Beating bad players

[pocket3s]

I know that if you're a good player, then you should be able to beat bad players. I just keep getting outdrawn. Does anybody have any on the best way to play against people who won't lay a drawing hand down, no matter what pot odds say? /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[lorinda]

Bet as big as possible and make them get the maximum worst end of it.

If they are particuarly easy to read and passive, there is a case for waiting for the turn before comitting your chips, just to make their odds even worse, but this is an advanced play you probably shouldn't use unless you know exactly when to apply it.

Lori

[assron]

dont assume that they will play good poker. dont put too much money into the pot when your hand is vulnerable. dont think that a 60/40 or a 70/30 edge is going to carry you through the hand just because you're ahead on the flop -- dont overvalue top pair top kicker type hands when there are obvious and easy draws on the table and you're not that far ahead. raise or fold, dont let them see free cards. raise to see if they've made their hand when the scare card hits. know when you've been beaten and make the laydown. try to show down the nuts a few times to let them know what they're drawing against. essentially, make sure there's more money in the pot when you have the winning hand than is in the pot when they do. all of which is easier said than done.

[Gramps]

[ QUOTE ]
I know that if you're a good player, then you should be able to beat bad players. I just keep getting outdrawn.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you're losing over the long run playing against these type of players, then the best thing you can do is be smart enough to realize it's not the getting outdrawn part that's causing you to lose (overall).

Winning players get outdrawn their fair share of the time. But they're still winning players over the long run. Period.

If your goal is to be a long-term winner, your energy is much better spent trying to become a better player, rather than lamenting that your overpair got cracked 4/5 times in a day, or that 3 flush draws came through against your TPTK, or spending countless time reviewing your SNGs to count up the bad beats you suffered in a day.

Not trying to hate on you in particular - about every 20th post of this nature sets me off. Sh-t happens, best to accept that reality when it happens, and do your best with it from that point on.

Of course, I'm just a lucky player. Ask me whether I believe that after being on the receiving end of a non-stop suckout-fest and I'll still tell you the same thing - I'm a lucky player who's now very due to go on a suckout streak of my own. But that's what I choose to believe - it has no independent reality of it's own absent my belief.

[iMsoLucky0]

I have heard this problem from alot of people. And I can tell you that every person who has said that they have this problem is a person that plays extremely tight. They mistake "tight" play for "good" play. They play so tight in tournaments, that unless they get a huge hand before they have blinded off to 1X or 2X the big blind, and then get it in with QQ or smething, and it is impossible for anyone to fold to their raise. They don't know how to steal or when they should steal.

Thus, they get it in with a decent hand often, but they almost never get fold equity because they blind off so far. Do you think this could be a problem for you?

They think that just because they are getting sucked out on by crappy hands, that the other players are terrible. But often, they are just getting their money in in bad spots where they are definitely going to get called, even by a worse hand.

[syka16]

My life at 22s and 33s: 3-8 players are bad and they bang their heads together for the first 3 levels while I go heat up some pizza. I play 1-5 hands level I-III and sometimes double up. But often I've blinded down to 10x BB with 6 left on level IV. Sometimes I get cards and usually double up against a fish and sometimes I blind down some more. If I'm down to 5BB I start looking to steal or win a coin flip. What's lame about SNGs is LAGs crappy early strategy turns out to be pretty much good bubble strategy so it gets frustrating sometimes. But /images/graemlins/smile.gif , that's the fish appeal because they 5 bust out level I and 1 gets insanely lucky and plays good poker by accident. And when it wins it thinks it can BS its way into first enough to make us money.

So don't make mistakes like thinking you'll limp with KTo hoping to dominate a fish. Or calling a push with middle pair just because the guy has pushed 3 flops on the orbit. I used to do that and it fails more often than not.

GL

[RobGW]

In a couple words its value betting. When you think you have the best hand make the fish pay dearly for drawing out on you. Raise preflop with good hands. Against someone who will draw to flushes, open end str8, gutshots, and even overcards even when they clearly aren't getting the correct odds, you need to make them pay as much as possible. I usually use pot sized bets. If the turn doesn't help them, then bet big again. Depending on how big the pot is at that point, you either want to take it down now or extract more money from these fools by charging them as much as they will call ala Fundamental Theorem of Poker style. Bet the pot and hope they call as a 4:1 underdog. Oh, and don't bluff a calling stations. BTW, I take more than my share of beats too, but that just means I am getting my $$ in as the favorite more often than my opponents. Good players take more beats than bad players, thats just the way it is.

[Avgard]

Sometimes players are so bad, you can't beat them. I make this statement only after experiencing it first hand. I am not talking about fish on the net. They are good by comparison. My experience is from live local games (local bars). It is not just 1 bad player out of 10, it is normally 3 or 4 bad ones.

I agree you want them in your game. I don't mind them at all. I never make remarks questioning their play (don't tap on the aquarium). It is the way they win that leaves you scratching your head. A couple examples. A local place plays 2/4 hold'em with two seperate $10 power bets allowed (try to protect your hand).

Example 1:
UTG limper, MP limp, button raise to 4, I am BB with KK, I power bet to $14. Everyone calls. After the flop of 8 3 2 rainbow, I power bet $10 with UTG the only caller. I lost the hand to a full house by UTG's 83o. He called $14 preflop with 83o. A few hands later he folded on the button in an unraised pot. I figured it must have been a lot worse than 83.

Example 2
MP raise to 4, MP+1 calls, I am on button with AKs and power bet to $14, both call. Flop is 10 4 2 rainbow. Checked to me, I power bet $10, MP folds, MP+1 calls. Turn is a 5, checked to me, I bet $4 which is called. J on river, check, check. MP+1 called $14 preflop and $10 post flop with 95o. He won with a pair of 5s which he made on turn and never bet????

