Experienced Deepstacked Live Players...

I have a few questions for you guys.

Apparently there are some really soft 2/5 and 5/10 uncapped games up in northern California. My buddy (who I've basically coached for over a year) has been playing in, and calling me after each session w/ hands he has played asking for feedback on how he played them, etc.

He's offered to stake me in these games, basically to sit 5k or 10k deep in these games. Now, I have a decent amount of experience playing live, and have had some success in my most recent trip to Vegas playing 5/10 live ... But I always bought in for 100bb in those games, so I'm going to give an example of one hand my friend told me about, then basically just ask how you guys would approach these games because this is a great opportunity to get back on my feet and I want to be prepared.

Here's how the hand went down ...

40/30 (roughly) postflop manaic opens to 45 in MP after like 3 limpers. Game is 2/5NL. He get's four callers, the initial 3 limpers, and a super nit millionaire whale sitting w/ 5k in BB also cold calls.

Flop comes Tc6c6s (Pot $180)
Checked around to maniac who bets 160. Super nit calls.
Super nit sitting about 5k deep, maniac w/ roughly $1700

Turn Jc, Board reads Tc6c6sJc (Pot $500)
Super nit insta donks out $300, maniac thinks and calls.

River 2h Board reads Tc6c6sJc2h (Pot $1100)

Super nit insta shoves. $1300 for maniac to call
maniac tanks and calls w/ K high flush
nit shows A high flush.

In regards to this hand, IMO the maniac played it terribly, if he's calling the turn it has to be to fold to a shove on the river that doesn't double pair the board or bring a 4th flush card, otherwise he should just be raising the turn to commit.

Anyways, just curious on your guys thoughts about approaching these types of games where there are such crazy nits like this one. Lag players I generally don't have issues with, especially live ones, but tend to have a lot of trouble when I pick up a real strong hand vs a nit.

In my experience everything below 5/10 is really very soft. 10/20 is tough, but a lot of players, even solid regulars, play drunk (but that doesn't affect their game as much as you would think).

It's hard to play like a maniac and then fold the second nut flush even on a paired board when you will be facing really thin value all the time. Especially since you can assume that all villains are really very bad and will probably go broke with trip sixes here. Calling down is usually a better play in live games than online and that's mostly because bluffing frequencies are way higher.

Here's two hands I played live recently:

Villain in both hands is a professional live cash player who playes a very laggy style. Something like 45/35/1.5. I know he plays 10/20 online regularly. He always takes the role of 'table captain', and plays like a maniac. I'm new at the table and not regular so presumably viewed as fish. I don't think villain remembers me from previous encounters.

Blinds are 2/5. Biggest table open at the time, 9 handed. Stacks 120BB. I raise to 25 from UTG+1 with KTo, two MP callers. Villain re-raises to 175 from BB. I shove to 600 for value. Folded to villain, who calls with 94o and looses.

Hand 2. Same table 10 hands later. I raise UTG+1 to 30 with A8s. Three MP callers and same villain calls from BB. Stacks 200BB.

Flop comes 842 rainbow. Villain checks, I bet pot 150, folded to villain, who calls. Turn is a queen, two clubs on the board. I overbet shove for around 800. Villain calls with 54o and looses.

Now how exactly are you supposed to fold the second nut flush in this kind of games?

basically show like a million bluffs in small pots and then always have it in big ones (hopefully really big ones).

i honestly expected a lot better advice ... not to be critical but, cmon, u guys can do better.

massimo ... showing bluffs imo is very bad in live games as the ratio w/ which i'm going to be bluffing is going to be much higher in general since the amount of hands im getting per hour is far less, if i keep showing bluffs, im gonna start to get played back at too much and people just dont make hands often enough live, and they overrepresent/underrep their hands cuz they dont understnad relative hand strengths, so i'll have no way of gauging where im at. i think this is a very bad idea.

As long as supernits range past the turn includes rag club connectors, maniac has to play his hand. Given the preflop action, I don't think it's unreasonable to include rag club connectors. I think he even shows up with AxAc sometimes, or even AAo and KKo.

I just don't think it's a good idea for maniac to fold in this spot.

I'm underqualified to respond here, but I'll give it a go, and if you don't like my assessment, you can just ignore it.

The big thing I don't see in this hand (not that you could know anyway) is nit's and maniac's reads on each other. However, it's safest to assume that nit sees maniac as a maniac and maniac sees nit as a nit. Given that as the case with no additional info, I think you're probably right that maniac would have been better off reraising or shoving on the turn, as nit's calling range there is gonna be a bit weaker than his open shoving range on the river, more likely to include overpairs and such.

