Hi guys

All of the HUSNG micro stakes lobbies are dominated by Russian players who are playing a very tight, very aggressive 'TAG bot' style. They will play a very strong starting range regardless of position, make very large 3-bets OOP and post-flop play their made hands super aggressively, making pot size bets/raises on every street with strong hands. Some will even go as far as to donk PSB with top pair plus from OOP. From what I've observed, they seem to have zero bluffing range, but are happy to call a couple of streets post flop trying to hit their ace or king.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not faulting it, it clearly works, and I can see that many are making a living from it, but from a counter-strategy point of view it is difficult to find exploits. Most training material says that you need to focus on 'picking up the small pots' but that is easier said than done.

The main exploits I have found of these players are

- They are very insensitive to bet sizing. If they are going to call, they will call, regardless of if you are betting pot or half pot. I've seen many make incorrect calls with second/third pair when you are obviously playing tight yourself.

- They will stack off super light with top pair.

- They strongly overplay Ax hands and stick around with them for too long post-flop

- Some will attack your checking ranges for two streets with second pair if you check back the flop

If anyone can give any more detailed tips on countering these player types I would appreciate it. Specifically, in terms of generating and finding fold equity, as trying to play your hands against them is near impossible given that they are usually always at the top of their range

Sorry, how can someone always be at the top of their range? You're missing something here.

Yep, that was for sure a poor choice of words by me - would edit if I was able. What I meant was had a hand in strong absolute strength, obviously not the top of their range. Sorry about that.

Are you saying that these players *always* have hands that are strong in absolute strength? As in, every hand they have strong holdings?

You're still missing something here.

If these players tend to have strong holdings in particular lines, I might suggest overfolding vs those lines and overbluffing in lines that aren't those lines.

What % is a strong opening range?

If you are sure about these, what else do you need? Just do the obvious!

- Use big sizes with value-heavy ranges.
- Slowplay your sets and your strongest double pairs in dry flops. Check-raise with a wide range of bluffs.
- Get extra-value from your middle-pairs.
- Back to slowplay.


You now have a set of exploits that you can use at virtually every single hand! The problem here is, that I think some of your observations could be wrong. If you get the sensation of your opponent always being "at the top of their range", it's probably because their range is much tighter than you think