is mostly boring.

Spend more time thinking less about the fact that are you are foliding 85% of hands (as you should be, give or take) and more time thinking about the specific tendencies of each player and how you can use that to rape that for all the money.

4 and 6 don't jive, otherwise you needn't deviate from your approach.

What I would also suggest is that you review your sizing choices in all spots - good chance if you improve there, you'll mop the floor with these guys long term.

Just some thoughts about what you posted.

First, you're betting too big pf. Especially if you are always raising liimped pots with SC in late position. You're just bleeding money there with hands that can never hope to hit often enough to justify all the folds you're going to have to make in this game. In this game, I'd either go with 8-10 regardless of position, or bet 12 in early position, 10 in middle position and 8 in late position. Never have bet size depend on your holdings. I'd lose some of the weaker holdings in late position that you are playing. Almost certainly you're losing money with them.

Second, post flop stop betting based on your hand strength. It is a huge tell. After this much time, everybody has figured out that a PSB means you're strong, and 1/2 PSB means you're weak.

Third, my guess is that most of your losses are coming from turn and river play. You've indicated that you're feeling at a minimum conspicuous because you're playing fewer hands. That means you likely hold on to TP type hands longer than you should and try to get too many streets of value from them. Deep down, you may be thinking, "I waited 45 minutes for a good hand, I'm not folding it now."

Finally, is this game being raked? Rake can play a huge role in turning good players into losing players.

This is exactly what I thought when I read the OP as well. OP, you have a seemingly solid preflop strategy (except for the SC's in late position--I would potentially re-evaluate that) but I see nothing about your postflop play. For all we know you are hemorrhaging money on the flop/turn/river and you may not even realize it.

On the other hand, you say you have been playing for 7-8 months at 5 hours per week. You have maybe--MAYBE--only just hit 200 hours! That is still a small sample size.

Mostly good. I'd re eval the never limp thing though. As Venice said trying to bulldoze through 5 limpers with 67s is askin for trouble. If they play really bad post flop it's sometimes good to just limp in and see what happens in position with a speculative hand with a high SPR.

I vary my preflop sizing depending on table conditions and hand strength. Never based solely on hand strength. So you're likely losing value by not catering to your situation.

I can promise you that anyone who says they never limp, not only has some major leaks, they have an ego problem as well. I have no idea why people think limping is weak. There are all sorts of good spots where limping is better.

Well--I can tell you how many hours I've been playing since I've been keeping track: 508 since January 2015. This year, when I've really tried to study the game more, I've put in 216 hours and that includes a few tournaments. Just playing cash, almost exclusively 1-2, I've got net loss of $260 on the year. So that's not bad. Volatile though.

I know that I said I raise wide in late position, like with suited connectors and such, but I don't generally get crazy with them and usually just fold 23, 34, and 45. I might raise with 56, 67, 78, 89, but not all the time. It's villain dependent. Occasionally here I'll limp with a one gapper to try and flop the nuts for cheap, but it's rare. I'm not trying to play like everyone else.

I didn't describe my turn and river play because I don't have such straightforward rules for those streets. I find that situations there are much more fluid and situation dependent. But I can say these things about my turn and river play:

I don't double barrel much. I never triple barrel. Not at this game.

I probably don't bet enough when I do have a hand. Guys at this game are coming along with a good draw regardless of bet sizing, so I'm probably losing money on the turn. I think the turn is the part of my game where I make the most betting mistakes.

I mentioned not semi-bluffing a lot. If I've got a decent draw in late position, I'll usually just take the odds and call rather than trying to 3 bet and push someone off a hand. Like I said, there isn't much fold equity so a semi-bluff really just bloats a pot when I'm behind in the hand. Now if I have a massive draw, like a top pair w/ nfd or open ender w/ nfd I might play that one fast. This is also villain dependent. Some villains will fold to pressure and at this point I know who they are.

There is a rake. It's $4 max plus $1 for that dumb lottery they call the bad beat jackpot. I think that's standard for a game like this. Plus we get crappy food and coffee and all the candy we can imagine. 1-2 home game food is always so ****ty. Everybody around the table is in terrible physical shape. I don't see a single guy who takes care of himself.

I did say that my bet sizing is based on strength and villain, but it's not a strictly linear thing. 1/2 pot can be a nutty hand or it can be a weak-ish hand where I've thought about the minimum risk I need to take to get folds from better hands that missed--based on reads of villains at the table. generally speaking, 3/4 to full pot is often a value bet for me, though I have used that size to bluff from time to time.

