Loose-passive winning poker
 

I have a friend who has started to win on a frequent basis playing NLHE $0.15/$0.30. The strange is that his playing style is loose-passive.
He is not winning much but seems to have a little steady income from his poker. He plays 6-7 tables simultaniously and is getting some good rakeback too.
He has a fish symbol (loose-passive/passive)in Poker Tracker given by the default auto-rating system within PT.
It becomes even stranger when you get to know that he plays mostly on shorthanded tables. He has not changed his style lately and started to win thereby. Loose-passive is really his style. He has winning figures for over 200k hands with that loose passive style. My question is: how is it possible?

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

he plays against morons obviously.

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

200k hands at .15/.3 is either a lie, or he's not winning. Why the [censored] would he stay there?

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

Pretty much, sounds like the guy is telling you stories

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

I've seen his PT-database, and he is obviously not lying. He is not building a bank roll and have been buying computers and stuff for his winnings. Thats why he stays at that level, so far. It's really weird.
Seems he looks at flops with a lot of garbage but have good fold ability post flop.
I've seen him succeed several times practising reversed risk managment when he after a bad run levels up and get his money back!
Waddaya say, guys?

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

probably some combo of running like a god and playing w/players worse than himself.

edit: it's not impossible to win playing lap it's just suboptimal/improbable

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

Well the default PT autorates define L/P as VPIP >30% and AF <2, so it seems feasible. It's not like he's necessarily 50/x/.7 or something.

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

PokerTracker was designed for full ring limit. Applying the classifications out of context, to shorthanded NL, is misleading.

Bets and raises represent much more strength in NL than in limit. Most NL players seem more passive than limit players when you ignore the sizes of the bets. It is possible that he is making far fewer mistakes than it sounds like from the "loose passive" description.

In NL, it is possible to make up for a lot of preflop mistakes though decent postflop play, particularly when you play against bad players. A wide range of winning styles are possible in microstakes games.

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

wtf are his stats? what a dumb thread. if you dont elaborate on his style wtf do you want anyone to tell you?

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

I'm more more willing to believe that you f'd up the story somehow than we have found the worlds first longterm winning fish.

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

[ QUOTE ]
wtf are his stats? what a dumb thread. if you dont elaborate on his style wtf do you want anyone to tell you?

[/ QUOTE ]
Why the f are you reading and commenting this if it's so dumb. I was just confused how it was possible to play winning poker with this style. I don't have his stats available but remember he had VP$IP >40 and AF <1. Hoped that someone could come up with a reasonable explanation to this. And to you I just wanna say: Go f. yourself!

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

well there is a diff b/w a 40/25/.8 and a 40/5/.8. Also part of the reason could just be because people suck at deepstacked poker and bluff him too much and dont valuebet him hard enough

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

at 15/30c there are players folding any flop to a cbet if they dont have at least top pair after calling with all kinds of garbage preflop, you dont have to be good to be a winner against these guys.

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

the reason he wins....is because it's 30nl

Re: Loose-passive winning poker
 

It actually makes some sense that he is making some profit at low-level, short handed no-limit games.

Short-handed play generally favors aggression since most players will miss most flops. Since the blinds come around so fast, you can't sit back and wait for good hands without getting blinded out. On the other hand, if you only play fit-or-fold post flop, then you'll usually get robbed blind since you miss the flop (which you usually will).

Even on-line players at low levels know that "aggression" pays off. They just don't know how or why to temper their aggression post-flop.

So, if your friend sits down with a bunch of inexperienced players who are all TAGing, SLAGing, and LAGGing each other, then playing loose passive might work if the others don't adjust properly post flop. So, where 2- and 3-barrel bluffs with missed overcards and draws are usually good plays vs other aggressive players, vs a loose-passive with TPTK or better, those plays are just so much money down the drain.

So, my guess is that your friend is playing with guys who pay him off too much with ill-timed aggression on later streets because they fail to adjust to his unusual style of passive short-handed play.

At higher levels with better players, he won't make much past the flop unless he's up against a bigger hand that beats him for his stack. And he'll lose too much calling preflop raises. His only wins will be from small-to-medium sized pots that he calls or bets at post flop where the better players will simply fold. He will win too little when he wins, lose too much when he loses, and pay too much to see the flop.

But, if it's working at the level he's playing, then more power to him. Just as long as he knows that it's not a long-term winning strategy as he moves up.