Manila NL200: Exploitable Face-Up Plays 🐌
The written below is relevant to a particular and very common type of players, the Local/Expat Regs, who are on a tight/nitty side.
They are easy to identify and play against, because their strategy is straightforward, predictable and not too creative.
If you get it right, you won’t ever pay them off, not one bet (so they will leave the table fast enough for you to get busy with the Fish).
What to look for:
Open Sizing Patterns
You’ll see heaps of people limp with Ace-rag, make it 3,5x with AQ, 4,5x with AK, 5x with pocket tens, 6x with AA and KK. Right, that obvious. Just don’t tell them it’s obvious because there is nothing as good as an opponent who plays his hand face-up.
EXAMPLE
This guy has been at my table for about 3 hours, running good, showing down some premium starting hands.
It’s folded around to his 6x open, so he makes a face of a child who got no candy and tables his aces. You don’t have to show them, mate. At this point even the fishiest player at the table knows what you have.
The whole thing reminds me of Blackrain79, only that he’s been using theze sizings at the online micros, NL 2 and 5, where people simply don’t care, how much to call with their J 9o. 10x? Why not!
Live NL200 in Manila is a brighter place, where people do pay attention and remember things. I just don’t get how these sizings make any sense.
Limp-Reraise
Not once have I seen somebody the Manila NL200 reg make this play as a bluff. Balanced limp-reraise strategy? Forget it!
The guy’s gonna turn up with AA or KK every single time.
NOTE: Beware of a person limping UTG and then coldcalling a big squeeze. This is a very AA/KK/QQ heavy range. He thinks this line makes a lot of sense when he has a shorter stack and agro players left to act behind him - and sometimes he’s right.
ANOTHER NOTE: If you squeeze and 3-bet often and light enough, they will quickly start limp-calling big pocket pairs on you.
- How the fuck does he limp-calls QQ UTG?
- Why, have you not seen this here before?
Min-3-Bet
If you open 3-3,5x from the late postion and the blind makes it 7,5x, he’s got precisely AA or KK.
Queens tend to make a bigger raise, from what I’ve seen.
This usually happens when you are heads-up in position vs a reg who thinks he’s a Trap King that does not lose his customers. If you are both deep, and you flop a set on an innocent-looking board, your opponent is often going autopilot broke by pot-pot-shove. All you need to do is kindly call.
Suited connectors are less profitable in such situations because when you hit, the board will be wet enough for your opponent to slow down and eventually find a fold.
Min-Raise, Especially Good Old Check-Minraise, Especially on the Turn
This is an all-time favorite weapon of the NitLords.
If you bet 15bb and your opponent makes it 30ish, he’s got the mortal nuts. What a cooler. Easy fold. Even if the board is not paired and you have a flush draw, it may be the best idea to let it go, because every time you hit, the nit will fold.
Leading Into The Raiser
Especially with a large bet in a multi-way pot.
When a Manila reg does that, the bottom of his range will be a slowplayed overpair. More often it’s two pair or a set. I am yet to witness anybody playing a big draw this way - but hey, that’s what Doyle suggested.
Your top pair top kicker will never ever be good here. As absurd as it sounds, you can fold right now, on the flop, and save yourself some money.
Check this hand I played in Resort’s World, or here is another example:
I open with A♠️K♠️ from early, guy behind me calls, a solid grandpa reg calls from the blind.
Flop K♣️9♥️7♥️ and the grandpa leads into the two of us with almost a pot-sized bet. I smell trouble but so kind of “have to call” now to fold later. The guy behind me jams, the daddy rejams, I instafold. Daddy has a set of nines and his opponent got it in with 6♥️8♥️.
I might as well have instafolded on the flop, I mean it.
PLEASE, NOTE:
If you’re up against a fishy, crazy, any 2 card ludolunatic or a bored rich guy, all of the above goes out of the window. Every hand vs them leaves you on a judgment territory, so if you are looking for something, look for the live tells instead. Talk to them, these types can be chatty enough to give away all you need to know.
FOLD AND LIVE TO FOLD AGAIN
Exploiting these plays (especially the leads and min-raises) will mean making lots of folds in a spot where the GTO adepts would say “with this hand you have a pretty clear call”.
I think, this is the exact spot where you have a pretty clear “fuck GTO and fold”. Or is that actually a GTO concept: if the guy has the nuts 100% of the time, that’s exactly how often you should be folding?
PRO TIP: Fold your strong hands face up to tilt them 👹
CONCLUSION
Money saved is the money earned.
Let’s face it, you need a huge cooler or at least overpair vs set scenario, or an Ultimate LAGtard table image to stack these guys (and even then they will tank long enough for you to have a nice Asian meal - the poker rooms in Manila have better food than most of the cafes, I swear).
They can be pushed off their marginal hands in a small pot as long as you don’t overdo it, so the C-bets, double barrels and floats in position are your best friends.
But the most important and the easiest thing at the same time is to never be calling them with the worst of it.
I repeat, don’t feed the Nit.