Exploiting Your Opponents Part 3 : LoosePassive

Ok, so on to LoosePassives or LPs. These are your prototypical fish. Limp a lot, seldom raise, call very wide after the flop, generally have very little clue about what's going on, only worried about their own hand strength. They do come in a lot of shapes and sizes but I'd classify most players with a VPIP over 25 and PFR less than 10 as a LP. Most of the ones you see in the micro's however are going to look more like 48/5/0.5 or so.

Their Gameplan :

1. See a lot of flops.

2. Other than that, there's not many common characteristics.


Their Weaknesses :

1. Plays too many hands.

2. Positionally unaware.

3. Calls too much after the flop.


Key Stats :

1. Limp-Call %. Some LPs will limp a lot, but fold often to raises.

2. Fold to Cbet %. Look for guys with a high Limp-Call % and a Fold to Cbet % and isolate the hell out of them.

3. River AF/AFq%. Make sure you look at their aggression breakdown by street. Lot's of these guys love to bluff the river for some reason. You'll notice quite a few of them, their street by street AF will be something like 0.3/0.5/8 .


Our Gameplan :

1. Position, Position, Position.

2. Isolate, Isolate, Isolate.

3. Value bet, Value bet, Value bet.


Breakdown :

1. Position, Position, Position.

and

2. Isolate, Isolate, Isolate.

Position is king, and especially against these guys. As any good player will tell you, your primary goal should always be to play pots in position against fish. These guys are your prototypical fish, so our number 1 goal is to be in position vs. them. This means playing a very positional game, isolating and stealing very wide from the CO/BTN. So as you can see, position and isolating go hand in hand.

Example 1 :

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407187

Villain is 35/5/0.9 over 47 hands. Here he posts early. Pretty standard raise and we take it down.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407188

Villain is 44/10 over 35 hands. He limps, we raise and take it.

All pretty standard stuff.


Example 2 :

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407190

Villain is 73/13 over a small sample. He posts early so we obv. raise it up in position. Flop comes down really good, so we C-bet and take it. These are your perfect type flops to C-bet.

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407192

Villain is 35/9 over 50ish hands. He also has a 100% Fold to C-bet thus far. Standard iso, not a great flop to C-bet since we're likely to get floated pretty wide, but this guy likes to fold after the flop, and we can double barrel a lot of turns.

Example 3 :

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407193

Villain is 43/10 over 150 hands. He doesn't fold to steals often, but folds well to C-bets. Flop comes down perfect for a C-bet and we take it down.


3. Value bet, Value bet, Value bet.

Most of these guys don't understand relative hand strengths and as such, they will call you down very wide. So whenever you flop a strong hand, take them to value town.

Example 1 :

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407196

Villain is 31/3 over 120 hands. We isolate a limper and end up flopping a set. No fancy tricks, just pound, pound, pound. He happened to have a legitimate hand here, but I'm pretty sure he'd be calling us down much wider than that.


Example 2 :

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407197

Villain is 81/12 over 65 hands. Standard open with Queens, awesome flop, so we just pound away. Notice how I still bet even after the K falls. A King is a very small part of his range, and I feel very confident betting all 3 streets vs. this guy. Also, notice the difference in bet sizing between Example 1 and Example 2. I manipulated the pot in order to set up a river shove in 1, but kept the pot smaller while OOP and with a weaker hand in 2.

Example 3 :

http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/407198

Villain is 39/0 over 111 hands. Standard raise vs. a limper and standard C-bet. Nice how I bink a J on the turn, so I fire again. Charge the draws and get some value from 9's and med pairs. Once the FD and SD get's there I don't see the value in betting again here. There's just not a ton of worse hands I see calling us here.


Wrap up :

LP's are your money makers for the most part. They are generally the most common player type in the micros, and they play horribly. Don't get fancy with them, just look to exploit all their common mistakes. They like to limp a wide range, so isolate them a lot and force them to play large pots OOP with a weak range. The also call down light, so pound away whenever you flop a strong hand. These are the guys where most of your money is going to come from so playing well against them is key to success.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/cash-games-11/exploiting-your-opponents-147871/


https://www.cardschat.com/forum/cash-games-11/exploiting-your-opponents-part-2-nits-148007/

Nice work again Dsvw, reading now.

Agree with everything I think .
What do you do if a passive player ever reraises you ? Give them credit for a monster?
I realize that's not very likely since they are passive but whatever..

