Poker Term Nitty
A poker player who is a nit, or 'nitty' (adj.) plays in an overly tight, overly cautious and usually exploitable manner.
We’ve heard over and over from professionals that poker favors the bold, and if you want to win massive pots, you have to build it yourself. Despite all of these, some players are still playing too safe; these are the players that we call “nits.”
The term “nit” refers to a player who uses an exceedingly tight strategy in the game. He’ll never play a hand unless he’s confident that he’s ahead in rankings or, at least, has a good chance of winning. Some examples of hands that a nit will only bet on are AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and sometimes AK suited.
There’s a consensus among professional players that nit is one of the weakest types of players and easiest to beat. Let’s discuss it in great detail by looking through their strengths and weaknesses. We’ll also share with you some tips that can help you crush nits in every table.
Table of ContentsHow a Nit Plays
- 10NL by the way means the $10 maximum buyin no limit holdem cash games with 5 cent and 10 cent blinds. Some people also call it NL10, which means the same thing. On most online poker sites these days the 10NL games are still fairly soft with a lot of weak regulars and several recreational players.
- Before we get into the nitty-gritty, let’s explore what this poker game actually is. This casino game is best described as a combination of Chinese dominoes and poker. Invented in 1985, it’s grown in popularity over the years and is now popular worldwide, particularly in the USA and Asia.
Nits are overly passive players. They don’t like to gamble, and would rather play very few, premium hands than to take calculated risks to build the pot. They’re very patient players who are willing to wait for premium hands. However, even if they have a strong hand, they still try to avoid confrontations, unless they have the stone-cold-nuts.
If the whole table is full of nits it can happen often that everyone will fold. The majority of your win rate on such a table comes from raising preflop and stealing the blinds. But this doesn’t mean that you should raise preflop all the time. It is fine to open more from every position, but really loosen it up from the cutoff and button.
We all know someone who plays very tight, but there’s no advantage in playing too tight. Sometimes, nits end up being profitable, especially when playing with a maniac—a player who plays almost every hand and raises and re-raises 30% to 50% of the time (sometimes even more).
However, when a nit is playing with someone who knows how to crush passive players, it’ll be almost impossible for him to win—unless extreme luck intervenes.That’s because playing too tight creates too many weaknesses that an experienced player can easily exploit.
Why Are Nits Considered to Be Weak Players?
Nits have frequencies with their strategies; they’re only opening a range of 44+/AJ+/KQ when they’re in the middle position, which is at 10% range. So, nits will fold 90% of the time during the pre-flop, and even if they get to the flop, they’d still be willing to fold top pair when they see action.
An example of a nit is someone who open-limps a pocket aces pre-flop. Many players will re-raise (3-bet) AA pre-flop and could see the river, regardless of the flop. However, a nit who sees a flop of T♠ 5♣ 3♥ won’t hesitate to fold, especially when a player before him re-raises.
A nit will only reach the turn when he has a considerable lead in rankings or a made hand at the flop. Other than that, he will fold whatever he has because he’s trying to avoid confrontations. If you’re playing against a nitty player, he’ll get too predictable over time, allowing you to exploit his strategy.
When a nit reaches the turn, other players get too cautious because they know that he, most likely, already has a made hand.
When a nit bets, raises, and re-raises, everyone folds, except for maniac players. That’s how predictable nits are, and is the reason why professionals consider them to be the weakest type of player.Aside from predictability, nits also have a huge weakness when playing—they’re the easiest to bluff. When a player plays too tight, even pocket aces won’t be enough for him to re-raise.
If you are afraid that other opponents might be bluffing you in online games, then you can’t miss the article: How to tell if someone is bluffing in online poker.
So if you know how to deal with nits, you’ll be able to crush them at any table. It won’t require special skills for you to do it, just remember that when a nit bets, he has a strong hand but will still consider folding when there is action.
Strategies That You Can Use Against Nits
When playing poker, you’re always going to face a passive player. They’re usually inexperienced players who like to stay within their comfort zone. It can be challenging to deal with them at first because they always, or at least they think they do, have the upper hand when they enter the flop.
Sometimes, despite a nit’s confidence with his hand, you’ll still have better cards. However, we can’t rely that much on luck, as we’ve discussed in the percentage of luck in poker. Here are some strategies that you can use to crush nits, regardless of the hands that they’re playing:
Play Loose and Steal Their Blinds
This strategy against nits is common among professional players, but too many players aren’t taking advantage of it.
If you’re playing against someone who folds 70% to 90% of their hands pre-flop, you will see a steady profit from steling their blinds.When you’re playing with someone whose intention is only to make money with a strong hand, you’ll want to raise 50% of the hands you play. You can use anything remotely playable; cards that you wouldn’t even bother going to post-flop with against another type of player—even a two-suited gapper.
