I guess I’m not wired that way. I can’t see how out nitting the nits can be that profitable. I don’t doubt it can be profitable but it absolutely has to be leaving mountains of cash on the table.
most people don’t make mountains of cash in low stakes live poker
I guess i’m pretty sympathetic to NBZ way of playing because for years I played at a home/underground high stakes game where you wouldn’t get invited if you kept isolating the whales. so I just learned to play relatively short stacked (it was a 400bb capped game that effectively played 100bb because of constant straddles) multi-way post flop. It’s entertaining in a way
Do you hate playing fixed limit? I’m comfortable playing those games, too, but some of what you say sound like the things I hear from winning NL/PLO players who can’t figure out limit games.
People like to see flops. I keep them happy by letting them see flops and playing better postflop in multiway hands. No fold em games are not bingo.
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This is clearly extremely -ev compared to your alternatives. Unhappy people lose money just as fast if not faster and casinos to do not kick you out for raising.
I agree it’s not “bingo” and can still be profitable and as I said, I was ‘forced’ to play that way for a long time so I understand.
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I love limit games but playing big bet games like limit is as nuts as the big bet fish who sit down in limit and try to constantly one raise bluff! 
Meh. When you play more as a hobby then a profession, limit games are nice because they can easily fill a time window.
You can lose four bullets pretty fast in Low stakes NL.
I dabble in the Boulder Station Omaha Limit game. It gets my Omaha fix in, and its always running. Even at 4/8 it plays big enough for my gambling fix to be satisfied but I don’t usually have to worry about losing more than $100 in a hand unless its some wild kill pot. They started 8/16 also at some point but I have never played.
I remember playing a little 4-8 LH at the Orleans some years ago. There was a lot of pre-flop raising and some raising after the flop too. Can’t explain exactly how, but it really felt like folks were colluding in some way. Was very frustrating.
In my case, I play in some local games with small player pools and smashing someone for three buy-ins in less than hour makes them take time off too often and risks making the game not run or shut down too early, but giving them some play and being social makes them repeat customers I can shear repeatedly. They want to see flops, gamble a little, and not lose too fast. Then, they dump chips when they are ready to go home.
It’s funny. I’m not good at exploiting population tendencies in poker, favoring a more nuanced style of treating everyone differently. But I advocate using population tendencies in politics and clovis argues against that in favor of more nuance.
A lot of times it isn’t colluding, it’s just dumb people playing poker.
It’s locals who look like they are soft-playing each other because they know what each other has. Like taking a bet/call line with top boat against quads.
You’re in vegas now.
The cycle of NBZ poker style discussion is weird to me. You play poker very sub-optimally (I’m phrasing it nicely), compared to winning poker players, based on the hands you describe. You are a profitable poker player who has a style he’s comfortable with and what I imagine is a very strong mental game which is super important.
Then you go on for long explanation that are at best unfounded. You just uncomfortable playing differently and that’s fine. I’m playing in games i’m a bit underolled for and I’m rusty in my game, so I take lines I know are less profitable long term to both reduce variance and put me in easier decisions while I lack confidence.
I don’t make up reasons as to why they are better.
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Now I’m kinda sad we didn’t get to play longer, just to see the magic in action, but NBZ got moved like 1 orbit after I sat because it was a must move, and then the table stopped being must move right before I was set to move over.
I’m curious what your first impression read of me was. I would have pegged you as a tight player until you showed me otherwise and wouldn’t light 3bet you until I had a better sense of what you like to raise with. When you called me in that hand, I thought you flatted me on the flop with a set, so I was probably done with that hand unless I hit the ace or a card that gave me a combo draw on the turn.
The woman beside me said you were raising a lot the day before. Getting those sorts of scouting reports are why I like to talk to players instead of looking at my phone.
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I think it was my first hand and I was still pretty flustered bc the 5/5 game was like 7 big action hands and then I left and hurried over to your table and was dealt in right away and saw mediocre QQ so I raised.
Then you reraised OOP and under normal circumstances I just snap fold, but I wasn’t really in the mood so I said wtf, I’ll set mine.
IIRC, the flop was actually rainbow which made my flat even easier bc I didn’t want to blow you off AA. So I was saying to myself “no ace”, but then it hit.
If I’m being honest, the only players up to that point that weren’t just weak tight nits at 1/2 were Asian, so I convinced myself that maybe you were getting out of line, even though deep down I knew it was AAA.
I also felt very unsettled and usually I thrive on order, so probably wasn’t accessing my intuition near as well as normal. If it was my first table of the day and 3rd hand or something I probably snap fold both preflop and turn.
As for the read on you, in those games I think it’s best to assume weak tight nit until proven otherwise, but for the factors mentioned above and not being in a folding mood, I made a dumb call.
Incidentally, a similar situation came up a couple orbits later with 8876 calling vs a 3 better and I snap folded an A83 flop vs him.
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Yah, I had been raising close to 50% at times bc not a single person 3 bet me maybe the entire night.
Agreed on the phone thing. If live were my main game then I would be way more locked in, but I play live maybe like 1 weekend every year and just like to relax and have fun.
That’s why I preferred the 1/2, bc I could dictate all the action and play a ton of hands profitably. At the 5/5, which was way more aggro, I’d need to be zoned in and probably only get to play 25% of hands, but I didn’t want to put in that effort.
Also I think I’m just not nearly as good live vs online so I’m sure you crush me in all those little intangibles.
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The people in my game love me. I seem like total action, am always chatting and laughing, and I am happy to pretend to feel terrible about bad beats ect. I always straddle and am happy to give action sometimes even when I know it’s minus ev.
This way when I regularly leave up more than a grand everyone is still happy.
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For those loose live games, I like to keep the pot smaller OOP and raise more in position.
There’s a psychology component here. I want to manage the pot size so it’s the right size for them to call a flop bet with too wide of a range and give up too often on the turn. I don’t want the pot to bloated to big enough for them feel pot committed so that I lose fold equity. I think I like being able to bet 50-60 on the flop, then giving them a hard decision on the turn.
I don’t think trying to set things up to play for stacks on the flop is the best strategy against a weak-tight lineup.
With deeper stacks, my preflop strategy shifts.