Final Example
same players but NL single table tournament.
blinds are T200/T400. During the deal, a J was turned over and discarded. UTG raised to T1,500. LP cold calls. Flop is 10 5 2. Checked around. turn is J, UTG goes all in (he held AQ and felt the J was a safe card because of the dealing mishap). LP calls with J3o and wins pot.


These are not your usual fish moves on the internet. These are moves fish don't even make. I tell local people that you haven't experienced poker until you sat in a game like that.

I don't consider these bad beat stories. Just bad player stories. Sometimes the players are sooooooo bad, that you can't beat them. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[pooh74]

[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes players are so bad, you can't beat them. I make this statement only after experiencing it first hand. I am not talking about fish on the net. They are good by comparison. My experience is from live local games (local bars). It is not just 1 bad player out of 10, it is normally 3 or 4 bad ones.

I agree you want them in your game. I don't mind them at all. I never make remarks questioning their play (don't tap on the aquarium). It is the way they win that leaves you scratching your head. A couple examples. A local place plays 2/4 hold'em with two seperate $10 power bets allowed (try to protect your hand).

Example 1:
UTG limper, MP limp, button raise to 4, I am BB with KK, I power bet to $14. Everyone calls. After the flop of 8 3 2 rainbow, I power bet $10 with UTG the only caller. I lost the hand to a full house by UTG's 83o. He called $14 preflop with 83o. A few hands later he folded on the button in an unraised pot. I figured it must have been a lot worse than 83.

Example 2
MP raise to 4, MP+1 calls, I am on button with AKs and power bet to $14, both call. Flop is 10 4 2 rainbow. Checked to me, I power bet $10, MP folds, MP+1 calls. Turn is a 5, checked to me, I bet $4 which is called. J on river, check, check. MP+1 called $14 preflop and $10 post flop with 95o. He won with a pair of 5s which he made on turn and never bet????

Final Example
same players but NL single table tournament.
blinds are T200/T400. During the deal, a J was turned over and discarded. UTG raised to T1,500. LP cold calls. Flop is 10 5 2. Checked around. turn is J, UTG goes all in (he held AQ and felt the J was a safe card because of the dealing mishap). LP calls with J3o and wins pot.


These are not your usual fish moves on the internet. These are moves fish don't even make. I tell local people that you haven't experienced poker until you sat in a game like that.

I don't consider these bad beat stories. Just bad player stories. Sometimes the players are sooooooo bad, that you can't beat them. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to be a prick, but, in my book, if you cant beat them, then by definition that makes them "good" players. I would rather be labled a bad player and win then be a "good" player and lose to "bad" players...this thread is confusing.
A part of poker is adjusting to different types of play...If youre playing with what you deem "bad players" get your $ in (a lot of it) when you have the best and don't bluff as much and you'll be fine...otherwise you/we are just as bad as them.

p

[Avgard]

You prick....just kidding.

In my post when I said that you can't beat them, I am speaking more to individual hands and not long term. That is why I said I want them in the game. Everyone wants them in the game.

The hard part is having 3 to 4 of these players in your game and when you make a huge raise pre-flop with AA, you get 3 to 4 callers. You do not know where you are because they call with 83o and 95o.

Your point was put your money in with the best hand and you'll be fine. The examples I gave show otherwise. Does that mean I am a bad player...I hope not. It just means you are frustrate when you have a losing session and the fish is swimming away with a profit. He has more losing sessions than winning, I have more winning sessions than losing. I have the prespective needed.

Point being, just because you are better than a bad player, don't try to bluff them, and put a lot of cash in with the best hand, doesn't mean you will have a profitable session.

Under your post, I would be labeled a good player that has had losing sessions to bad players.

[pooh74]

agree with everything you said...I welcome getting beat OR winning when i have the best of it. I dont really care...take a look at probablilty theory and simple tosses of a coin...there are long divergences from 0 over thousands of tosses...but the line always crosses 0 at some point or another...and that 0 mark does not represent 0 dollars for a good player...it means random deviations from the expected outcome have evened out and therefore the good player profits...Of course it sucks to lose at one given session as it does in one hand to a bad player who got lucky...but the gist of the post was that bad players arent beatable (not yours perhaps)...

[ilya]

How do you get blinded down to 1000 chips after starting with 800? I wish I could do that.

[alexbrew]

Everytime I get knocked out I mark whether I had a significant lead in the hand prior to the all-in or not. About half the time I'm knocked out I'm a sizable favorite. Most of the other times I'm making a value based all-in with the worst of it.

If I'm a big favorite, why am I knocked out half the time? Because I play tight and have to contend with big stacks at stage 5 unless I've caught big hands early. I basically have to double up twice to get the chip lead. So if I get all in at a 60/40 advantage twice, odds are (74% of the time) I'm going to get eliminated in that tourney on one of those two hands.

It sucks having to make blinds based decisions, but a) noone is making me play on PP. and b) this style of play makes the low limit games very beatable.

[triplc]

[ QUOTE ]
I know that if you're a good player, then you should be able to beat bad players. I just keep getting outdrawn. Does anybody have any on the best way to play against people who won't lay a drawing hand down, no matter what pot odds say? /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

The best way to play these players is to keep playing them. Not to belabor the point (many other posters have done a fine job of making the point originally), but you WANT these players...nay, you NEED these players...at your table...every time.

I get as upset as the next person when I get beat bad, but I'm trying to do a better job of taking the long term view. This is sometimes tough when you're getting beat by 2-outers, runners, other big favorites, and the like. It's also tough when on a bad streak.

Get your money in when you have the best of it...do it enough times and you'll win...eventually.

Play well,

CCC