Playing against a huge fish...

I was seated at a 100 NL table with a huge fish. He was -$1100 over 200 hands, and that's with getting lucky a bunch. He was playing 75/7 with a 3 Bet of 15%, often min raising 3 Bets in position against middle-late raisers. He'd also limp and then call freakishly large raises., (limping for 1$ and then calling $15 dollar raise).

I'd seen him call $125 preflop with A9 off, call $100+ after flopping middle pair, call his entire stack off with an inside straight draw. The only way he doesn't call flop/turn bets is with complete air and no draw. Has also called all-in once with two pair on a four flush board. He was also shoving all-in on scary rivers fairly wide, especially if preflop raiser showed signs of slowing down.

Is the best strategy against this person, to isolate him with 3 Bets when possible, and then keep the pots small-medium unless you have very strong hands? Or since he is willing to call all-in with baloney, it is worth playing for stacks anytime you have an overpair or TPTK.

I'm just sort of wondering... Playing for stacks everytime you got a leg to stand on is definitely profitable against this guy (as evidence that the players averaging > $100 from him), but its high variance... many players lost hundreds with him catching draws and flopping two pairs. On the other hand, playing for stacks only with two pairs or better, seems less profitable but certainly less variance.

I have 20 buy-ins for 100NL... if I had 50 buy-ins, I'd be much happier playing the high variance version... but with 20 buy-ins you could easily lose $500 to this guy in a few hands playing for stacks with over pairs and TPTK.

Thoughts?

Playing against fish who stack off with gutter balls, wow, where do I signup? But seriously, if your roll can't handle the variance to make extremely +EV plays against this guy, then you should probably move down a level. Sounds like you may be out of your comfort zone. Did you just move up to 50nl?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by rudefella

I have 20 buy-ins for 100NL... if I had 50 buy-ins, I'd be much happier playing the high variance version... but with 20 buy-ins you could easily lose $500 to this guy in a few hands playing for stacks with over pairs and TPTK.

Thoughts?

---

move down to 50nl. Move back up at roll = $3k.

Yeah, I'm probably not quite comfortable with 100 NL. In the game, I started off losing $350 (15% of my BR) to the Villain before getting $225 back from him. First he flopped trips against my KK. Then he spiked a 4-outer against my flopped nut flush, and then he caught a straight against my flopped trips. Each time we were all in at the flop. I almost left the table with frustration, but I decided I could keep my cool in this very lucrative situation.

I'm actually just starting to play no limit cash games seriously in the last month, so I'm getting my feet wet quick. I have almost exclusively been playing MTTs and some STTs casually for 6-7 years (1-3 MTTs a week, and maybe a few dozen around holidays). I've met OK success, with an ROI of 38% (playing mostly $2-$6 buy-ins, with a few shots at $22 buyins). I have always kept my online bankroll around $400, because when I've made money, I've needed it to pay off debt. I'm now not in debt, so after my most recent tournament win of $2200, I decided to keep $1500 online, and start dabbling in cash games. My only other cash game experience is playing $4/$8 Omaha Hi Lo and $3/6 Limit Hold em at the local casinos.

So with the new bankroll, I started playing $50 NL until I got my BR up to $2000, and then started to mix in a few 100 NL games. At 50 NL, I've played 9,000 hands this month (usually playing 1-4 tables at a time). I am running a little hot, I suppose, because my BB/hour is 14.75, but I am very choosy with the tables I play. I tend not to stay at tables with VPIP less than %20.

I have only 900 hands at $100 NL, running -$0.8 BB/hour.

My stats are 16/11... 3-Betting = 3%, C-Betting = 65%

Is $2000 enough to play $100 NL? I thought it was, but after losing a quick $350 against a crazy fish, I thought maybe it'd be better to wait until I have a BR of 40-50 buyins.

2000 isn't close to enough for 100nl, even if you had 3000 you should seriously be consider dropping down if you lose 2-3 buyins I would think.

If you aren't comfortable with loosing 500bb pots, then you shouldn't be playing that stake

see the hands i posted in my op thread today - link at bottom.
How would you feel at 100nl and losing stacks in each of them? This is one session, you gotta be comfortable with aggro.
Move down. You'll have your roll at $2500 soon enough, move up then if you like aggressive bankroll management and you aren't relying on the money.