HU NL/FL Holdem vs assumed donks - best way to play?
 

I am a mirco/smallstakes player that plays a lot at Everest Poker. This site has a lot of fish. It also offers me regular good reload bonuses.

These reload bonuses have clearing conditions that make it worth while to be the first or second person at a table (doubles your clearing speed while you are at the table -- even when it fills up).
So I start up a lot of tables and play a lot of HU there.

Usually this means I locate an empty table, or 1 with one player, and start playing slowly, hoping more people come in fast. At NL, I quite often face short(ish) stacks, 20-50 BB roughly.

What is a good basic strategy against these people, assuming they are fish?
My basic strategy so far is:
* open-raise anything in the top 50% or so range of hands from the SB/button
* fold most anything else, but sometimes limp hands like J6s/85o just to see how they respond to this.
* Call a lot from the BB, 3-bet anything with 2 pictures or otherwise looking good (77+).

On the flop, I c-bet raises a lot until I get a feel for my opponents play. I often call c-bets with any pair, overcards.

My object in playing these HU phases is rather tight: I am willing to forfeit some chances rather than risking my stack, but this is balanced my my normal style which is high variance. I won't lay down 2-pair very easily, for example.

OK, that's a lot of talk. My general question is: what are good preflop ranges against generic fishy villains? What are adjustments for observed tightness/looseness?

I am wondering

Re: HU NL/FL Holdem vs assumed donks - best way to play?
 

One interesting thing about your situation is that you're not necessarily wanting to stack them ASAP, you're wanting to fill up the table.

I play pretty low (10NL) so maybe this advice won't be all that applicable, but here goes anyway.

Your strategy seems pretty good to me. I don't like openlimping your small blind with stuff like 85o, just fold. The J6s example is either a 3xBB bringin or a fold against an unknown, but assumed donk.

If an opponent is a SUPERfish total callstation I will decrease my PFR % out of the SB to about %20, but make it 4xBB. I will decrease my PFR out of the BB to about 15%, and make it 4.5xBB. Also I will add some limping hands into the SB, the J6s from above would be a good example.

Obv. pay attention to where your opponent folds post-flop, if they ever fold that is, and then punish them with small bets (1/2pot to 3/4pot) on that street.
If they are a post-flop callstation, punish them with potsized value bets with top %20 of hands.

Re: HU NL/FL Holdem vs assumed donks - best way to play?
 

You should probably throw away junk hands rather than limping, and play very tight from the big blind, since you'd rather pass up small edges and get other people into the room.

Re: HU NL/FL Holdem vs assumed donks - best way to play?
 

Thanks for the tips. Tightening up from the BB is probably a good idea indeed. Most opponents seem to have very little idea of the value of position. There's also lots of open-limping from the SB.

FWIW, you see a wide variety of styles, though generally not of the archetypical calling station type. I've seen some guys who were unbelievably nitty (VPIP below 20 bascially from both positions) or the types who push any ace and pocket pair preflop.
This is one of the reasons I deliberately play slow -- HU takes a lot of your energy and concentration away from the other tables since you need to observe play better (I play no more than 5 tables ever, anyway.)

Re: HU NL/FL Holdem vs assumed donks - best way to play?
 

against a fish i would 3bet tighter, 3betting that loose is a recipe for disaster . . . you have limited fold equity, so do not mess about with your 3betting range (this is for no limit, i suck at fixed so ignore me).