I'm not sure about $15 being too big pf. It's the amount that I need to get the number and ranges of villains I want at this game. Raise much less and I've either got too many callers, too much junk, or both. It drives me crazy to see a pot limped around and one of the blinds decides to throw a red chip in there. Nobody's folding. It's pretty much just an expensive limp and it slows down the game.

Just so you know, you're playing in an illegal game. You need to weigh in the risk of getting busted and losing your money that you have on the table. In the home games I play in, there is no rake and people bring in pot luck. The food is generally pretty good.

As for the rest, whatever. If you think you're playing right, then just keep on playing as you are.

Great! Where's your game I'll go to that one instead.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I think you're playing mostly right. As you've described the game I think you have to play very boring ABC poker. It's not a lot of fun (though you do get more time to talk to people) but there's not much point in being nuanced in this game, most people aren't even going to recognize it. Therefore you need to value bet the hell out of people and save money where ever you can. That means not playing the suited connectors for a raise. If you want to limp in with them in position once in a while I suppose that's fine (though I advocate basically just ditching them in a game like this). If anyone is paying attention they'll know the type of hand you're limping with, but I don't anyone will recognize or exploit it. If the standard raise in the $12 to $15 area then I don't think you should set mine much 100 BB deep. So I wouldn't play 22-77 for a raise even in position. Mostly I think you're playing right, I think what you need to do most is eliminate some of the marginal hands you're playing and and patch those leaks. Remember it's not about winning pots, it's about winning money. If you rake in five pots all night but you're up $200 when you leave then that's a fine night and you will be profitable in the long run.

^
play only AQs+ and TT+ in EP
add some more pairs like 77+ and ATs and KQs if no aggressive dudes behind
in LP and volume pots play all pairs 22+, 76s+ up to AKs, AXs

^
sometime limping is fine if the pot develops to be volume

^
you got to learn to 3bet more instead of calling a 2bet when you got position.

^
c-betting in a 3-4 way pots is a waste of money unless you got something on the flop. Bet more preflop to get 2 way action.

^You're OK. Never slow play unless you own the entire deck like flopping a FH or quads or nut-flush. You can slow down in those situations and let the duds to catch up and lose their money. If you flop a SET don't bet too much on the flop even if there is a flush draw. Bet enough to give bad odds to the flush but don't blow him out of the pot. Let him draw a little expensive because you draw too to more outs than him and 2 of his outs will pair the board and BOOM! the disaster hits the fan ..., lol...

^
Bluffing is situational and it should be worked out to give a believable story
Semi-bluffing is great when you drawing to the nuts and have 12 or more outs. A 8 outs to the str8 or 9 outs to flush are very very marginal

^
If you have $1200-$1600 down swings in 1-2 NL game, you are doing something wrong. Not that I'm bragging about my play but I never had $1200 down swing in years and that one was in 5-10 Vegas NL game.

What I can honestly tell you is this: Almost all gamblers suffer from a common malady – they overestimate the effect of luck in the long run and underestimate luck in the short run. While anyone who is losing after 500 hours is probably kidding themselves when they blame their bad cards, because it is much more likely they are not playing well enough to win, on the other hand, even the best players have occasional losing streaks overall. However, even perfect play by the hard core pros will result in a win rate of only about 70% to 80% of sessions in all but the easiest games. Play perfect in the most easy game in Vegas and no one can get 100% wins. But $1200 swings are out of proportion by my book. See what's going on and fix it.

Rather than wishing you "Good Luck", I say PLAY GREAT at the tables

uncle Joseph

I would be careful automatically c-betting in every heads up pot. If you whiff the flop and are OOP, it can get very expensive trying to move calling stations off of a hand. Even if you are in position and they check to you, they can be doing this with a wide range of hands that will call your flop bet and make you clueless on how to continue on the turn when you are still holding A high or K high.

I've been able to win a lot of heads up pots by checking down and winning with A high. Force passive opponents to try and exploit you by bluffing you with worse hands. Many won't do it. For the more aggressive opponents that bluff checking behind on the flop can be good for balance since you can trap them when you have an overpair and get them to put big money in the pot when they may have just folded to your cbet.

Your starting hand range from Early position is way too tight and worse than most nits. You can definitely limp in with all pocket pairs because you can expect the pots to go multiway, even after a raise. You will have the implied odds to set mine. You can also limp in all of the suited broadway cards as well. Folding suited combos of AJ, KQ, KJ, QJ, J10 is seriously criminal at these kind of tables.

Not only is not profitable to fold these cards, your style of play is so nitty that you would never be invited back to play in these home games.

