This was an odd situation I had the other day. I had 700-800 BB at a 1/2 table and was the biggest stack. The person directly to my left had 400-600 BB and was the second stack. He was playing very tight EXCEPT when I raised preflop. He played a very tight 20/15ish when I folded before him but was calling 80+% of my raises. I'm assuming he was playing almost ATC against me because he wanted to double up through me.

How should I play in this scenario? Almost no matter what I'm OOP against him post flop. The reason I ask is I gave him like 200-300 BBs over 2 hours. I was hitting flops and betting and it seemed like he just kept getting a hand that was just barely better than mine. Against his wide open range I think I am generally ahead when I hit. Should I just try to keep pots small in this situation even though he has a large stack? I think most of the time I will take a lot of his chips if he plays this way as I am usually ahead preflop. One hand that happened a couple times was that I flop TPTK and he flops bottom 2 pair with like 47o. Should I just slow down if calls my flop cbet? I think I got unlucky by how often he hit a better hand with a worse preflop holding but I also think I could have lost a lot less.

Sorry this is long, but it was an odd situation and hard for me to explain. Hopefully you can understand and provide general feedback

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Best thing to do is swallow your pride and admit he is outplaying you and change seats. We've all done it.

I actually dont mind a guy like this on my left but I prefer him to be 2-4 seats to my lefts because I will be raising more from the HJ, cutoff and button and he will be in the blinds most of those times giving me position on him.

It really depends entirely on how he's playing post flop; is he trying to bluff you or is he trying to draw to a good hand then cooler you? is he trying to hit flops hard or is he chasing? is he raising his draws when your hands look like tptk or is he only seeming to raise once he has you beat?

At the end of the day if you're opening top 15% and he's calling you with 80% of hands then you're going to have the best hand the vast majority of the time at showdown and he is rarely even going to have a decent draw to justify calling bets with, so you should definitely be ok with either betting relentlessly for value if this guy is mainly playing passively or trapping him if hes trying to get creative. I'd recommend posting actual hands if you want better advice though.

Probably the best advice is that you should have just switched seats, tables or racked up and left if you felt like you didn't have a good strategy to deal with it and knew it was going to keep happening.

Forget about your ego. Position is the king. Change seat or change table. You don't have to beat someone has the best position on hou


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There is no single strategy for this sort of situation. You need to look at betting patterns and play for this specific villain. If he is playing fit/fold post flop then c-betting almost all flops and playing carefully if he calls can be best but if he is floating a lot then you need some check/fold and check/calls in your range also. You need to have a grasp of how wide he is calling pre and post flop, how much you can bluff him, how aggressive he is when you check to him and so on.

One common problem if you are not used to playing deep is playing single pairs too aggressively. That deep your not trying to play for stacks or build a big pot with single pairs. You should be trying to play them to get a consistent decent value. If you regularly put too much money in then villain can call you super wide preflop and wait until he hits the flop hard.

Position lack of is problem
But seems here bigger problem does reside
For OP surely ran worse than a child ingesting pouch of Tide

#whatwouldtrumpdo

Seat change

In meantime open less hands

Thanks everybody. In short it sounds like I should have just moved. I don't remember specific hands but he seemingly had a hand every single time while this was happening. I knew his range was so wide and he was a station after the flop so I kept playing thinking that at some point I would win a big pot against him. But he got up before that ever happened.

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I'd see how he reacts to a strategy of open limping 100% off the hands you play. If he starts raising a lot to ISO you can l/r your top hands, fold your worst hands. If he limps along it makes it tough for him to win a big pot. Alternatively you can increase your open sizing pre so he has to pay a higher price to chase. Also consider checking a lot of flops to avoid bloating the pot.

Obviously getting a table or seat change is preferable but not always possible.

Seat change

I'm not moving seats and consider it specious advice to do so, as there's likely no way he limp-c at the same frequency - it's a good spot.
You can play fewer hands if you'd like, but I'd advise staying put, playing your normal ranges, but amp up the sizing this deep and force him to play bigger pots with weak hands. If you encounter zero FE post, then open fewer hands for even more pre and continue smashing away with the thinnest of value you can find. The guy is playing ranges that need/want to see all five cards, so there is no alternative but to make that strategy as difficult and expensive as possible at every point of the hand. Youll still have checks and folds in your arsenal, but will punish the guy for the reminder of the session.

I have also had this problem as I move up stakes and stacks get deeper and deeper.

I agree that changing seats is a good solution. This is a short term solution though. It doesn't solve the problem. The problem is that that we are playing deep and are out of position for many many hands.

