The Theory of Poker - Weak players

[HitmanHoldem]

I was just curious what other people thought about this topic.

In many of Sklansky arguments on things that a player should do in certain situations, he always notes that it's important to make sure you're using many of these devices against stronger players.

He gives the impression that good players will get tricked and make the laydowns while weak players won't get bluffed.

I'm not really sure what I'm asking here. It's clear what he's saying, that you shouldn't bluff against a weak player since they'll always call, and you can't make bets thinking that they will fold cause they think that you know what they have, etc. etc., but I just find it kind of funny that many of the things Sklansky mentions he says only will get the good players not the bad ones.

Almost seems like it's not bad to be a bad player.

Just curious what others thought of this.

[deacsoft]

It is most certainly bad to be a bad player unless you're playing for some reason such as recreation. Just beacuse there are a lot of things you shouldn't do against a bad player it doens't make them harder to beat. It makes them easier to beat. They won't understand or even recognize any "trick(s)" you throw at them so it makes it pointless to do them. So you can just sit back and play "A, B, C" poker and destroy them.

[smbruin22]

i think many, many poker books basically say "don't bluff calling stations".... but not all terrible players are calling stations, although alot certainly are.

i think most advice on low limit is to value bet your good hands and try to draw cheaply (edit: not necessarily now that i think about it) and that bluffing isn't too valuable... this all assume low $$$$.

have to differentiate no-limit too, although you were asking about TOP.

[Rudbaeck]

You only need a single trick to beat weak and passive players. Relentless valuebetting.

Not much to write an entire book about.

Most tricks work well enough on decently good, but by no means great, players. They are capable of folding a hand, but might not be capable of seeing through your deception.