Nutball exploitative Poker

By default my "exploitative" strategy involves coming in with HALF of my opponent's range, or even 40% of that range and being aggressive during the flop and afterwards. I love coming in with a better hand and being aggressive because that provides me with a large enough margin of error where opponent has to respect my range of starting hands and has such a poor range himself relative to mine that he really not counting for "outs" should be calling with about 25% of his hands just to be in my upper half range. That means with additional aggression he has to be even tighter just to avoid running into a situation in which he is calling me with a worse hand. Add to the fact that I am calculated about showing aggression on top of his aggression and aggression on the turn and river, and It is very difficult for my opponent to not screw up and give me too many small pots, by being too tight, or screw up by being too loose and playing back at me too often in which case I will take a LOT of chips often enough to profit.

When I am starting off with a tigher range than my opponent, I am also looking for postflop tendencies as well. If my opponent folds on the flop 50% of the time I can bet up to half the pot and still be profitable. I typically prefer to bet less than I have to of course since this adds equity. If my opponent bets 100% of the time I can raise him 100% of the time. I probably will instead just look to exploit the turn and just call or min raise rather than raising to take down the pot hee though. I also prefer to be aggressive and I already have a better hand than opponent's range so I can play say 70% of my hands (pair or any draw plus ace high on a lot of paired flops or two overcards to hands that didn't hit my opponent's range), and continue with aggression.

Since I'm starting with a better hand than my opponent and playing aggressively, My opponent risks making a mistake by calling too loosely or folding too tightly. Until I decide how he will react to me I probably won't know how to exploit him too much. So I typically will only do so by playing huge overbets on the river with a made hand with the right proportion to bluffs to have an approximate"equilibrium solution". the incorrect play on the flop and turn will payoff on the river by building a big pot for incorrect decisions since my opponent can only call or fold now and cannot rebluff me. So if they were too loose I make up for it. If they were to tight, I may pay the price but I will have made enough off of the small pots where I'm only giving back my winnings or less.

Although this strategy is "exploitative" to some extent, it is mostly an "equilibrium strategy" with a few small adjustments. There's a reason for that.

1st) Players play bad enough before and after the flop that I can make money just by entering in a better hand than them and playing it aggressively. I will win often enough on a showdown that it will be profitable regardless of how they play, and I will also make money regardless of if they make the mistake of being TOO loose or TOO tight....

BUT "nutball exploitative" strategy involves the all in option more often and sooner OR playing in a LOT more hands preflop and exploiting after the flop.

Now against the guy who continuation bets 100% of the time, I want to know how he responds to frequent 3bets on the flop. Is he a "push or fold guy"? If so, how often does he push? Is he a call and continue on the turn guy?

Technically if he folds often enough it doesn't matter what two cards I have, I can keep the aggression up knowing that he will wait for a big hand and that he will bet on me paying him off enough to make up for it. I will not give him that luxury, plus I will probaly have backup plans.

Daniel Negreanu proposed a strategy that is a lot more "passive" but he makes it work well because it's quite honestly using very sound gam theory whether he is aware of it or not.  Basically, Negreanu will flat call on the flop a LOT with the intention of bluffing on the turn. I like that strategy, but something I like better is reraise bluffing on the flop to reraise bluff on the turn with a similar mentality. Whiele you may pay extra for that information, you may open the door to more profitable rebluffs and make the opponent pay for drawing to a card he can continue with.

Negreanu basically proposed that all he needs to call a flop with is   backdoor draw or an ace. That's pretty close to correct on a lot of flops to equilibrium. However, depending on the bet size is probably too loose in several instances. A backdoor draw is too loose and an ace high on some flops is too loose to meet "equilibrium" to larger bets, he makes up for it by exploiting opponents though and getting paid off when he has a hand against opponents who can't tell the difference between players that are loose in small pots and passive (but aggressive when it counts) and tight aggressive in big ones, from just standard players who are just too loose passive overall.

My thing is, if the turn play is always profitable to call and opponent will always call a minraise, why not inflate the pot size, represent greater strength than you have and potentially get opponent to make a mistake by folding to a minraise as well? Or perhaps a slightly larger than minraise bet?

In tournaments there is a strong argument for the lower varience strategy of just calling, controlling pot size and perhaps passing up opportunities for maximizing chip gain in exchange for increasing probability of survival depending on the stage of the tournament and what you can do with a small, medium and big chip stack.

In cash games, that doesn't matter so much.

In either case, you at times will still have plenty of chips to maintain a low varience strategy in a small pot by increasing your bet frequency and putting more in the pot as well as boost your overall profitability.

Finally, you can set the stage for more potential all in semibluffs with monster draws as well as smaller bet semibluffs as well as taking the freecard and getting paid off since opponents cannot put you on a backdoor draw as well as being able to represent more obvious draws since opponents will have to respect that you might minraise the flop, check the turn, take a free card and bet when you hit.

Additionally, as long as opponents don't deviate from a tendency or are slow enough to adjust, you can go after it over and over again, while understanding the effect that it will have on observing opponents.

So while I'm willing to 3bet shoving or check raise shoving with any two where I have at least a draw (70% of all flops if I have suited connectors to start the hand) if the pot is inflated preflop to 1/3rd or even maybe 1/5th the effective stack... when I'm facing opponents that are too tight to call... I am probably also trying to keep them in when I have a monster... Vs observing opponents I will actually do the opposite and shove in with the big hand and play for a draw and then big all in on the river when I hit. Opponent who sees me shove in with flushdraw 3 times against the other guy will not believe that I hit the flush since they rationalize that I would have shoved the turn. So they may call with a set or top pair and think I was bluffing.

Of course I have to change the strategy as my opponents become aware.

Nutball exploitative poker is about entering an equal amount of hands as your opponent or more and continuing with aggression if opponents fold too much, and being very tight if they stay in too much, except when I believe I can draw and overbet and get called.

The varying styls and paying close attention to my opponents allows me to vary my strategy specific to opponent with a hard to read strategy overall and the occasional "gear shift" of drastically tigh tening up and just playing my cards, or tighting up just enough to play the odds my cards are best vs random opponent.... or tightening up but specific to my opponents and making sure I enter with a better hand.

See, the more strategies you have that you are aware of how to play to either exploit profit or prevent opponent from exploiting you and making him pay for mistakes either regardless of whether he is too tight or too loose or with direct intention of exploiting tendencies, the more ways you can continue to dominate table even as opponents have no idea WHY you are still winning chips. Is it because you play too many hands? or too few? Is it because you are bluffing? or always coming in with a strong er hand? Are you specifically targeting opponents? Or just playing your cards? Or are you just playing cards vs position and assuming random perfect opponents? Or are you exploiting your nutball image by tightening up? Or are you playing small pots at the right times and big pots at the right times?  There are so many different ways to win at poker, but if you are a player that adjusts style either randomly so opponents cannot "guess" and counter exploit, OR intentionally (so you anticipate opponents counter adjustment and actually are "aiming where they are going, not where they are". The anticipation aspect just has to be more accurate than the random guesses to work, provided the strategy you choose isn't too vulnerable if you are wrong.