2.5x or 3x of the big blind should be enough to scare off a nitty player. You don’t have to play risky, betting a lot of chips pre-flop because, remember, when they do call your raise, you’ll be in a tight spot post-flop. To be a real master in your preflop raising size, check out tips on perfect preflop raise sizes for every position.
Re-Raise Experienced Nitty Players
Nits are easy to understand; that’s why they’re easy to beat. However, if you’re going to play micro-stakes these days, some nits would try to steal the blinds for themselves—just like how you’d be playing against an unsophisticated nit.
They’ll try to increase their opening range to 30%, but at least 20% is for stealing the blinds. When you’re facing this type of player, what you need is to re-raise (3-bet) preflop. Remember, they are risk-averse players who don’t want to play big pots unless they’re sure to win.
Poker Term Nitty Crossword
Based on my experience in playing micro-stakes tables, nitty players will fold a 3-bet 80% of the time. Try not to overdo this strategy when playing—just keep them guessing whether you’re ahead or happen to wake up to strong hands more often than everyone else.
Shake Up Nits on the Flop and Turn
When you enter the flop, things will get a bit tricky because it’s most likely that a nit has a made hand. However, Partypoker released a recent study, telling us that there’s a 32.43% chance for a player to flop a pair. That means 2 out of 3; they’ll have nothing that can keep them playing post-flop.
You can shake them up with a bet of 50% to 60% of the pot. By doing this, you’re adding more pressure, forcing them to assess their hands and fold post-flop. However, you can’t be a loose player with this strategy because nits who reached the flop are quite confident with their hands.
When they reach the turn, you can still raise a nitty player, but you can’t do this all the time. It would be best if you had something to support your play, like draws or a middle pair.
An excellent example of a post-flop action is that if you have T♣ 9♣ and the flop is 8♣ 5♥ J♠. You have nothing by the flop, but you have eight outs for an open-ended straight draw with a 31.45% chance. There’s also a chance for you to get a backdoor flush draw, which can be advantageous when you reach the river.
When you’re in a similar situation against a nitty player, you only have three things to remember: raise, add pressure, and get them to fold!
Conclusion
A nit is a tight player that always plays safely. It’ll take a lot of time for them to earn chips, but they always play the long game. Being a loose player, taking calculated risks is the best way to crush nitty players.
Nits can easily be exploited by anyone, especially if you know how to handle them. However, it’s important to note that they can also be tricky and clever. So, you’ll have to be extra careful when playing against them.
The term 'gap concept,' first introduced by renowned poker author David Sklansky, refers to the idea that a player needs a better hand to call a raise than to open the pot themselves.
For example: if it is folded to you in middle position it may be correct to open-raise A♥J♠; however, if you're facing a raise from a tight player under the gun, A♥J♠'s value shrinks dramatically.
This is clearly because an early-position player, when they raise, feels that their hand is already better than the rest of the table.
After all, their raise has to make it through the entire table and each player left to act could potentially hold a better hand.
If, however, he raises from late position, they're really only saying 'my hand figures to be best against everybody else.' Thus an early-position raise holds a lot more weight than a late-position raise because it needs to beat more players.
How the Gap Concept Works in Poker
Poker Term Nitty Meaning
Which is why when you are facing a raise, you should tighten up substantially. You must have a hand that is stronger than what you would have required to open the pot for a raise yourself.
This is to make up for two things: the lack of initiative you have from calling, and the fact that your opponent is telling you that he thinks his hand is strong enough to beat the field.
If your hand isn't stronger than your normal raising range from that position, you risk 'being dominated.'
Being dominated means you and your opponent share your biggest card but he has your kicker beaten. For example your opponent has A♥K♥ and you have A♠Q♣ - a recipe for disaster.
Playing a dominated hand can be extremely problematic, and this is why the 'gap concept' was born. Those times that you do hit your ace you are going to end up spending a lot of money to find out you are second-best at showdown. The gap concept can help save you from many of those.
What the actual gap is is by no means set in stone. Ultimately, the gap can shrink or grow depending on the player opening the pot and the situation.
If your opponent plays very nitty, then the gap may be very wide. If, however, your opponent is a loose-aggressive player, your gap might be very small or even nonexistent.
Many players feel that 'the gap concept' is an antiquated piece of poker strategy, with no real place in today's aggressive games. This is not true.
Although the rule itself has become a bit dated, the logic behind it remains the same. When you call, you want to have a hand that figures to be best now - or has good equity against your opponent's hand.
Poker Term Nitty Definition
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