Yet more good stuff man, i might send my mate this way b/c he cant understand that these guys are our bread and butter, some really good examples that show that perfectly.

Enty: i find the most common type of raise that comes from these players is the c/r, if a LP fish raises i go a lot on what the board textures like, if it's a min check-raise on a drawy board then i dont give them any credit for a made hand, and if i've got a made hand i try and get them in b/c its so often a 'semi-bluff' draw, i dont think they get the fact that, and i might even be wrong here myself, for a semi-bluff to work you need to price it so you have SOME fold equity at least, giving me 4-1 on my call is never going to get rid of me, specially if i've c-bet with a draw anyways lol

Where do you find the time to do these and grind out all the hands you do? Great read... keep em' coming!

Golden Archives IMO!

Thanks great job, i needed this bad, i am finding a lot of loose fish at night on ub.

eNTy said:

Nice work again Dsvw, reading now.

Agree with everything I think .
What do you do if a passive player ever reraises you ? Give them credit for a monster?
I realize that's not very likely since they are passive but whatever..

Click to expand...

That's too vague of a question for me to give a good answer. Most of it depends on board texture and reads on the specific player though.

I understand.
How do these threads get so little love though

Well, enty, we don't want everyone reading it!

Anyway, here's my question.

Tonight was my first time on Cake poker. Had $15 transferred there and put some of it on a 10NL table. Within the first 30 or so hands, I started realizing that 75% of the players were limping in. What do you do in this situation when you have...

(6 max)
-2 limpers, you hold AQ in the CO (raise 5x BB)
-2 limpers, you hold 9Ts on the button (fold)
-2 limpers, min raise from the button, you hold ATs in the SB (fold)

I ran into all of these and really had no clue what to do. My actions are in parenthesis.

dg1267 said:

(6 max)
-2 limpers, you hold AQ in the CO (raise 5x BB)
-2 limpers, you hold 9Ts on the button (fold)
-2 limpers, min raise from the button, you hold ATs in the SB (fold)

Click to expand...

I know im not the intended source of your answer but these threads are better if they turn into a multi-way discussion right??

Well here's what i'd do, depends a lot on villains stats and tendencies though.

AQ in the CO, raise it up, i use table-ninja and have it set for 4xbb +1 for limpers so this would knock it up to 60c for me but i think this would be one of the times i knock it down to 5bb lol

9Ts on the BTN, depends a lot on the limpers and the blinds stats, if the blinds are tight and i've been stealing well and if the limpers are your regular 70/15's with a high fold to cbet, then i'm raising it again, hopefully trying to get HU in pos on one of the fish and taking it down on the flop, if one of the blinds likes to 3bet a lot then i might think about it differently but i think that 9Ts in 6max is good on the button, i like to play med-high sc's quite aggro b/c it really throws people off, specially if you throw in the odd raise with them from ep at FR, maybe i'm playing them too aggressively but this is a raise for me i think.

ATs in the sb, fold, oop with one person yet too act, my sb range is like JJ+ AJ+ purely b/c i hate being out of position, even if you do raise it up with the AT and hit the flop, its so hard to get any value from it.

Just my 2c worth, hopefully someone with half a poker brain can come in and correct my mistakes

orangepeeleo said:

I know im not the intended source of your answer but these threads are better if they turn into a multi-way discussion right??

Well here's what i'd do, depends a lot on villains stats and tendencies though.

AQ in the CO, raise it up, i use table-ninja and have it set for 4xbb +1 for limpers so this would knock it up to 60c for me but i think this would be one of the times i knock it down to 5bb lol

9Ts on the BTN, depends a lot on the limpers and the blinds stats, if the blinds are tight and i've been stealing well and if the limpers are your regular 70/15's with a high fold to cbet, then i'm raising it again, hopefully trying to get HU in pos on one of the fish and taking it down on the flop, if one of the blinds likes to 3bet a lot then i might think about it differently but i think that 9Ts in 6max is good on the button, i like to play med-high sc's quite aggro b/c it really throws people off, specially if you throw in the odd raise with them from ep at FR, maybe i'm playing them too aggressively but this is a raise for me i think.

ATs in the sb, fold, oop with one person yet too act, my sb range is like JJ+ AJ+ purely b/c i hate being out of position, even if you do raise it up with the AT and hit the flop, its so hard to get any value from it.

Just my 2c worth, hopefully someone with half a poker brain can come in and correct my mistakes

Click to expand...

