things fish do that you shouldn't.. aka NLH Poker Basics 101

OMGITSOVER9K

OMGITSOVER9K

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as of late I've seen a fair few posts/threads asking the most basic questions.. and after seeing a thread asking how to play AA pre-flop, I decided to make a thread to lay out the basics.

player wise I'm nothing special and am not making myself out to be, I'm just trying my best to help out learning/recreational players and contribute to the forum. :)

so we're going to go through a list of things/leaks that bad players do and why they're unprofitable..

this post is assuming you know some of the basic terms for position etc..

feel free to ask questions or tell me anything I missed out on. :rolleyes:

Open Limping:

Forget whatever you read/heard, limping is bad. Especially at the micros.
By open limping you lose all initiative in the hand, and leave it to the players behind you to decide your fate.

A lot of new players like to limp UTG with suited connectors and small pairs with the ideal that if they spike it they'll get paid off.

This is wrong. Even if you hit your set/miracle flop, it’s hard for you to get maximum value OOP and even if you pot it for every street you still won't get stacks in unless it’s a family pot.

On top of that, good players behind you will raise with a wide range of hands and you’ll either have to call OOP with a weak hand and check/fold flops we miss or just fold pre-flop.

Just raise, it gives you more ways to win the pot and gives you more options post-flop.

Min 3betting:

This is another thing I see a lot of, and the thought process behind it is ‘I’ve got AA/KK but I don’t want them to fold’.

Fair enough, but we need to think about the reasons why we are 3 betting.
When we 3 bet we are doing it for 2 reasons:

1 – we want a better hand to fold. (bluff)

2 – we want a worse hand to call. (value)

If we min 3 bet then we don’t really accomplish much. Yes we may get the guy with 87s to stay in the pot, but we don’t gain anything much by raising so small. Ideally, we want it make it 3x his opening raise IP, and 3.5x/4x OOP.

Min Raising (post-flop):

Major problem. The theory’s the same as the min 3 betting in all honesty. We don’t accomplish much.

Bet Sizing:

Post-flop newer players tend to make more mistakes, and the biggest of these (IMO) is in their bet sizing.

These normally end up on the opposite ends of the spectrum, firstly:
‘OMFG I’ve got AA, I bet $2!’ ..into a ¢50 pot.

or the other side:

‘I missed my draw, I bet the minimum’

Again we need to consider what our opponent has, and what he would logically call/fold to. By betting so much we get him to fold all his marginal strength hands, and continue with his strong hands.. a lot of which may be beating us.
Donk bet:

If you’re not the pre-flop aggressor, then don’t lead. At higher levels this may be used for specific purposes, but at the micro stakes this is normally the sign of a weak player. This point follows the same logic as the above paragraph; he folds all his weak hands and continues with hands that have us crushed.

Stack Sizes/Effective Stack Sizes:

When playing we always need to take our stack sizes into account. If we have 10bb, then we can’t call a raise because it represents too much of our stack. It’s either move all in or fold.

If we’re deeper stacked however then we can call and play post-flop, another mistake I see people making is over shoving big stacks.

e.g. Player A raises, Player B moves all in for 40bbs.

40bbs is still a good enough stack to take a flop with and play post-flop. In this spot you want to be shipping around a 20bb stack or less, this is optional though.. you can ship some bigger stacks depending on the tournament and stack size of the original raiser IMO.

Ranges:
this may be a little advanced for newer players but I feel it’s needed and you’ll have to learn it sooner or later.

In its simplest form:

Player A raises UTG. He’s likely to have a strong range in this spot, AA/KK/QQ/AK, hands of that nature. It’s folded round to you on the button, you look down at J10s. J10 does horribly against his range because we’re likely to either be dominated, or hit a flop just enough of the time to pay off his over pairs.

So to sum up: EP raises are strong/tight ranges, LP raises tend to be weaker/wider ranges.

Bad beats aren't bad beats if you play bad:

People always complain about how bad they run and how unlucky they are. Some players are generally unlucky, but they never consider the fact that they misplayed the hand.

An example of this came up in a tournament I played this morning.

Player A is UTG with A4o and limps in. Its folded round to the BB who checks.
The flop comes Ah/4h/Qs. BB checks, Player A bets half pot and the BB calls.
Turn 5c. BB checks again and Player A bet 3/4 pot, BB moves all in.
He hands are flipped, Player A shows A4o, BB shows.. 32h.
The river’s a brick and the BB doubles up.

Player A’s clearly annoyed and writes in the chat box ‘this is a joke’. But he never considered the fact that if he’d have raised the hand pre-flop, the BB would have folded.

