2/3 blinds

UTG ($150): Nit. Has been at the table for about an hour. I can’t remember seeing a single hand he’s shown down, and he has only limped in or opened a few pots.
UTG+2 ($300): Me

Table:
Weekday afternoon game. Generally weak-tight. I’m seeing many limped pots with 3-4 people and raised pots with 2-3 people. Lots of short stacks around $100, some regular stacks around $300.

Game plays more like a 1/2-1/3 game than like a 2/5 game IME.

UTG raises to $20
Hero 3-bets to $50

A nitty player opens UTG; he’s got to have a strong hand. I ranged him at the time on something like:
AA-99, AK-AQ
His range to call my 3-bet is going to be even tighter. I’m thinking something like:
QQ-JJ, AK, AA-KK [sometimes]
And of course, he only shoves with KK+.

What should I do? Is this the right play, or should I just flat? Does this range look right for a rough read of "nit"?

My plan is to c/f if an ace or king falls, and to get it in otherwise. I don't think a nit will bluff me enough to matter with JJ.

If I really think villain will play postflop straightforwardly, I suppose I can bluff with medium suited aces here. But maybe I've overestimating the average nit's propensity to check-fold an underpair in a 3-bet pot.

I would typically just call in this exact scenario, I dont mind 3betting if it goes raise, call, call or something as I like to squeeze in a spot like that.

3 betting is fine against that range especially if V will give significant action when his 99-JJ is an overpair. If we knew he would 4 bet with KK and AA, 3 betting lets us get away relatively cheap. OTOH a nit probably flats with KK and against AA we forfeit our chance of binking a set OTF.

That said, IME most nits don´t raise AQ,99-TT, often not JJ and AK UTG.

I think a ''pro'' flats to encourage multiway action, use his reading ability and position to outplay the nit post flop (get value from worse, get away when V has an overpair, occasionally take the pot away with the worst hand etc etc.)

as kookie said, just play poker ip postflop.

No dead money, very little value in 3 betting since we isolate ourself and reduce spr against a very strong range (and it NEVER makes sense to do that unless you have the nuts).

what a disaster if this guy shoved AK in your face too.

I like the 3! You're not really in good absolute position. Get heads up in position on the initial raiser. Flatting QQ at UTG+2 seems unnecessary to me.
Also disagree with most any sentence that says you should NEVER do that/something without the nuts.

I think his range is much tighter than that. I would think someone who hasn't raised in an hour only raises utg with JJ+/AK. I like a call given the stack sizes. You put in 1/3 of the eff. stacks with a 3! and the SPR will be <1. I'm not ready to gii against a nitty villain's utg raising range with QQ.

Call and see what develops. He's passive and will only bet with a strong hand on the flop. Use your position. You can take it away if he checks. You can safely fold if he wants to play for stacks and you think you're beat on the flop.

This.

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 40.207% 38.35% 01.86% 114253440 5540034.00 { QQ }
Hand 1: 59.793% 57.93% 01.86% 172607388 5540034.00 { QQ+, AKs, AKo }


---

133,559,712 games 0.000 secs 26,711,942,400 games/sec

Board:
Dead:

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 20.701% 16.81% 03.89% 22456944 5190822.00 { QQ }
Hand 1: 79.299% 75.41% 03.89% 100721124 5190822.00 { QQ+ }

^cool

This makes him a nit?

If you're going to 3-bet, you might as well make it count.

In about an hour live you will be dealt maybe 20 hands, 30 if everyone is tight and quick. You can't tell anything about this villain except that he is definitely not crazy loose.

Maybe he is TAG/sLAG and card dead, not had any good spots or is new to the table and playing ultra tight while gathering reads.

I think the fact he isn't really loose makes it reasonable to flat QQ rather than 3bet. Reason I won't 3bet is I suspect V's continuing range vs 3bet is too tight for QQ to be profitable when called/4bet but I don't know for sure so I'm not going to feel happy raise/folding it or know where I'm at postflop if V calls.

I'm thinking QQ is more likely good against his opening range even if it is on the tight side plus I have more room to maneuver postflop in a raised pot. With V short stacked a proper sized 3bet is going to mean you can't ever really fold the flop because SPR will be very low and you have insufficient information on V's continue vs 3bet range.

Yawn, effective stacks are 50bbs. $60 pre and not folding.

I didn't see he was short, yea getting QQ in 50bb deep vs most tighter players cant be bad

I flat here because QQ isn't that great an equity fav vs his utg open range and a dog most likely vs a nits Gii range. With position a nit will frequently turn his hand face up. Post flop so I'm ok with seeing a flop.

But I've lost the equivalent of the GDP of a small nation with QQ in the past year so wtfdik?