I think you make quite a bit of sense. And I'm open to anyone telling me their perspective.

Wow nice work! I was aware that LP's were the bread and butter, but great thread on exploiting them! keep them comming!

--As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for.--
Josh Billings

This is a great read. I really enjoy being able to watch the action on the replay deal too.

It's late and I'm tired, I can't wait to read this. I'm sure it will be just as good as the first two. Thanks again, for putting the time in to do these threads, that really do help, a lot!!!

Something I wanted to expand on in the OP but I totally forgot.

When you find a guy with a high limp-call and high fold to C-bet stat, alter your bet sizes to fully take advantage of him. Make your iso raises bigger and your c-bets smaller. So if you normally isolate to 5x, make it 6x, and if your normal c-bet is 3/4 pot, make it 2/3 or 1/2. These guys aren't going to understand or even notice what you're doing, and it ends up making a pretty substantial difference over the long run.

Wow, great read! Thanks dsvw...I'm totally going to use this at low limit tables where LPs run the table. I wish you expanded a bit on pre-flop strategy, though. I'm always told that 3x BB is a standard raise for premium hands. What's a good standard raise for a LP table?

this is only effective if you are playing with the same people for hours, if you are not, it is pointless

tdude said:

this is only effective if you are playing with the same people for hours, if you are not, it is pointless

Click to expand...

What about the ones that you have a lot of stats on? And, if you would notice in the OP, most of those players that he was showing he didn't have many hands on. So your post seems pointless to me.

great stuff ds - one of my biggest problems has been projecting. i.e. saying to myself, now what would i do in this situation if i was the villain. obviously that should never be the case because the majority of villains will not be playing like me at 25nl.

with that being said i really like the 'Exploiting Your Opponents' series, it is very helpful indeed.

a couple quick ?s, are you going to be doing a part on LAGs? I seem to have the most trouble against them. Also how do you recommend going about selecting a table(s)?

First off great post/series dsvw, definitely looking forward to the others.

dg1267 said:

(6 max)
-2 limpers, you hold AQ in the CO (raise 5x BB)

Click to expand...

Depends a lot on stats, but against most players and thus also unknowns, I tend to do the same thing as you, raise 5x or so preflop. The bigger difference though comes postflop. Depending on how they react to cbets is a big part. If they just keep calling and calling and never fold I think we should just valuetown when we hit a Q or A and otherwise just check back and take free cards looking to make TP which we can get value from. From weak/tight opponents who will fold postflop if they miss I just bet with entire range apart from the super-drawy flops.

dg1267 said:

-2 limpers, you hold 9Ts on the button (fold)

Click to expand...

Same question as previous, only the place I branch my play out here would be preflop. Against weak/passive players calling a ton and never folding postflop, I just limp behind here and look to flop a big draw/hand. Since they call way too much we can even get value out of mid or top pair if we hit just one pair but obviously we don't want to build a huge pot. If they are the type who will fold to a cbet I play it exactly like I would AQ in this spot. Just raise it up and bet entire range unless flop is terrible for us (which actually is less likely because the crazy drawy flops now hit our range thus we can bet them a lot more).

dg1267 said:

-2 limpers, min raise from the button, you hold ATs in the SB (fold)

Click to expand...

Agree here in general. We have no idea what kind of range the button has, we're oop with a hand that rarely flops huge, and because we're oop will have a hard time extracting value even when we do flop a huge hand. If we're on the button and CO min-raised I'd be more inclined to call this (ATo would be a fold though imo) and just look to flop a big draw or big hand, obviously not attaching ourselves to an A or T for just one pair. But since in the example we're oop I'd just muck it.


My opinions.

Great post, TY!

zachvac said:

...
...
...
My opinions.

Click to expand...

I agree for the most part. The T9s hand is close and depending on a lot of factors can go either way. As a default, I probably raise here, just because if they're limping they are most likely horrible so I probably have a decent post flop edge and T9s plays so well in position and there's basically no flops you can't c-bet.

Thanks for the detailed post, zach. I've been trying to play the first and second scenario basically the way you have said here recently. The third one is the one I've started trying to play more often (AT, AJ suited) and I'm getting burned. I'll flop a great hand to play with them, but it just doesn't seem to materialize into any money. I'm just cutting those hands out again.

Great stuff and well written I'm going to go read the other ones now...

Always nice to have a more experienced player laying it all out for us newbies.