However, even as played, I don't see that maniac should really fold 2nd nut flush on the river, again because nit presumably knows opp is a maniac and has opened up some.

Originally Posted by Marshall28

i honestly expected a lot better advice ... not to be critical but, cmon, u guys can do better.

massimo ... showing bluffs imo is very bad in live games as the ratio w/ which i'm going to be bluffing is going to be much higher in general since the amount of hands im getting per hour is far less, if i keep showing bluffs, im gonna start to get played back at too much and people just dont make hands often enough live, and they overrepresent/underrep their hands cuz they dont understnad relative hand strengths, so i'll have no way of gauging where im at. i think this is a very bad idea.

With all due respect, isn't adjusting your style to the game optimal rather than the opposite?

marshall- its cause ur topic is too vague but heres my answer- play tight in EP and mathematically correctly and u cannot be a loser in almost any live game under 25/50.

note: playing a tight strategy will not maximize ur winrate in a deep live game but its definitely the best way to play if ur asking this question

Originally Posted by Marshall28

i honestly expected a lot better advice ... not to be critical but, cmon, u guys can do better.

massimo ... showing bluffs imo is very bad in live games as the ratio w/ which i'm going to be bluffing is going to be much higher in general since the amount of hands im getting per hour is far less, if i keep showing bluffs, im gonna start to get played back at too much and people just dont make hands often enough live, and they overrepresent/underrep their hands cuz they dont understnad relative hand strengths, so i'll have no way of gauging where im at. i think this is a very bad idea.

I don't think you have a good assessment of the fish in live games.

sauce: how could i pose the question in a more specific way to get a better response as to how you might approach these types of games? -- with the specific goal being to maximize my winrate

ISF: i agree completely that after seeing the hands shown down that the original reads specified on the players were obviously incorrect. they weren't my reads, it was the information my friend gave me to work with. obv "nit" is not that much of a nit since he's getting it in for liek 300bb w/ a flush on a paired board

but other than like play tight and mathematically correct ... do u guys have any other advice that might help to prepare me a bit more ?

and what does "tight" even mean, u know?

Originally Posted by cowboyardee

I'm underqualified to respond here, but I'll give it a go, and if you don't like my assessment, you can just ignore it.

The big thing I don't see in this hand (not that you could know anyway) is nit's and maniac's reads on each other. However, it's safest to assume that nit sees maniac as a maniac and maniac sees nit as a nit. Given that as the case with no additional info, I think you're probably right that maniac would have been better off reraising or shoving on the turn, as nit's calling range there is gonna be a bit weaker than his open shoving range on the river, more likely to include overpairs and such.

However, even as played, I don't see that maniac should really fold 2nd nut flush on the river, again because nit presumably knows opp is a maniac and has opened up some.

in regards to the actual hand, after thinking about it and discussing it w/ my roommate we determined the optimal play for maniac would be to flat turn, then throw up getting shoved into on the river and calling anyways.

in regards to what you were saying about perceived images ...the problem is, these players are very very poor at adjsuting to however they perceive their opponent (or if they are even perceiving their opponent at all) .. some players play on zero level as sklansky would say. that is ,... look at their 2 cards and base their actions off of that alone without any regard to other opponents.

this of course brings up the exact problem that u mentioned about how nit has to have some perception of maniac being a maniac, and maniac has to know it, which shoudl in theory widen maniac's turn and river calling range. but this is why i said i have such trouble against a nit playing deep like this and doing anything other than flatting my bets when i have less than the nuts.

thinking out loud ... im supposing i should just try to figure out as quickly as possible which players are nutpeddling and beware when they enter a pot.

marshall- the best piece of advice i can give u is that the value of isolating in position goes down drastically in value in some of these deep live games if u dont have the btn

I guess my question is what hands are a nit open betting oop on that turn that he isn't calling a reraise AI against a known maniac? (<-- not rhetorical)

If it isn't many, wouldn't maniac be better off getting his money in there?

the best advice I can give you is get some experience playing live so you can get comfortable. You told me you don't play live that much so just try to get some hands in. In my 200nl and 500nl experience live players react very differently than online players do.

my best advice is to sit 100bbs deep caz thats what your familiar with, and you wont be getting urself into deep stacked situations you arent familiar with. ez game