1/2 Newbie theory on playing against loose bb caller.

[pete3145]

I have had a break from poker last weekend and just played some hands to get started again without too much analysis this week.

So that's why I was so slow on answering. Came up with this after some reasoning. Just want to thank you scotch78 for takeing the time to put me to work through some theory [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

1. He’s calling too much
Value bet top pair bad kicker on the river. Not sure how often you can value bet middle pair.
There I have to get better at reading the player.

2. He’s not raising enough
You will be able to get cheaply to showdown with marginal hands. You can often take the free card with draws on the turn.

3. He’s not protecting made hands with raises and bets.
My marginal hands won’t be bet out of the pot by weaker hands.
You can stay in there with top pair without a kicker or even middle pair.

4. He’s being too passive
You can play marginal hands cheaply as you won’t be raised.

Looseness and passivity are the major trends through his play.

This should effect ones play as follows:
You should bet your decent hands for value, like top pair no kicker and better. I’m not sure about middle pair, how often you should be betting it for value.

Also you will be able to stick around with weaker hands even if you are behind since he wont be betting that much or raising. You can take a free card almost always on the turn as long as you bet the flop, you will get to see two cards for just one small bet.




One thing that came up while goint through this was that, how loosely do you really have to play to beat this very poor players. Can you play pretty thight and get paid off enough by your top pairs and above that you dont have to stay in with middle pair, and you still can make a profit. Or will you simply be folding too many hands.

Feel free to comment on any mistakes in my reasoning.

[Scotch78]

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Not sure how often you can value bet middle pair.

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I’m not sure about middle pair, how often you should be betting it for value.

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Since there seems to be a trend here, I'll help you out [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. If it's heads-up on the turn and/or river between me and a calling station, I'm betting middle pair, good kicker most of the time, and 100% of the time if I have a pocket pair above middle pair.

Think of it this way. If you've paired the second of five board cards, then he's (roughly) three times as likely to have a worse pair. Even after you discount his holdings for bottom pair and such (even fish are more likely to play Ax than 4x), you're still going to have him beat most of the time. And when you have the pocket pair instead, that just magnifies things.

Scott