Sorry about the wall of text.. hope it helped, and if it didn’t.. well I guess I’m worse than I thought I was :rolleyes:
 
Reptar7

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Interesting stuff. I don't know that any of this stuff really applies to 5nl or below though. If you have say 78 suited from UTG and you limp, you are likely to get a family pot there, and if you hit, I think you are likely to get paid. People at 5nl and below are just freaking terrible. If you raised that same hand, same position to 3BB, you would still get callers, or at least a caller. At the low limits, I think that playing a lot of hands small ball style is fine, and once you have it, make people pay. They will, because they suck.
 
OMGITSOVER9K

OMGITSOVER9K

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Interesting stuff. I don't know that any of this stuff really applies to 5nl or below though. If you have say 78 suited from UTG and you limp, you are likely to get a family pot there, and if you hit, I think you are likely to get paid. People at 5nl and below are just freaking terrible. If you raised that same hand, same position to 3BB, you would still get callers, or at least a caller. At the low limits, I think that playing a lot of hands small ball style is fine, and once you have it, make people pay. They will, because they suck.

I guess.. not really lol, just put it up because I kept seeing 10+ posts a day asking how to play KK..

and limping is super bad! even with suited connectors, you'll see a family pot and can own them but you can't maximise value OOP and the pot will be so small anyway you can't get stacks in.

ask anyone on here and they'll tell you..
 
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baudib1

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You can't extract value OOP to play speculative hands profitably in a limped pot.
 
Reptar7

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Things fish do that you shouldn't:
They play a wide range of hands. You should only play pockets, face cards, sometimes suited connectors, and use position whenever possible.
They limp a lot. Raise.
They chase. Don't chase unless you are really, really priced in.
They call a lot. It is better to be the aggressor. You should be the one betting more than the one calling.
They play one table at a time. Put in volume if you want to win, multiple tables reduces variance.
They don't know what a HUD is. You should be making decision's based on yours.
They don't use good BR management. You should play at least 20 BI deep at least at all times.
They tilt. Don't.
They deposit. You should withdraw.
 
Demonomania

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I don't know that any of this stuff really applies to 5nl or below though. If you have say 78 suited from UTG and you limp, you are likely to get a family pot there, and if you hit, I think you are likely to get paid.

*Nice thread.

Limping is the worst thing you could possibly do with suited connectors OOP in the micros. Limping period.
 
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BlueNowhere

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They are often seen typin shit on chat like "WTF", "Rigged" "You're a donk" etc etc.
 
calicard

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They are often seen typin shit on chat like "WTF", "Rigged" "You're a donk" etc etc.

You always make me laugh. All I have to do is come on Cardschat and search your posts I am guaranteed at least 1 good Roll on the floor laugh out loud moment.
:albertein
Thank You
 
TheKAAHK

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Good post.And I like that you take the "never limp preflop/minraise is bad" rule (guidline?) and make it a paramount theme.

One thing I would like to add though: When making such posts, one should to strive to clarify if it is for micro cash, low cash, or mirco tourney, etc. Guildlines and strats vary, sometimes greatly, between formats.
 
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Reptar7

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You can't extract value OOP to play speculative hands profitably in a limped pot.

Never? Never ever? Never ever ever? What if the person you are playing against will always call and never fold or bet?

My whole point is that at like 2nl, you can play any suited connectors to profitability. The people playing there are terrible.

*Nice thread.

Limping is the worst thing you could possibly do with suited connectors OOP in the micros. Limping period.

What about calling an all in pre with those suited connectors? Seems like that would be the worst thing you could do.
 
TheKAAHK

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Never? Never ever? Never ever ever? What if the person you are playing against will always call and never fold or bet?

My whole point is that at like 2nl, you can play any suited connectors to profitability. The people playing there are terrible.
One of the reasons the people paying there are terrible is because they do just that. If you don't do it, and capitalize on it (exploit it) then you are going to come out ahead. In other words, don't stoop to their fishy level. Be better.
 
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baudib1

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Never? Never ever? Never ever ever? What if the person you are playing against will always call and never fold or bet?

My whole point is that at like 2nl, you can play any suited connectors to profitability. The people playing there are terrible.

Poker isn't about never ever.

The value of suited connectors is having equity to play draws aggressively, not to stack off against someone who can't fold third pair. I mean, limp-calling speculative hands OOP pretty much sums up the very essence of the fish mindset. Playing a lot of hands smallball style against people who won't fold is certainly not fine. This isn't a revelation, but every bad player who has ever posted on a forum thought they could do stupid shit profitably, too.
 
