Rahul P Gopal
Rock Star
Platinum Level
What key mindset and strategic adjustments have contributed most to your consistent success as a NIT player in both live and online poker environments?"
Tero
Legend
Loyaler
There is no such thing.
Too nitty players will blind down while waiting for better cards. And when you start adjusting yourself to the table you suddenly aren't inside the NIT definition anymore.
sandy358
Rock Star
Platinum Level
I think that the most important adjustment a nit can make other than stop being a nit is the game selection. You need to make sure that the fish won't understand your strategy and start exploiting by simply overfolding. I guess calling station heavy microstakes games will do, especially the ones with too much jams with garbage, as in these you can just open-jam aces every time and print money as you will find insane callers who will call a 70BB jam with QJo, though better nits often don't straight telegraph their hand strength by jamming but either open-raise small or just trap-limp when appropriate.
Also my personal recommendation is even though you don't want to just open-jam, as you don't want to generate unnecessary folds, but over the course of the hand you really want to inflate the pot huge, as nit ranges are very nut-heavy and you just have to compensate for your extremely low VPIP in general. For that reason you also will benefit from targeting overbetting maniacs, who will willfully inflate the pot with garbage, giving your nutted hands free double ups by the river.
And you should probably add flop set mining with small and medium pocket pairs to your repertoir if you haven't already. It will provide you with additional board coverage so that your better opponents won't be just blindly bluffing you out on boards like 965, and despite not hitting that often, sets in general are hands with so much equity you can just casually go broke with them most of the time. To set mine properly and profitably though you have to make sure that SPR is big enough, so you especially have to keep the preflop action as passive as possible with your small pairs. Overfold if you don't hit a set on the flop, since we are already nitting we don't need to fit the MDF quota.
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Rahul P Gopal
Rock Star
Platinum Level
That’s definitely true. When you hope into a table and encounter that famous NIT that you have played with before will make you feel he is stronger, already giving very good value even for his bluffs. Belive me or not, I still remember a guy named AceHigh from my early game days, to whom I will simple fold all my middle pairs, when he raises aggressively 😕
Rahul P Gopal
Rock Star
Platinum Level
There still seems to be something more about nitty players. They not only wait for very good hands, but overbet when the pot builds at late positions make others to fold.
Phoenix Wright
Legend
Bronze Level
It depends on what you consider to be a NIT. Back in the day, that term was just someone who played a solid game and didn't carry the negative connection and player type it now does. If you mean that this person literally only waits for AA or maybe KK and folds everything else, then they are missing too many opportunities to be successful long-term.
If someone is too tight in what cards they play (NIT being an extreme case of this), then it's only profitable when the opponents are way too loose and paying you off, so a NIT being a good strategy or not really depends on the table dynamics.
pentazepam
Legend
Loyaler
Very true. A thinking NIT can still beat almost any game. Just not for the same amount as a good TAG or LAG can.
Rahul P Gopal
Rock Star
Platinum Level
Exactly.
DarkSage
Enthusiast
Silver Level
You can start playing very NIT, but you'll shortly realized that this forces you to play only a few hands, missing the opportunity to steal big blinds and take advantage from the button. In order to make a better profit you'll start to explore some less valuable hands like small pairs and suited connectors. These type of hands are perfect to trap other NIT players since they'll be focused at that AK they've hitted on flop and will never see your set of triples coming nor a straight with small connectors.
primrose
Visionary
Bronze Level
This may be true online but not true live at all. You can be incredibly nitty and beat the game (in fact, this is by far the easiest way to beat the game). People play similar ranges to online, wider if anything, despite RFI sizes being much larger, which means that blinds are far less of a factor. And that's assuming no-one straddles, which is also not the case.
There's a regular in my casino (not super regular, but he's been around a long time, shows up maybe 1 per week) who is a dreadful poker player tbh, he plays so face up, has no idea about when to bluff, but he's the nittiest player there and I'm pretty sure he's a small winning player. It's kind of astonishing how little skill you need to beat live games if you're just willing to play tight (although it's not a good hourly wage).