Perception of the "unbeatability" of bad players

[Maddog121]

I was cruising Allvegaspoker.com and came across a review of the Excalibur as follows:

"Competition Rating: 1
Competition Description: It's very tough because the players are very bad. Two words...human ATM. Most players there will bet anything and call any raise. Was at a table...our side were good players, the other side played any two cards. The other side sucked out WAY too often. No point in asking for a table change, since all the tables had players like that. If you have a clue of what you are doing, do NOT play here. Your odds of winning keno are better."

My question is- How can someone hold the idea in their mind that poker is a game of skill and skilled players will dominate the poor players and yet believe that games with poor players are unbeatable?

Why doesn't said individual just play "poor poker" if it works so well?

And, why does this person think they have a clue of what they are doing?

[steamboatin]

I love it when people think this way. If youcan't beat the terrible players, who can you beat?

It is an example of short term thinking. In the short run bad players can run good.

[tdarko]

sounds like a dream table to me [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[BUD]

Have you ever played a table where 8 people are seeing the flop? Or even 8 players will cold call a raise to see the flop? And then how about 5 of them calling to the river. I am sure you are good enough to see that this changes the game drastically. I agree that these players are very beatable. Yet, playing the same strategy that someone plays online or at a reasonably skilled game can create a huge short term frustration. TPTK or huge pocket pairs need help to win and often can not hold up to all of the flush and straight draws. Again i would guess that you are good enough to know this (but until you have experienced it) it is tough to really understand where they are coming from. I have played terrible tables where they made me feel like it was not possible for me to win a hand. On the other side I have won alot. The only comparison online to the games I am talking about would be low limit play money games.
Sincerely
bud

[AncientPC]

That's how the Pacific tables play, even at the 3/6 full ring level . . .

[cardspeak]

I find a lot of people think this way. IMO it comes from over-valuing skill in short term results and not adjusting to the conditions. I just came off a weekend of play at B&M 10-20 where most of the skilled players were getting their butts kicked by the loosey-gooseys, you know, the classic call the UTG TAG's pre-flop raise (he's got AA) with your 52 offsuit, catch a 2 on the flop and chase to river to catch another 2.

A lot of players expect "correct" play to dominate. Then when they have to endure hours and hours of loose players defeating said play by somehow filling every preposterous draw they form erroneous opinions.

Essentially, the presence of such players lowers your win rate (maybe into the toilet for any given session or string of sessions), but increases the size of the pots. I also find that many "good" players tend to pay off the bad players simply because they see them as stupid and probably "playing crap." Well, dumbos 75 offsuit which catches a pair on the flop is still better than your AK that catches squat. Yet, I often see AK betting into 75 heads up, reraising on the come, then grousing about how dumb 75 was. Maybe 75 isn't so dumb. He put you on big cards, saw a raggedy flop that helped him and figured you missed. So, I think "good" players sometimes help "bad" players succeed by building pots when they're actually the one chasing with a long shot.

[revots33]

If you play against a good player, he'll fold his A-9 to your raise with AA. A bad player will call your raise, and keep calling down to the river. I know which player I'd rather go against.

We notice the bad beats, but we don't notice all the times a bad player calls our raises only to fold to our final bet on the river. They muck their hand and we win a bunch of bets we wouldn't have won against a good player. Bad beats are just the price of admission for playing against bad players.

[Mike]

"My question is- ....poker is a game of skill and skilled players will dominate the poor players and yet believe that games with poor players are unbeatable?"

Poker is a game of luck (or probability, or...), there isn't really a 'skill' in our hand selection once we move past the flop in relation to which hand is most likely to win. We use our skill to play cards that should win more often than the cards the other people calling us are playing. If we are very good we can use our skills to get the most money in the pot.

So we use our skill to pick good cards, but we depend on luck (or whatever we choose to call it) for things to happen properly to make our hand good. 72o makes just as many full houses and two pairs as AKo. The skill comes in knowing that AKo makes other hands that make it more powerful than 72o preflop.

The poster who posted what you read was thinking (I am guessing) along these same lines. If eight players see the flop and five players see the river, skill becomes less important and luck more important because the number of hands we individually determine as playable become less important than the number of hands contesting the pot increase.

AA rarely beats beat 43o when 43 falls on the flop. So when the mentioned game conditions occur it is not a game for a newer player because a newer player simply does not have the skillset to make the correct decisions on when their hand is good as often as a more seasoned player. Newer players also lack the skills needed to know when there hands have more horsepower than they give it credit for, and even then when it's time to lay it down.

Many players I think can go splash around in games of this type but how many can really play them day in day out and show a profit? Many less than the number of winning players in general, which are less than 10% of all players, or so we are told.

If you do go and play this game, please let me know how you do, and what your strategy was/is. It would be good learning for us all. tx

[steamboatin]

These games are extremely profitable, but they are also extremely frustrating if you let that kind of thing bother you.

We are all studying our game and developing our skills so it is easy for us to forget that Poker is gambling. The reason for developing skils, is so that we can have an edge and get the best of the gamble in the long term.

[Maddog121]

I guess I look at poker like I do Blackjack. In Blackjack you put your money in when the count is positive and long term you make money. You don't let yourself get down over losing streaks. Games with lots of loose players are giving you the equivalence of many hands with a positive count. (this is what is neat about poker, the house doesn't care if you are an advantage player.) You will still have losing streaks, but if you get your money in when you have the best of it, those are the games you will make the most (especially LPG's, but still LAG's) The trick is to keep the eye on the prize. This is true even if you only have a 25% chance of winning a given hand but stand to gain 5 times your bet. I just get my mind around that I am going to have some nasty losing streaks, but it will come around.