I believe adjusting is key. +1 to QuadJ

Big hand, Big Pot. Little Hand, Little Pot.
Example: At 100bs, I'm almost never folding bottom set. At 200bbs, I'd think about folding bottom set more. At 300bbs, if you can't fold bottom set, then you shouldn't be playing 300 bbs.

Also, I am not going to be opening less or limping more. I am going to be opening the same range as I find optimal in the situation (my general value range based on position+ likelyhood of people behind me folding) . I'm torn between sizing at the moment. I'm thinking 1) going bigger than usual as in 3-6x (average opening size) + ax (a= 1 per every 100bbs over 100)+ bx (number of limpers) or 2) 3-6x (average opening size) + bx. I think that I'm leaning towards option one when I have 100-200bbs and then adjusting to option two when I have 200+bbs. This is for someone paying attention. For someone that isn't paying attention, I'm going for max value at all streets.

Another adjustment that I am trying to make is checking back flop/ turn. It keeps the pot smaller. I only do this against the most aggressive/ thinking players. Against the general population, b/f while using smaller bet sizing is a good way to pot control.

Sounds like a juicy leak

So you are just as likely to open the bottom part of your range from the HJ with two known nits in co & otb, as you are vs described player and another rando having position on you?

Heh, 600+ bb deep oop is not fun, even vs a less than great opponent.

Glad to see everyone saying to just leave. If for some reason you enjoy pain then I suppose you could try checking/raising the **** out of him but I'd only do it with real hands like overpairs etc.

Dont think that a deep stacker who calls a lot vs your raise should be much trouble. Just value bet him and cbet a lot of flops HU. His range is so weak postflop. Do a lot of cbetting and double barreling (can go small on flops for a cheaper turn barrel).

I'd only really be concerned if he were aggressive pre and kept 3-betting me to death in LP. Those are the situations I hate deep.

If he's owning you, just leave or change seats.

i dont know about you guys but when im in home games its most likely the case that i cant switch seats and unless i wana leave the game which is usually juicy as fk, im stuckk playing in such spots.

amanaplan's runthrough here sounds like the most successful strategy, combined with the right limps, i find this the best way to combat these situations.

So your strategy is to make him fold bad hands. Which by the way all the smaller stacks will have already adjusted to. So now you're getting zero value with any hand because you're opening for 20xBB or whatever, and just getting shipped on by smaller stacks whenever they have JJ+ or something.

Lmfao avaritia on a godmode heater this week

Pretty disappointing. There is little to suggest that yours is the most likely outcome to heros sizing adjustment, but rather only one of many possible outcomes that you've spotlighted to evidence a biased point. You're also making all too convenient assumptions that V will now begin to fold better while hero simultaneously finds the tops of other ranges.

The only info we have to work with here is that an otherwise 'very tight' V appears to have ~1000 calling combos PF for every hero 2b and this whole thread wants a seat change/wants to leave??

I also don't understand the wave of suggestions to immediately get a seat change.

If this were a 5-5 table and the opponent seemed like a total grinder/pro and is 3betting isolating us every step of the way, then yes, it's probably time to at the least get a seat change, but more likely just to cash out and move on to the next.

This is a Villain at a 1-2 table who has been running hot calling us down with garbage for a couple of hours. The mentality that this requires a seat change is an overreaction and very results oriented.

In the long run, his strategy to call us with just about ATC is going to blow up on him if we don't tilt and simply play our game. I understand how frustrating it can be when an opponent just seems to get there every time or have your number. However, if he really is calling our raises as light as 47o, eventually he is going to be calling us down hoping to hit his second pair, and it won't come.

I'm playing TAG and barreling away big on every street if I have an overpair etc vs this opponent.

Opponent is calling too wide pre against your strong(?) range. Raise bigger for value and dont open as many speculative hands. If you make him put more money into the pot with a range that is far inferior to yours, you will be printing money in the long run.

The wave of suggestions to OP to change seats is because he clearly doesnt know how to handle the guy. The guy may or may not be better than OP but OP doesnt know the correct adjustments to beat him.

The first and easiest adjustment to make is to change seats. As he gets better and learns how to beat a guy like that from OOP, he wont need to change seats.

Understood, but the optimal answer on how to deal with it is not to simply get a seat change and hope the villain stops calling our raises. And this villain isn't nearly good enough - or likely really good at all - to merit that type of reaction.

The answer is to learn how not to be overly results oriented and to play a style of poker which is going to be highly profitable in the long run versus this type of villain.