[Sean Fraley]

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My problems are with the loose/passive players who either call with bottom pair+ but only raise with the nuts/near nuts

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Sean,

These types of players are usually the easiest to put on hands, as well as the easiest to maximize against. Can you maybe give an example hand or two?

-S

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I'll search my database in a bit, or maybe post any from tonight's session. A hypothetical hand to illustrate my point is this (let's make it $1/$2 unraked with $150 effective stacks just to make it easy):

Hero is Button and has Q[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and raises to $8. Villain (BB) is a player of the type I see a lot in $25NL/$50NL who sees almost every flop, has next to no aggression on the flop and turn, but very high aggression on the river. He calls the raise, as he usually does.

On the flop, the pot is $17 and the flop comes T[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]6[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. Villain checks, Hero bets $14, Villain calls. There is a possible straight on board and villain is so passive that pretty much the only thing he will raise is a straight. The issue is that while he is afraid to bet without the nuts, he isn't willing to let almost any of his made hands or pretty draws go either. This means that his calling range here is any ten, any eights or sixes with an overcard kicker, any OESD or FD, T8, T6, 86, TT, 88, 66. QQ+ would have gotten 3-bet preflop, but AK or JJ would get smooth-called by this guy. We'll assume that he would let unimproved overcards go on this flop.

Turn comes Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] and the pot is currently $45. Villain checks. The queen gives us top two pair which is great since while villain will probably give up a pair of eights or pair of sixes to a bet, He will call with any top pair or worse two pair. The problem is that the queen completes a possible straight draw for villain, and the fact that it also completes the flush draw means that villain is unlikely to bet the straight if he has it. The low aggression on the turn also means that if villain caught a flush, I often won't see a bet on the turn but will see a big bet on the river. Here is where I get frustrated with these guys. My default action here is to check behind and call anything up to a pot size bet on the river. This keeps the pot from getting to big when I'm behind, but I think that I lose a lot of value on my TP or two pair hands because I become afraid of being behind on any remotely scary board. I don't even want to think about how nasty hands like this are when I'm OOP.

Basically, I realize that you really can't put loose calling stations on a narrow range, and on any dry board I basically treat TPGK like the nuts. The problem is that on hands like this I would like to squeeze every last chip possible out of them because they would call a big bet on the turn and get all-in on the river with worse two pairs, and any top pair/overpair. Unfortunately far too many of the times that I've tried this I get shown a hand that beats me and lose a stack.

So, what are your viewpoints on this?