The level of play in Replay MTTs could be vastly improved if everyone just stopped feeding the nits.
That player who hasn’t raised in 2 orbits? The one who has only used check-call as a line with speculative hands, and is suddenly donk betting for full pot into 3 opponents? The one who has never raised a draw and is suddenly clicking it back when you bet with top pair? Yeah, they have the nuts. When they start betting, just fold. I don’t care what you have; they have the nuts. If you don’t, they do. Just fold.
Watching these players get paid is the least enjoyable part of Replay for me. It makes me physically ill that they can still get value when they are clearly NEVER bluffing and ONLY betting large when they have an almost invulnerable hand, or at least, TPTK/overpair.
Their strategy is not winning, but others make it winning by not paying attention and paying off their value bets despite the fact that they make NO EFFORT WHATSOEVER to balance or provide any incentive for opponents to call them down without a super strong hand.
If more players started folding when these players bet, they would gradually begin to lose or be forced to adjust their strategy. Then maybe we could play more somewhat halfway decent poker on this site. As a side benefit, YOU will win more as you stop punting into an ironclad range just because you think your hand is pretty good. Theirs is better. Put it in the muck.
After watching some really high-level tournament play this week, I will admit that I’m completely disillusioned with the Replay MTT ecosphere. I’m sorry, it’s just consistently VERY bad poker. Fully 70% of players, if not more, are way too passive to ever be profitable in a real game. Everyone is taking turns waiting for the really good stuff and passing the blinds around in the meantime. Ironically, most of these players refer to hyper-aggressive opponents as “bingo players,” when they are the ones playing bingo—their strategy, for the most part, is “if I make my hand, I will bet. Otherwise, I will check-fold.”
Stop feeding the nits! Please! Think of the children!
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There is a lot of truth to what you said. And a semi lot to unpack, respond to.
Next what u said, tho true, is not a one size fits all.
I’ll start at the top of your post and work down.
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Not raising in 2 Orbits: That’s generally true, but sometimes can get extremely card dead, and not even get something like 65 suited, or have to fold it to giant raises, all in’s, or have 65 suited UTG, etc, and sometimes there is so much limp calling, that it’s pointless to raise or raise bigger, and have everybody call, and bloat up the pot with 65+, so because of that, sometimes can go 3, 4 blind orbits before can, should, etc, raising.
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Only check calling with Speculative Hands: True, but if facing call stations, slowplayers, then bet with speculative hands less and check call more.
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Never raise when have draws: True, and should raise some, more draws, unless opponents check raise big a lot, or reraise big a lot, or if your bigger draw raises get called a lot.
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When players do the things you mention, yes it between sometimes to semi lot to lot to most to almost always means they have the nuts, goods, should fold, etc. But depending on the player, stake level, etc, sometime, despite them not bluffing, etc, they OVERVALUE their hand. That usually happens at the lower stake levels, but sometimes happens at higher stake levels too. If the board has xxx little cards, and they have 88 to AA, if you have a small 2 pair or bottom set, and a NIT is betting into you, you can’t, shouldn’t fold, because you don’t have the nuts, and because the NIT’s not bluffing, as the NIT’s could be overvalueing 88 to AA 1 pair vs your 2 pair, bottom set, etc. I have seen that a lot, and it’s why I don’t mind limping behind limpers in front, with a marginal hand, or a small pocket, to monster hand mine, set mine once in a while, because of how if NIT’s have a 88 to AA hand, vs your monster, they will overvalue their hand.
Now if they are the ultimate NIT at the higher, highest stakes, then they are probably not overvalueing hand and probably have the NUTs or something better than whatever you got.
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Yes their is sometimes, usually better then yours even if yours is pretty good, but despite that, its important to know which players can, do overvalue their hands, or bet small enough, etc, where you can, semi should call them down.
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Almost everybody is taking turns waiting for the really good stuff, passing the blinds around, bingoing, etc. That’s true, but in tournament’s that means they blind down, out, and that you can bluff them more, etc.
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Hyper Aggressive players arent the Bingo’s. The Bingo’s are players that CALL BIG, GIANT raises, all ins with true GARBAGE. Calling like that isnt being agressive, it’s being a bingo call station. Being Aggressive means raising, betting, reraising, etc, instead of calling with true garbage like a call station bingo. Also those that shove all in 85%+ of the time every other hands, or every hand are also the bingo all in freaks. They are the exception that are both hyper aggressive maniac freak and bingo at same time.
Overall a valid point that can, should adapt to these players by calling a lot less, folding to them a lot more, and bluffing, semi bluffing them a little bit more, and exploiting the AA, etc, overvaluer’s with 2 pair, trips, sets, 3 card straights, 3 card flushes, non nut hands that better then their overvalue AA type hands.
-“Bingo” is a silly term that shouldn’t be used. Any time I hear someone say “bingo” I immediately think “ok this person is at best a mediocre poker player.” It’s a mindset thing; it’s results-oriented and complain-y. Not a single Replay opponent on my personal “this player is really dangerous” list has ever used the term in earnest in my presence.
-if the whole table is passive, no, they won’t “blind out.” That only happens if some players at the table are more passive than the rest. That’s why I said “passing the blinds around” because this is actually what happens. If mostly you won’t get your blind stolen, and you also aren’t stealing other people’s blinds, then mostly stacks stay relatively level and all that happens is the blinds go up over time. Eventually there’s a clash between premiums and someone busts. Not really poker; kinda more like “bingo” 
-agreed that many players will also overplay their hands. I think this is largely a subconscious response for not finding enough aggression overall. If you’re folding or limping 90% of the time preflop, it’s easy to feel you have to “take a stand” when you finally do make a hand. It also explains the grossly over-large bet sizing in most spots on Replay; at the frequency players are actually taking hands to the flop/turn/river, they really want to win when they do so. So they cbet 1/2 or full pot when at equilibrium it should be 20-40% on many boards. This is, again, a subconscious counterbalance to simply not having enough hands in range. Also probably has a lot to do with the simple misunderstanding that “a bet is a way to prevent people from drawing and getting lucky,” which is of course totally misguided.
-“should exploit these players by bluffing, semi-bluffing a little bit more”
NO. No, no no no no. no no no no! We should exploit these players by CONSTANTLY BLUFFING. They are WAY too tight and passive. Their strategy can’t stand up to consistent pressure. I bet solver bets 100% of range against these guys in all sorts of wacky spots. In a nutshell this is how @daslda won RPOS TOC - he realized everyone else was way too invested in the result and drastically overfolding, so he just kind of held down the “Bet” button and said “haha fold equity go brrr”
Since joining Replay, and more specifically since it became clear how absurdly passive and nitty a lot of MTT regs are, I’ve never run so many total airball bluffs in my life. You can just bet literally any board where it seems unlikely Villains’ range has hit very hard, and they’ll fold way more than could ever make your strategy unprofitable. People will fold for 100 chips in a 3,000 chip pot with ace high, certain that “well he bet again, he must have SOMETHING.” (actually I think the thought process is more like “oh, I don’t have something, I will fold.”)