Lately I've been getting the feeling that people are bluffing way too much against me.

I play live MTT's, usually small stakes €20 single day tournaments with around 50 players.
Also taking some shots at €100-250 larger tournaments with 1000-2000 players.

In both I've started to notice people seem to be making large bets against me way too often. As an adjustment I started calling these more often.

Online bluffing frequencies make sense to me.
You have a lot of equity, so you make a bluff.
Or you have very little showdown value and you suspect a large part of villain's range should not be able to call a big bet and you can represent a strong hand.
Or you're able to very accurately assume villain's range and know you can make a profitable bluff.
...

Live however, opponents bluffing into me makes very little sense.
They do it with random crap.
With hands that have no equity on the turn.
With hands that have decent showdown value on the river.
Or hands that should've never gotten to the river, but got there only to try to make a big crazy bluff against me ...

The obvious adjustment is widening my calling range.

The problem is this happens with opponents I don't know and have never seen before.

It really don't like the idea of starting to make crazy calls with TP or even 2nd or 3rd pair. Basically turning into a calling station.
But from experience over the last weeks, this does seem like the proper way to handle these live players I'm running into.


Has anyone else experienced something similar?
I'm usually the tightest player at my table, just because everyone else is playing (way) too loose and calling too much.
I think people quickly pick up on this and assume I'm going to fold if they make large bets.

Any tips on how to learn to deal with this would be awesome!

I'm not sure I understand the problem. You have a tight image and are catching people bluffing into you. Sounds like an ideal situation.

The issue is that I'm probably folding way too many winning hands.

There are a couple adjustments you can make, and some of them depend on the villains. Are they making really thin value bets to balance out their large bluffing range? If so, you need to be bluff raising more often. If not, then just calling wider is fine. If they're getting crazy, you'll be able to call pretty wide.

No, you don't want to be a calling station, but if you're folding a ton, they're not being crazy players, they're exploiting you. That doesn't mean now you should call everything. Evaluate if your hand makes a good bluffcatcher or not. Do you have reasonable blockers? Does v have tons of bluffs on this board?

Additionally, you also might need to add more strong hands into your checking ranges if v's are going crazy bluffing. Let them bluff into you.

Read Andrew Brokos' book. If your opponent is deviating from the equilibrium strategy by bluffing too often, the correct adjustment is to call with all your hands that would normally be indifferent at equilibrium.

Yeah, I mean, it's fairly obvious that calling more against opponents that bluff too much is the solution.

Checking with strong hands more often is an option too, but you might miss a lot of value, especially if they're just going to raise-bluff you too much and you can make the correct calls.

I seem to have a table image that makes people (way) more likely to bluff against me. I'm more looking for ways to figure out when and why people are doing this.

My ranges are on the tight side, which is good for loose live games I believe.
I fold often when I don't have a strong hand, especially in multi-way pots.

A lot of live players are complete maniacs and pick up on this (quickly) and just start bluffing like crazy into me.

At least that's what I think is happening. Hard to prove though ...

The issue is that I'm currently unable to recognize which players are these maniacs and which are not.
I'm pretty sure people are bluffing into me too often, I just don't know who or why.

Since I'm often playing against people I don't know and have been at the table with for only one or two hours, it's pretty hard to figure out.
Especially when the first big bet they pull is against me.

Against opponents I play regularly, I'm able to pick up on this and I just start checking to induce bluffs and calling way too much.

The issue is with unknowns, it's fairly easy to pick up for them that I'm a decent tight player capable of folding.
It's much harder for me to find out if they're being maniacs or just have strong hands.

This is more interesting than it initially seemed. You have a sense that people are bluffing too often against you, but you're not able to identify who is doing it and when. Is it possible that you're concerned about your own style of play and are projecting a higher bluffing frequency on opponents that is actually happening? In other words, perhaps you feel you play too tight so you think people are trying to take advantage of it when they might not be.

If you can't figure out who is bluffing and when, what is giving you the sense that people are bluffing frequently?

You sense they're bluffing too much against you, so assuming you see enough evidence at showdown, start calling them lighter (isn't it obvious?).

You say you're not willing to make "crazy calls" with TP (which btw is not a "crazy call"). You can't stop people bluffing you completely, and some bluffs that may make no sense (e.g. ones that continue to the turn/river with no equity) will get through, sometimes it's OK, you an't win every pot.

If these players see you as tight and you aren't fighting back then while they might not be strong players in these sorts of buy-ins, they are exploiting your weakness/unwillingness to call and actually outplaying YOU!

One good bluff back wouldn't hurt. These wild raising types often wont call crazy as much as they raise crazy. They like to take money craftily but not throw good money away (read: they are not as loose as you think)

Avoiding players you are not comfortable playing hands with shouldn't be too tough. If there is half a table of them, either leave or stay and consider it education.