I thought it'd be fun to review some hands against them today. Some background: They sat me and i just LOLd in a 720 4-man. Their image of us both is that of pretty nitty, inferior players, scared money especially when playing them. Some of that is true (H2Olga is a better player than I am), but their image of what we are (and aren't) capable of was something to take advantage of. Let's talk about a couple hand histories.

Hand #1:

Effective Stacks: 44bb

Blinds 15/30

Pre-Flop (45, 2 players)

Hero is SB

Hero raises to 60, riyyc225 calls 30

Preflop, 82s has just a little too much going for it to just openfold. We have to be careful not to get abused when we open a wide range against an opponent who thinks we're too nitty - a common response to that is to 3bet a wide range, which is even more effective when we're opening a wide range. Still, I think I can use my image to bluff a lot postflop which adds to our equity from choosing to play the hand.

Flop (120, 2 players)

riyyc225 checks, Hero checks

This is a flop that hits his flatting range pretty hard, and I decide to check back, especially because I had just been aggressive in taking down the first couple of pots, which was enough in my mind to turn a marginal c-betting decision in a checkback. I suspected that he would lead the turn with a lot of his value hands and draws, allowing me to make a delayed c-bet on certain turns a good amount of the time vs a range that would fold to it a good bit. I can also go big on representing A/K/J/7 turn cards, because those are all very feasibly in my flop checking behind range.

Turn (120, 2 players)

riyyc225 checks, Hero bets 80, riyyc225 calls 80

On the turn, a king comes off, and he checks. Given what he likely perceives most of my flop checking range to be (Ax/Jx/7x, maybe some pocket pairs), I think he expects most of that range (which he can get some value out of with Kx/Qx/Jackwithextraequity) to check back the turn as well, so he very likely is leading a lot of his value hands. It's a reasonable turn to check/raise with some very big hands, though: I can be checking behind my Kx on the flop and will be betting it on the turn, which leads to a good check/raise opportunity considering that I will have top pair a good bit. However, the overwhelming point I want to make here is that I think he has very little Kx in his range once he checks the turn, and we rep Kx perfectly when I bet it. That's a huge advantage for me. He's not going to fold his pairs/draws regardless, though, so it's important that we follow through on a lot of rivers.

River (280, 2 players)

riyyc225 checks, Hero bets 150,

This is one river it's definitely important to follow up on. If our checking back the flop range is mostly fairly weak hands/showdown value, check/calling the turn is a pretty weird line for him to take with most flush draws. He should lead the turn to fold out my ace highs and low pairs, along with repping Kx/better hands well so that he can fold me out with a double barrel. Meanwhile, my line makes sense for a flush draw: I checked back some Axcc, Jxcc, or junkcc, bet the turn once I picked it up, and followed through on the river.

On the river, it's really important to pick a sizing here that both makes it look like it's possible I have Kx, or a completed flush. Since the majority of hands in his range are fairly weak, it still makes sense not to go too big on the river with a flush (bigger would be fine too, with a flush, he wouldn't think twice about putting that in my range). 150 is small enough though that I rep Kx still very well, too. Thus, I think we get the desired result a very large percentage of the time when we are perceived as a nit:

riyyc225 folds

Hand #2:

Effective Stacks: 37bb

Blinds 20/40

Pre-Flop (60, 2 players)

Hero is BB

riyyc225 raises to 80, Hero calls 40.

Flop (160, 2 players)

Hero checks, riyyc225 bets 80, Hero raises to 200, riyyc225 calls 120

For the second hand, we pick up A4o 37bb deep, which is a pretty easy flat of a minraise versus everybody preflop. On the flop, riyyc c-bets a board he's going to lead a ton of the time. We can definitely flat call here, and that would be my standard against most players. However, most players aren't going to attack weakness as much as riyyc likely will given his perception of me. Check/calling this flop is pretty dang weak in general - it's going to be a lot of 3x/2x/Ax/KJ type stuff that can be barreled off on a lot of turns. Given how he sees me, I can get away with check/raising this board without too much of a worry of him 3betting the flop without a very big hand. I expect to get a lot of folds to the small raise and a decent amount of flats, playing a ton better this way against his air (not letting it hit pairs or bluff and put us in awful spots) and also better vs 3x/2x/Ax/continuing overs because we can barrell off and get a lot of credit due to our image. It's also worth noting that there's no flush draw on this flop, so no easy draw to put us on.

Turn (560, 2 players)

Hero bets 240, riyyc225 calls 240

On the turn, I really like a smaller sizing given our reads. It sets up a river shove well, represents an inducing hand well, and makes his life pretty difficult. The thing is, if we bet bigger, he can actually very easily just jam over 8x without worrying about it too much, but he can't do that nearly as comfortably if we bet smaller. Keep in mind that we're not deep enough for 33/22 to be shoves pre, so those are still well in our range here. Given that he expects most of our check/raise/continue range to be fairly strong here, getting it all-in on the turn with one pair isn't something he can comfortably do: A lot of the time, he's just donating to bigger hands and folding out trash, and there's not nearly as much value in folding out draws or forcing draws to get it in. The bet size freezes him with a lot of range because of our image. Very often, against thinking players when you have a nitty image, your turn betsizing mainly serves to set up your river bluff, rather than a line of "I got to get him out, ok that didn't work, let me try my hardest on the turn, or that didn't work, now one last time on the river". Thinking players give you a lot of credibility when your sizing doesn't look like you're trying to bluff them out on every street, especially when you are perceived as value betting most of the time.

River (1040, 2 players)

Hero goes all-in 985

Now look at our situation based on our image. We check/raised the flop, which he doesn't expect us to do very wide. We continued on the turn, which he doesn't expect us to do very often. Finally, the draw that came up on the turn, and might have caused us to decide to continue to bluff, comes in on the river. We have to jam this river, needing a fold less than 50% of the time for it to be profitable.

One last point: I timed down for a good while before jamming this river, even after I had made my decision. This is somewhat of a reverse timing tell: In general, most people will not time down before making big bluffs. Psychologically, the longer it is that it's your turn, the longer it feels to you like people are putting you under scruitiny and watching you, which leads people to bluff less often after taking more time. That's not to say quicker jams are always weaker, or that you should snap fold whenever someone hits the timebank, but it's a useful tendency to know about. Additionally, I timed down a bit because I wanted to continue to rep one of the primary hands in my range, strong 8x. strong 8x I believe is well ahead of his river calling range, but it conceivably would need some time to decide this, especially if I were scared money. After a time down of his own...

riyyc225 folds

After our matches, my 4man pard and I conferred on how they went. "ran a lot of big bluffs", i just LOLd typed in AIM, before I even had a chance to talk about my game. "He thinks I'm such a nit".

The essential understanding: Take advantage of when your opponent has the wrong idea about your frequencies or your ability to adapt them.

mers