So I am a live mid-stakes grinder in the Seattle area and I have a question regarding ridiculously +EV games and why I seem to get crushed.

I'm not talking variance here nor beats or anything like that. My question boils down to the fish who play their hand crazy bad yet destroy me every time.

When I am in ok games, even games that aren't amazing I seem to do very well. Weather its reads or maybe just running good I seem to beat neutral to - Ev games.

So the more I type the more I'm thinking that these games have to just have an exponential more amount of variance based on the first level thinkers in the game and the crazy plays that seem to crush my soul.

So do I need to just shut up, thank the fish for the action and keep coming back?

Fyi I play 2-5nl, 3-5nl, 5-10nl, 8-16lhe-20-40lhe

Not sure how much experience you have, but if it's more than a few sessions, it's probably not just variance. Are you trying to bluff/outplay the fish? Have you tried just peddling the nuts in these games?

Well I have 82 sessions that have +EV in my post session notes. I've lost 65% of sessions in these games.

I play similar live stakes and when I am in these games I try to think like a first level thinker. Elaborate multi street bluffs do no work against these players. Floating doesn't work either. What does work is ABC poker with strong value betting. They really never learn so just keep betting rather than trying to confuse them.

seems like sick variance

wait for good hands
bet
occasionally make small cbets if you somehow see a flop with 1-2 villains

GG

Yeha this tbh. It sucks having to watch them all spew vs each other with 56o for 3 hours, but the second you get AA, they're all too moronic to even notice and still pay you off with nothing.

must be nice...

These games do have much bigger variance. Their going to pay you off nicely when your hand holds up but it's going to be hard to put them on K7 when the flop comes K72 and they shove into your AK.

live in general is high variance because of how slow it plays, but it's not true that fishier games are higher variance than tougher ones. it's for sure the other way around. people who think it's high variance to play vs fishes 'because you can't put them on a hand'/etc are idiots looking for excuses imo.

live fish love to limp/call pre with rags and then call down with top pair no kicker. how can that possibly be high variance? what kinds of crazy plays coming from fishes crush your soul?

the internet could help you get better and more confident, even if the playstyles are vastly different. why not play both online and live? online poker pretty much forces you to think about things and improve yourself

I play a small/mid-stakes no limit quite often at our local casino. These guys range from almost capable to completely drunk lunatics...maybe 1 or 2 out of 100 I could consider anything close to "good". Because they're so awful, I've learned the biggest thing I can do is pick lines specific to their giant leaks.

Ex: Drunk dude to my immediate left is raising 90% of hands 10bb pre-flop, and getting called by 3 or 4 loose passives...sweet, let me make an obvious limp-reraise with AA or KK. Drunk guy will look at me, tell me I have a big pair, call anyway with pocket 4s or 89 suited for half his stack and try to "crack me".

More than anything, though, I've learned to listen to what they say about poker and about my play. Lots of them like to talk, and will pretty much tell you what range (or specific hand) they think you have. If loose-action-asian is complaining about me being tight and playing only AK, I raise, an ace comes (and I do indeed have ace good kicker), and he gets real aggressive at me, he's probably not bluffing. He probably thinks I have an ace and has found his spot to trick me with his cleverly (sarcasm) played 7 4 off suit that finally hit two pair.

This lol but i had aces utg lol

fishy games play a lil strange and needs adaptation.

Live games are very high variance because a lot of your hands will end up in TPTK or overpair type scenarios with spr's under 5 because of the huge torrent of players who will call raises and 3b's from every position. Once you bet the flop with such SPR's, you have to get in. So sometimes you will be crushed by 2 pr/sets and sometimes you will hold up and win a lot of buy ins.