Staying Away from Quality players

[LazyFool526]

I see alot of you guys giving advice on staying away from quality players. What exactly do u mean? How do you guys suggest I stay away? Obviously im not going to fold AA or quality hands, but do you mean playing even tighter versus them, or fit or fold postflop? or What?

[taentoy]

If the table is filled with good players, just change table and play somewhere else.

[Boggy Depot]

And if there isn't another table then tighten up your starting hand selection and generally fold or raise. Good players chew up calling stations.

[Mike]

When they are in a hand and your holding is less than premium, folding after they bet/raise is a great option. They usually will recognize your play and get out of your way most of the time when you show strength before them because they usually will not want to tangle with you.

[Frond]

Staying away most of the time from players like me who fold most of their starting hands is a good idea. Not all the time but a lot of the time I have a hand

[HoneyBadger]

[ QUOTE ]
And if there isn't another table then tighten up your starting hand selection and generally fold or raise. Good players chew up calling stations.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wrong, many good players who are used to playing good players are in trouble against calling stations. It requires a non-standard strategy. Especially when you throw another good player in the pot with the two of them.

What they mean is you don't fight for small pots against equally good, or better, players. You're not going to isolation raise them with QJo because you can outplay them postflop.

Damn, I love playing quality players, it's so much easier [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] (as in 2nd level quality, not 3rd please)

[NedForrest]

I ll take all the calling stations KTHX and just wait for spots to value bet [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I agree that its really frustrating when they run good but your winrate can be really awesome playing with these 50 vpip donkeys.

[NedForrest]

I ve been playing some 6max with total neverfoldem loose passives. It plays like a micro limit full ring table and most hands go to showdown. It took me a while to realize there s no fold equity. I agree that its really difficult to play them when you cant bluff or put them on a hand. At 6max I cant play tight either so I play my normal preflop game and raise less, bluff less and value bet more. It means I give up a lot of pots but I managed to get used to it. So it should be much easier playing full ring with them since you usually have premium hands. You just cant expect to have a right to win the pot just because you have the preflop lead. Yes it can be difficult to play when you have a table of TAGs and a few stations. You cant play power poker since they stations dont fold and you cant limp with multiway hands because the TAGs might raise. But once you figure out a strategy thats somewhere in the middle its still very profitable. You just have to learn to switch gears depending on the opponent. I would still pick a TAGs + stations table before a TAG only table. Its nice to have some fold equity but I still prefer thin value betting.

[robby.hart]

brilliant, very well said. No reason to get chippy. Just value bet. Fold equity is a good approximation of zero in these games.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
I ve been playing some 6max with total neverfoldem loose passives. It plays like a micro limit full ring table and most hands go to showdown. It took me a while to realize there s no fold equity. I agree that its really difficult to play them when you cant bluff or put them on a hand. At 6max I cant play tight either so I play my normal preflop game and raise less, bluff less and value bet more.

[/ QUOTE ]

At a 6max table with those characteristics, you most certainly can play tight. Yes, the blinds come around faster and your stack will dwindle while you wait for a premium hand, but when you do get it and hit the board, you can be assured of winning a huge pot.

To give an example, I was on a 6max table last night with two maniacs, a loose/passive, and a loose/aggressive on tilt--that made for 4 out of 5 opponents with VPIPs over 50. I played an insanely tight (for me) game and still walked away with a tidy profit after three of them had busted and the LAG had detilted himself.

As far as the OP's question goes, unless/until you are very comfortable with your postflop game, simply get out of the way when a good opponent raises preflop and you're either not holding a traditional 3betting hand, or not getting the proper pot odds to continue with a speculative one. That means making some folds that are probably -EV...things like folding AQs to a good player's EP raise, folding AJo or 88 on the button to his MP3 openraise, etc. You are making these preflop folds not in the belief that he'll always have a better hand (he won't, especially in the second case), but because he's going to outplay you postflop. So if you do end up holding the best hand, you're going to win a small pot. If you don't, you're going to lose a big one. That's not good for your win rate.

As you become more and more comfortable with hand/opponent reading and second & third level thinking, then you can try mixing it up with them from time to time. But until that point, you're generally better off making the occasional small mistake preflop (by folding) than allowing him to manipulate you into making a series of larger mistakes postflop.