How do you play bad players?

There are tournaments that i play in at my house or other people houses. They are some of the worst players i have ever seen. You cant bluff them, they will stay with anything at any time.

Does any one have any advice on playing against people who dont know how to play?

When you're up against a calling station there's a couple of things you can do.

Obviously that person should be one of the first people you want to try and get rid of.

1) Don't try and bluff because you won't be able to. If you notice they'll fold to big big bets, make them and hope they fold. Don't do them all of the time though, they'll know your raising just to get them out of the hand and you'll have made an even bigger caller.

2) Depending on whether you're playing limit or NL, raise with your better hands preflop in order to try and get them out with those stupid 2-5os and 5-6os hands that may turn into a straight or something. Of course raise with some bad hands too, mix it up a bit. You gotta lose a little to win a lot.

3) You could simply just not go in against them in hands. Or wait until you have a killer hand, and then bet bet bet. If they call over and over with a worse hand you're lowering their stack and raising yours. That's one great thing about people who call everything. You know they're going to and you can really use it to your advantage to deplete their stack and win a lot of hands.

4) One little thing, when someone who calls everything is in the BB or SB, I like to raise it quite a bit to play. A lot of times calling stations are less willing to call with bad hands pre-flop than they are after. You may be losing chips yourself doing this, but take one for the team and remove that guy from the tourney. It's sort of the same thing you do with people who are barely holding on in a tourney. If they are going in on a hand, make sure they're going to pay for it. Sometimes this backfires and they replenish themselves with a bigger pot, but a lot of times they'll fold because they're playing supertight at that point. Or they'll call and lose big.

Anyway, those are just a few suggestions. None of them are concrete and they all involve some experimenting and exploring on your part. they're some strategies I like to use. Hope they help you out! ANd remember, if you use them, make sure to mix it up or they'll know exactly what you're doing!

Jon

I think that Jon makes some great points and you would be wise to follow his advice.

If you are playing Limit, you could change the game to No Limit which places more of a premium on skill which would give you a strong advantage.

The only other piece advice I could offer is for when you are busting them regularly....make them feel real welcome, comment on how well they played but how unlucky they were and make sure that they they receive a gold plated invite to the next game!

you need advice to beat bad people???????
thats hilarious!!!

if they are bad, they have one of two problems, too conservative (fold to high bets unless great hands), or too aggressive (call everything)
the rest you should be able to figure out on your own.

jon had some good points but....
in point #4

DO NOT DO THAT!! if this is a BAD poker player, you dont want to give chips to good players to get rid of them. Who cares if the bad player is 5-6 times your stack? I've beaten a bad poker player who's chip stack was about 10 times mine. Its almost impossible to do that to a good poker player without insane good luck, and i didnt need any luck to whip a newbie.

Dont get frustrated by a bad player, and end up focusing on him/her so much that you let a good player get into a stronger position then you. Just remember, heads up, you can crush a bad player, you'll have a lot more trouble vs a good player.

Personally, to play a bad player, I think you need to become a bad player. If someone is always calling on the lowest pair on the board, thats what you need to start doing. Even the worst players can be confused. First play tight, then cut loose. Start showing every bluff you make that way you make them think that you are the bad one. Once you have them thinking your a bad player, they will play high card ace every time. For example, i was in a heads up tourney once, and this guy i was playing was calling everything. So i got down on purpose to let him think i would play anything, then i started playing good cards and he was confused and i ended up taking him to the felts. Good luck and I hope this advice helps someone

Just stick to your game but only play quality hands. Pretty soon they will try to bluff at a pot when you got the nuts and whammo! they're gone.

Bluffing generally doesn't work as well against bad players because they are still learning the game and don't really understand the odds, so they will stay in longer. Of course that means they are likely to catch a hand now and again that hurts you. As stated above, if you know the person is going to stay in on pretty much everything, you have 2 choices:

1) wait until you have a strong hand and keep them in the pot for as much as you can take
2) bluff big or don't bluff at all

some of my friends have got into holdem and they really dont know what their doing
the thing is when i play them its really hard to read them sometimes because, like i said, they have no idea what their doing, so i can never tell what their playing and whether its a worthy hand or whether it can beat mine
the only way i can control/win a game with them is by leading the bets and getting them to call everything when i have better hands

Your going to have to beat them a few times and then see if raising the chips up stoppeds them. THey need taken out of the game like ASAP.

the only thing to do with a bad player is wait it out until you have a big hand, and he/she was a marginal hand, bet small to keep them in and then bet big to make them think youre bluffing, and if they fold at least you got some chips out of them

Yes , we all no this Problems.

I lost 5 minutes again at ABSOLUTEPOKER a all-in.

I called it with A/K suited and the dude had 2-6 of suit...

FLOP: 2-J-10
TURN: Q
Home came up lol
River: 3

and of course not in my colour and i lost against the 2's.

We all now this and you just need to figure it out and take your time, if you survive the first hour, it normally change and the Player have more skill.

Espacially in the Freerolls it is a chaos. In the money tourneys it look allready a little better, even a 1$ buy-in make this guys nervous lol