Fwiw a few years ago this was easy Gii spot IMO.

It's true that I don't *really* know villain is a nit. He could be a nit, he could be a tight player who has been a bit card dead, or he could even be a reg type with an average range who has been card dead too. But if I waited to have completely solid information on every player's style before using that info in games, I'd be throwing money away. The best I can do is play against this guy like he's a nit, and be prepared to reevaluate if he does something strange for the sort of player I think he is.

I am starting to think this is just a close choice and both options are fine. We're shallow enough that by 3-betting, we make more off AK than we lose off getting stacked with an overpair. We are in trouble if he is really flatting with [AA-QQ] or [AA-QQ,AK] but I would expect jacks to come along most of the time. Maybe that's wrong, I'm not sure.

But if we just flat, we have more room postflop and we might get people to call with hands way behind both me and villain. Shortstackers may call with hands like 88 which are not getting nearly the equity they need. The table is tight but I might still get some action.

Follow-up question:

If the flop comes down with an ace, my plan is something like:

Flop ($100) : A93
Villain checks, Hero checks

Turn ($100) : 4
Villain bets $60, Hero folds

right? Since I'm getting crushed by [JJ+,AK] once an ace or king falls, and a nit is unlikely to bet much with a hand I beat.

Preflop for me is all about read. There are a few people I play with where this could actually be a nit fold preflop unless I think enough poor people will come along behind me so I could setmine against the world. But against most, I think I'm pretty cool getting in $150 preflop with QQ. We've only been at the table an hour (25 - 30 hands?), it's pretty easy for him to not have had a raising hand yet, so we can't read too much into that.

GcluelessNLnoobG

UTG+2 you have to 3 bet otherwise you're risking getting callers behind and putting yourself in a horrible spot. if he shoves you snap call he has 50bbs. if you were on the button or cutoff and its folded to you then flatting is great because you know he'll stack off with AJ Jxx on the flop.

its one of my go to things to flat with big pairs against nits because they are only nits until they hit top pair.

Meh. I think QQ is a great hand to play multiway. By CCíng we can likely get overcalled by medium pairs and broadway cards that have big RIO against us. At the described table our hand should not be overly hard to play post flop and having postion on the pfr is nice. In weak/tight games I think it is an advantage to have an underrepped/concealed hand.

I don't think playing QQ 5way in a raised pot is necessarily a good spot. Pot will be $100 with just $280 left (i.e. stacks should go in trivially by the turn), can we really fold postflop if we flop an overpair? Meanwhile we've given 4 opponents 19+ implied odds to stack us with their cheese. Then again, we also stack TP all the time, so maybe that balances out our losses a bit.

GcluelessNLnoobG

If we flat, even without any other callers SPR will be just over 4. It's going to be hard to avoid playing for stacks in any case. With QQ, I'd rather not be multi-way OOP on the border of being committed.

If guy has been tight and passive for the past hour, and I don't have any physical or behavior signs that he's running unusually card dead, I like 3b/fold. I believe the shove is overwhelmingly likely to be KK+. Even throwing in a few AK isn't enough for us to call.

$50 seems perfect. Enough to fold out cruft behind us, while committing both of us. If he jams over, we lose a bit less.

I think we can bet/fold against passive players fairly easily.

I´d argue that our implied odds when V´s call with dominated hands more than compensates for the RIO when they have PP´s and are set mining. I think we are good enough to fold an overpair whereas our opponents are losing a bunch when they flop a worse overpair or TP.

If we bet just $60 on the flop and get called in just one place, we'll have just a PSB left on the turn. We're getting away from our hand here? Let alone the time we get multiple callers (where we'll have a fraction of a PSB left on the turn) or face a raise on a low board (like 7 high where 88+ could consider themselves the nuts) or a drawy board (where draws could easily stick it in with this pot size).

It's hard to fold an overpair in an SPR < 3 pot. Heck, it might not even ever be correct.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Probably not. Usually we are crushing his range and are minting money in this spot.

)

If we are up against a guy that is shoving his overpairs on a 752 flop I´m fist pump getting it in against his range (and congratulating myself for flatting pf).

So we need to identify the players who play their draws fast and correctly weight these when we are constructing their range.

If we are paying attention I think we can definitely narrow our villians ranges down enough to make some pretty lol folds.

Even if you think I am FOS and I´m always stationing off when I get raised by two pair or a set I still hypothesize this is more than offset by the times our Villians stack off with 88 on a 7high flop or KJ on JTX, etc etc.

Besides PP´s, what hands are correct in calling pf with 19X stacks?

What are we doing with AK here?

^ What kind of crazy game is this, with players switching seats during the middle of a hand?

^ Um, yes, it can be. And it is. Unless he'll go to the felt with JJ-. DUCY?