I appreciate your advice.
I'm playing 1-2 very rarely here in Vegas. The only time is when I'm on the list for 2-5 or 5-10. What I can tell you is that on the 1-2 games players have short stacks and the drawing hands don't work well in that situation as we all know.

In the 2-5 and 5-10 every pot is 2bet and frequently 3bet and if someone limps AJ, KQ, 2bets and get 3bet he's got to fold. In those game if you 2bet with AJ and get 3bet from behind and you call it, hit an Ace 33% on the flop and getting action you are in BIG trouble for sure. (66% missing the flop and still fold to villain bet. you got to fold because you got big effective stack) No good flop is good enough for AJ unless ia a 400:1 perfect+perfect+perfect flop one in a million years ,,,. lol...lol..., so to speak

See, every day I'm getting: J9s, JT, QJ, KJ, AJ, actually couple time a day. Now if I would dare to play them all the time to see the flop for 2-3bet I would hit probably once every other day a rare flop of JxJ, JJx, xJJ but I will not get action. So, overall I'll be buried in debt.

Bodybuilder and Mamarolex are both right about your early position hand range but in different situations. Sometimes having only a tight opening range is good. Sometimes a looser opening range is good. Sometimes a tight open range and a moderate limping range is good etc etc.

Learning to spot the table conditions that favour a particular starting range for any given position is one of the key skills in poker. You can't learn it all from books, articles, forum posts or conversations. You have to think about it, experience it and keep doing so till you get it.

Personally I have a set minimum open range for each position based on % chance of the weakest hand in that range being dominated more than 20% of the time by one or more of the players still live in the hand. For UTG at 9 handed that gives me 99+ AQ+.

Depending on table conditions I then add more hands to my opening range, adjust my opening size and sometimes add a limping range. Generally the closer I get to the button the more I break away from my 20% chance of domination treshold because position is such an enormous bonus.

Limping certainly can be fine. Often in my casino 1/2 game limping is better than opening because pots invariably go very multiway and I have zero fold equity regardless of how big I open.

In those situations opening a hand that doesn't have clear value vs that many opponents is wasting money. Speculative hands only gain value from being opened if doing so gains fold equity and/or disguises your hand and overall range so it's easier to get paid in certain postflop situations with both your speculative hands and your value hands. If opening can't achieve either then restrict opening to pure value hands for that position.

Don't limp if you are likely to get raised and end up in a heads up pot OOP. Don't limp if you have a hand that has more reversed implied odds than implied odds - stacking off in multiway limped pots is going to require a hand close to the nuts against all but the dumbest players.

But mainly get the basics of table dynamics down fast so you can start paying very close attention to one opponent at a time and work out how they play and what their exploitable weaknesses are. That's where your profit ultimately comes from. Every other poker skill just keeps you in play long enough to do that detective work.

+1. Solid post.

On the one hand, there are circumstances where open folding small pocket pairs or suited broadways could be the most optimal play from early position. But honestly, if you are doing this, then your game is either a) way too TAG, b) short-stacked (a recipe for a nitfest but not always) or c) you are under-rolled/ just plain scared money.

I would fold these hands if their was a button straddle from a super aggressive player or the game had one or two tilted LAGS that were beginning to become unbalanced toward spew. But, if I am happily folding these that is because the game is super GOOD and full of exploitable play.

But as the default to just regularly fold these hands means that you don't have confidence in your post-flop ability, you don't feel like you can outplay your opponents with aggression and/or hand-reading or your game is pretty damn tough.

It takes skill to know when to fold these hands, but if we are playing in a loose/passive game, we should definitely be limping in with these.

Your Ideal $1/$2 No-Limit Hold'em Strategy
This is my ORDER and my own theory based upon my Vegas war experience.

The game of $1/$2 No-Limit Texas Hold'em, this small No-Limit runs in most casinos and for that reason the games are very, very soft. Those games are inhabited by everyone from 60-year-old nits, to first timers, to gamboolers who raise every hand, to young sunglasses-wearing wannabe pros. Some of these players are actually like a bad joke. They're first-level thinkers, thinking only of their two cards and nothing else. They are going to be clueless to the fact that you've folded the last 30 hands and are now betting hard into them. What they're going to be doing is thinking, "I have a pair of jacks; how much?" and then pushing the required chips into the pot.

