This whole fishy subject

[PokerNoob]

I've been sitting here wondering about my results lately. I didn't get any responses to my weak tight post, so I purposely tried to play a litte more aggressive yesterday evening. I quickly had a huge hand when I limped KJs late to a bunch of limpers, pumped my flush draw and beat a lower flush and trips as I 3 bet the river. Then I saw my 12 BB winnings quickly frittered away, the one that stands out in my mind is pf raise AKo in EP, get some callers, get AKx flop, and some guy runs me down on the river with his pair of threes hitting trips. I had to call his river raise. So I get down about 3 BB, and decide to play SNGs. I do and I place in the money in every one of them.

I have a theory. The fish will make their fishy plays. In ring games, the fish come and go, you may not get a chance to recoup your money from them when they suckout. However, there is nowhere for them to hide in tourney style play. The mistakes compound, they get in weak chip positions, or make bonehead plays when the have good chip positions. Then they can be pounced on.

[Allan]

The fish can be pounced upon even if they sit only a short time in your ring games. One way to do this is by raising that KJs in LP when they've limped in with their whatever. You made a ton of money on your AK hand too.

Allan

[Alobar]

sometimes your the bug, sometimes your the windshield.

I don't play alot of NL, but when I do I still lose to stupid people making stupid plays with the same abundance as I do in limit play.

FWIW, whenever I hold AK and flop top 2 pair I am seriously tempted to fold. I should check PT to verify, but I honestly think everytime this happens I end up losing. kinda freaky actually

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
FWIW, whenever I hold AK and flop top 2 pair I am seriously tempted to fold. I should check PT to verify, but I honestly think everytime this happens I end up losing. kinda freaky actually

[/ QUOTE ]

The psychology behind you saying this makes some sense. 95% of the time when a player flops top 2 with AK, after the hand he's thinking, "Great. I just profited almost 2 whole bets." Half of the aces and kings in the deck are gone, so it's less likely than normal that an opponent has a hand. When they do have a hand, it's often a flush draw, a straight draw, and occasionally the dreaded flopped set. Many players are able to fold even a decent king here, so you only really win decent pots with this board when your opponent has something like AT, AJ, or AQ.

[jasonHoldEm]

[ QUOTE ]
In ring games, the fish come and go, you may not get a chance to recoup your money from them when they suckout.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Noob,

This statement is very dangerous. If you take it too far you may end up trying to chase after the fish that draw out on you to "punish" them or "get your money back". Thankfully, you put the "may not get a chance" qualifier in there, so it looks like you are thinking in the right direction.

I feel the way to counteract this sort of thinking is to stop thinking about this certain player as an individual and instead take a step back and look at the group of players to which he belongs (that would be the fish). Instead of trying to recoup your money from this player just get it back from the group of fish in general. They are the ones who are going to pay off your good hands when they are clearly beaten and if they win an occasional hand don't worry about it, you'll get your loan money back with interest over the long run.

You seem to be on the right track, I just wanted to give you some advice to prevent you from heading in the wrong direction.

Peace,
jHE

[BaronVonCP]

If you think tournaments are a good way to avoid the random variance that is poker, you are mistaken.

Expecially in party SNGs, the suckouts can cost you a whole lot more (realatively).

When you play against bad players, you will get sucked out on no matter the format.

That's the beauty of it.

All the games are good.

[PokerNoob]

In the limit SNG tourneys, the variance inducing plays the fish do, like play any two, hang on to the river, etc. work to their detriment. You don't want high variance with your chip stack, because once its gone, you're gone. As the bets get bigger in proportion to the stacks, this factor compounds. That's why I rarely see the poor players in the money in these things. They spend the first part of the tourney knocking each other out, then the tight players and good post flop people nail them in the mid to later stages.