Just bet more against weak players
Whether they are Nits or Calling Stations, Dara O'Kearney says the solution is to be more aggressive.
One of the biggest shifts in strategy the solvers have shown us is how to deal with calling stations. The old school advice used to be to bet less often against them, but bet bigger with value when you do.
Let's look at a simple example using a node locked example from GTOWizard. It's 40BB effective, LJ has opened, BTN has called, and the flop is J72 rainbow.
Below on the right is the GTO betting range for the LJ, and on the left is the node locked solution when we make the BTN call 20% hands more than they should (hands they would have folded). You may want to click on the image to make it larger.
The adjustment is subtle, but what you see is an increase in the betting frequency from the LJ. They go from betting 52% of hands to 56% of hands. They bet less 'trash' hands, ie bluffs, but increase their value bets. Hands that would have checked for balance now bet for value. This includes underpairs like 66.
Let's do the same experiment, but this time we increase the number of hands the BTN folds by 20%, hands they would have otherwise called (not raised).
The difference now is more profound but in the same direction. We increase our betting frequency, this time to 100% of hands. When a player overfolds we take advantage of that by betting more (and we don't play coy with strong hands hoping to let the tight player catch up on the turn or bluff us).
This is a universal rule of exploitation. Anytime somebody is not aggressive enough, we increase our own aggression. When a player is unbalanced we increase our betting frequency. It doesn't matter in which direction they are unbalanced. If they fold too much we print money with our bluffs, if they call too much we print money with our value.
It's only when our opponent raises too much that we decrease our betting frequency. This is what happens when we increase the BTN's raises by 20%:
Now we go from betting 52% of the time to betting 48% of the time.
The common denominator is passivity. When our player calls or folds too much, either way, they are not raising enough. This allows us to realise equity more with our hands when we bet. It's only when they raise more that we shift our strategy from betting more to playing a more cautious, trapping, style.
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