Play tight, you make top pair or better and you bet! Not exactly groundbreaking stuff. Play ABC poker, make your good hands and bet them. Loose-passive calling stations will do what they do best: call. So let them call, don’t bluff them, and value bet your good hands hard. When you play tight before the flop, you make your post-flop decisions easier. By playing solid hands before the flop you will make solid hands after the flop. When you eliminate marginal hands from your repertoire you'll find yourself with fewer difficult decisions after the flop. Your goal is to flop top pair with a good kicker or better. You have to avoid getting caught up in the table flow. Just because half the table is limping in up front with K♥ 3♠ doesn't mean you have to. Stick to playing tight and focus on playing hands that can flop big.

Trash hands should not be played even if suited. Suited trash is still trash. Players get themselves into trouble all the time playing weak suited trash because they think they're going to make a flush. You don't make a flush with weak hands nearly as often as you may expect, and the rest of the time you're bleeding money. Stop playing them.

Sit Back and Wait for the Dollars. That's really all there is to it. The most important skill you can have at $1/$2 is patience. Sit back and wait for a good hand. You should be folding 85% or even more outside of the blinds. Do not get involved just because you are bored. Start with solid holdings and make solid hands after the flop. When you're card-dead, that doesn't mean you should be sitting around watching TV. Pay attention to the game and your opponents. Profile them in your mind; identify who the weak players are and what their tendencies are. If you know who the loose players are and who the tight players are, you'll be able to understand their bets and raises and what they mean. Once you figure out your opponents' tendencies, the rest is just a waiting game. Make your big hand and value bet. Exploit the calling stations and force them to put their money in with worse hands.

$1/$2 it's an easy game

like I said before: "Not a Step Back" from my above ORDER
uncle Joseph

Thanks for the great discussion so far. Most of the disagreement seems to come around preflop play:

But MamaRolex says play only AQs+ and TT+ from EP.

(BTW Bodybuilder32 I will ALWAYS BE INVITED BACK, no matter how nitty I play. The game has a small-ish player pool and I'm not in an urban setting. I don't ask people for money and I've stacked off plenty of times over the years. The only way I wouldn't be invited back would be if I started crushing the game. Which I'm hoping to do.)

See, at this particular table, probably both answers are right under certain circumstances. But I lean much more towards MamaRolex's approach. This is because it's just so difficult to play suited combos of AJ, KQ, KJ, QJ, J10 from UTG or UTG+1 profitably. If I limp with these in EP, I'm PROBABLY ahead of later position players who also limp, but because these players limped, and are limping with lots of trash, I have no idea where I am post flop until I've bled off a little money on a couple streets. For example, If I limp with JTs from UTG and 4 players limp behind me and the blinds call, and the flop comes J83 with two suits (not my suits), I honestly can't be sure I'm betting with the best hand. Some idiot who limped with J8s just flopped 2pair.

Take the alternative, where I now raise with JT suited to $12 or $15. Now I'm getting just 2-3 callers. Now, if a flop comes J83 again, I can be much more certain that junky two-pair hands and possibly also 9T are out of villains' ranges and can feel better about my top pair, medium kicker hand. The problem is that in this game, players rarely 3bet unless they have one of the top 5 best starting hands. So any players holding QJ, KJ, or AJ are flatting from behind and I'm spewing off money to them over a few streets if they are also in the hand with me.

So I think it's better just to fold these hands from EP. The only exception to this is if I'm willing to only bet a flop that is nutty. Everything else I check-call or check-fold for the previously mentioned reasons. That's what we hope for anyway when we limp, right? Chip in to a volume pot for the minimum and hope to flop a very good hand. When we limp with 78suited, we're not looking to a top pair hand. We're looking for a monster draw or a very good, disguised flop.

Someone pointed out that my losses in the game are not characteristic of a strictly run-bad situation. And this I totally agree with. I think I've got a good philosophical grasp of the game, possibly better than the other players at the table, but in the heat of the action I sometimes lose track of cool, rational decision-making where I can mentally summon all of the little pieces of information I've gathered up to this point, apply the math, apply my strategy, and make the right decision. Sometimes I get bored and play hands like K8s, hands that I know will get me in trouble if I'm not careful. I know about these tendencies, so I just need to put in the work to snuff them out. So no doubt I've made some dumb plays which have magnified my losses over the few years I've been working on my game. Play at the table and reflection of that play are the only things that will help with this.

Other thoughts? Thanks again, all.

If your game is 1-2, I would advise you to focus on ABC poker.
Just profile one or two weak villains that call pre-flop 2bets and play fit or fold on the flop. That alone style of play will pin point you the weak opponents. Focus on them and make your money that way. 1-2 games are very easy. There's not much science going into. Almost all villains are horrible players with a tendency of calling. Just a waiting game. Keep that in mind.