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Eddie Leeway

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Thanks for the thread, Campbell

I always laugh when "WTF"," Rigged", and "you're a donk" are my favorite crybaby comments
 
OMGITSOVER9K

OMGITSOVER9K

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Good post.And I like that you take the "never limp preflop/minraise is bad" rule (guidline?) and make it a paramount theme.

One thing I would like to add though: When making such posts, one should to strive to clarify if it is for micro cash, low cash, or mirco tourney, etc. Guildlines and strats vary, sometimes greatly, between formats.

thanks AK, umm maybe we can get a mod to edit it or something?

Never? Never ever? Never ever ever? What if the person you are playing against will always call and never fold or bet?

Even Outkast won't save you now!

and so, you still don't make a strong enough hand with suited connectors that you can value bet for stacks against the ultimate station..

and fold equity is the main thing that makes suited connectors profitable, if we don't have that then we really can't be playing them too much.

sorry, you can't justify it, however pretty they may be.

btw Blue, your a funny one haha! that atch made my morning.
 
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redvulture61

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[QUOTE=Reptar7;
They tilt. Don't.


This is complete and utter bullshit. Phil hellmuth must be a fish when he has 11 wsop bracelets? Although phil is far from a fish, he is a huge MTT shark. All good poker players go on tilt, some more than others including myself. Going on tilt easily does not make you a fish, it just means you have some anger issues like i do which is more personal than anything . Trust me, it is hard to swallow loosing when you call someone all in with pocket aces as a big stack late stages of an MTT preflop. Trust me, its happened before, and i am almost certain it will happen again.
 
OMGITSOVER9K

OMGITSOVER9K

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..back to phil hellmuth again?

arjonius said it before, he plays up for the camera.. even if he does have tilt issues, he doesn't let it affect his play.

I think this is what reptar is trying to say.
 
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baudib1

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Reptar7; All good poker players go on tilt said:
If you go on tilt a lot, chances are you probably aren't a good player. If you can't swallow losing with AA late in an MTT, you probably aren't a good player. It happens to everyone, over and over, it's not really a big deal.

Watch Shaun Deeb get knocked out of the ME with AA, and see his reaction.
 
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redvulture61

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He does not do it for the camera he does have genuine tilt issues. He even swallowed his pride and got help for it. Your a bad player if you insinuate that calling an all in bet with pocket aces against another big stack preflop is product of a bad player i don't think so. Your the bad player for thinking so.
 
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OMGITSOVER9K

OMGITSOVER9K

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why do I ALWAYS get abuse on this forum?!

I mean come on..

baudibs talking sense, but whatever.. not going to get involved in another argument on here and then get blamed..

I'm out.

of my own thread.
 
micromachine

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Min 3betting:

This is another thing I see a lot of, and the thought process behind it is ‘I’ve got AA/KK but I don’t want them to fold’.

Fair enough, but we need to think about the reasons why we are 3 betting.
When we 3 bet we are doing it for 2 reasons:

1 – we want a better hand to fold. (bluff)

2 – we want a worse hand to call. (value)

If we min 3 bet then we don’t really accomplish much. Yes we may get the guy with 87s to stay in the pot, but we don’t gain anything much by raising so small. Ideally, we want it make it 3x his opening raise IP, and 3.5x/4x OOP.

Good thread Campbell :biggrin:

Regarding this min 3betting section, I think needs to be made clear for beginners that we 3bet either as a bluff or for value.

3bet bluffing will increase your 3bet% and disguise your hand when you do have a premium pair. Some opponents will adjust badly to your 3betting by shoving over with AQs and the like, and you can snap call with QQ+.

3bet the same size (~3x original raise or more when OOP) whether you are 3betting as a bluff or 3betting for value to keep your opponents guessing and extract max value from your premium hands.

Also, 3betting preflop more often will give you an aggressive image, and make it easier to get paid when make a big hand post-flop.
 
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shaazy712

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never limp with AA or KK...limping can cause others to call with weak hands and hit on the flop..
most time give a little raise..smooth call occasionally from late position​
 
OMGITSOVER9K

OMGITSOVER9K

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Your a bad player if you insinuate that calling an all in bet with pocket aces against another big stack preflop is product of a bad player i don't think so. Your the bad player for thinking so.

oh yeah, lol

never limp with AA or KK...limping can cause others to call with weak hands and hit on the flop..
most time give a little raise..smooth call occasionally from late position​

and lolol
 
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