Ed Miller on limping:

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news...imping-is-good

My thoughts on limping:
When you limp in you are doing two things:
1) accepting you aren't getting the pot heads up
2) investing only a tiny proportion of the likely final pot

The consequences of these two facts are that you cannot expect to win very often and you can't expect to win significantly sized pots with only 1-pair.

So when you limp in with QJs /ATs/JTs/55 in early position in a loose game with few preflop raises recognise that these are all hands that are outside what you could profitably raise from this position, I. E. They are outside your pure value range. For me my value raising range in a loose passive game from UTG is 99+ AQ. Those are the hands I can expect to make profit from by raising to get the pot heads up or 3-way and then play my 1-pair hands for value postflop.

In certain game conditions everything outside that value range is frequently dominated so cannot be played simply for value when I have a good 1-pair postflop. E.g. if I raised AJ from UTG and then value bet my pair of aces postflop I'd run into AK/AQ or sets/2-pairs too often to be very profitable. It's a marginal proposition so I'm happy to give up that marginal 1-pair profit and the associated variance, ditch the offsuit variety all together and lmp in the suited version looking to make 2-pair+ and win a massive pot vs a second best hand. I may also still win some pots with my decent 1-pair hands but I won't be playing them the same way I would as the preflop raiser

Yes there will be some low stakes games where you can raise AJ/KQ or even more rarely AT/KJ/QJ from early position and profit vs exceptionally loose calling stations. Just recognise that the dominating hands are always out there and you will lose to them. Whether you profit overall depends on how much you make off the hands you dominate and your ability to spot when you're beat and minimise your losses.

Say I limped QJs UTG and flopped Q22. I'm not going to start betting pot into 6 players with my 2-pair even though it's frequently the best hand right now. Why not? Because it is marginal. With so many in the pot a significant minority of the time someone has a 2 for trips. I'm in a way ahead/way behind situation just as I would be if I opened preflop and faced the same Q22 flop heads up. The difference is there's more way behind in the limped version than there is in the heads up raised version.

So in the limped pot I'll check my good 2-pair more frequently to disguise my hand and to give anyone with a 2 the chance to make me aware of that fact. If I can get to showdown with one or two moderately sized bets going in I stand a good chance of winning the pot vs Q7s or 55 etc.. If 3 big bets go in I'm always losing the pot to trip 2s.

If I'd raised and hit Q22 heads up I'd more often bet because loose opponents will peel with one over card and pairs between Q and 2 or float me with ATC just to see if I bet again on the turn. I'm less likely behind AND my opponent is less scared of the Q or 2s than he would be in a multiway limped pot.

Alternatively say I limped in UTG with T9s and 6 of us see a flop of 862 rainbow. I check and it checks around to the button who is an aggressive and bluffy player. He bets half pot and the blinds fold. Now what to do?

I have a gutshot, two marginal over cards and a backdoor flush draw. I'm not calling because I'm rarely hitting a decent hand and I'm out of position vs an aggro player with 2 players still live behind me, either of whom could raise and shut me out. Not good when I'm on a long shot draw with 4 outs for which I'm already paying too much.

If I call and everyone else folds the aggro button will sense weakness and likely elect to double or tripple barrel me with a wide range as long as bricks or A/K/Q fall on turn and river. However, the button doesnt actually have a hand here very often so he won't likely pay me off if I make a straight or pair. YES he may keep barreling air into a T, 9 or 7 turn but only if he's a bad aggro player. Assuming he is competent he will recognise that turn cards which connect with straights around the 86 are bad cards to barrel.

Long story short I can't call since all the advantages are with the in position aggressor. However, I have two pieces of information that help me. Firstly I know I have a tight, solid, ABC image in this villain's eyes. Secondly I know his range for betting here is very wide and very weak.

Therefore I check/raise pretending I flopped a marginal over pair or better, I have 4 outs to the nuts if im called and maybe a T or 9 will win it for me if we both shut down on turn and river but the vast bulk of my profit comes from the button folding most of his range to my check/raise. The aggro button will mock me for my obvious set and smugly muck his Q-high like he made a big lay down through his excellent hand reading skills. I play along and look dismayed, maybe grumble to myself about never getting paid and my predictable nitty image stays intact.

That sme nitty image doesn't matter if I flop a staight or turn a flush against a bad stationy player's 2-pair. A station is oblivious to my image and doesn't care about anything but having 2 pair. Thus I can bluff the good players in some spots whilst value owning the bad players in other spots. Happy times and an easy game.