Question about beating good players vs. cannot beat bad players

[anotherFliplost]

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Often there are posts on this forum indicating that if one were to move up limits they would win more. It usually follows some type of harangue about too many players staying in or calling to the river.

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These people do not understand variance. Or they suck at poker. Or both.

[Cactus Jack]

If you move up and find players who are better that you can beat, they are fully capable of beating YOU. No one individual bad player may be capable of beating you, but you can lose to the entire table.

If one can't beat a table of bad players, one cannot possibly beat a table of good players. Duh.

This is wishful thinking and ridiculous logic on the part of bad players. BS.

CJ

[PorkchopDJG]

The biggest thing these people who say they can't beat a low limit game don't realize is that you have to adjust to the conditions of the game you are in. The game can be tight/aggressive, tight/passive, loose/passive, loose aggresive, and you should play differently in each one. Furthermore even though the game might be loose/aggresive their may still be some tight/aggressive guys in the game. When the rock/nit at the loose table raises you have to see that and react properly. So many people just sit down, play their game and don't notice or react to the overall atmosphere of the game or the individuals playing it.
Do this and you can adjust to any game at any limit!

[car ramrod]

Simply put, you will lose pots by people chasing to the river, and it will suck. But, you will win bigger pots when you do win, b/c of all the suckers calling to the river.

As you move up, games get tougher, sure you maybe winning more pots, but they are much smaller, b/c the players are better and they fold. This is really not what you want, trust me.

[mntndrew]

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My question is why would anyone think this is true?

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As someone who used to think this, I can attest that it's because you see a few bad beats and you intuitively recognize that those bad beats wouldn't happen against players who lay down when they're supposed to. You then make the horribly illogical leap that you'd do better against those better players because you'd have won that pot. It's frustrating to lose big pots to long shot draws!

The players who say this don't recognize yet that the pots they do win are bigger because of those same mistakes by their opponents when their bottom pair draw to two pair/trips doesn't come in against your nut flush.

[MTDog-7]

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The biggest thing these people who say they can't beat a low limit game don't realize is that you have to adjust to the conditions of the game you are in. The game can be tight/aggressive, tight/passive, loose/passive, loose aggresive, and you should play differently in each one. Furthermore even though the game might be loose/aggresive their may still be some tight/aggressive guys in the game. When the rock/nit at the loose table raises you have to see that and react properly. So many people just sit down, play their game and don't notice or react to the overall atmosphere of the game or the individuals playing it.
Do this and you can adjust to any game at any limit!

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Well put.
The other thing there is this little Gal in town who play ATC and very seldom folds. Out of the 10-12 times I've played against her I have beat her all but twice. Those times her rags would catch and slam myself and others. When someone is hot like that sometimes it's best to change tables or leave and come back a couple hours later. In the long run you'll win more from them than they do from you. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Harv72b]

psuedo-grunch.

I saw that the point was already made about having to change up your game to best counter the way your opponents are playing. And yes, that's a huge part of why so many players struggle to beat "bad" players...firing 3 barrels with ace high against a calling station, raising with an underpair to represent the ace against an opponent who'll never fold top pair, etc. Also coldcalling a maniac's preflop raise...I cringe every time I see that happen on a poker table. Literally. Some people seem to live with this myth that players in higher stakes fold every time an opponent raises; I'd suggest they sweat one of Ivey's tables some time to see how true that is.

That said, I do think that some people do better against better opponents, and even many of the top pros have said as much. I know that I find it a lot easier to play against a thinking, tight aggressive opponent than, say, a loose/aggressive maniac--I can generally put the former on a pretty tight hand range by the time the turn card falls, while with the maniac it's anyone's guess. But I'd much rather play against the maniac...yes, I'm going to lose some huge pots to runner runner magic, but I'm going to win a lot of huge pots, too. Well, given neutral luck.

But my favorite opponent is clearly the loose/passive calling station. He'll give me free cards whenever I want them, he'll call down with anything when I'm holding the nuts, he'll peel the flop with any two cards, and he makes it oh so easy for me to fold AK unimproved. The people who "hate" playing against these opponents? They're the ones who call down after a turn c/r with one pair (or less). The ones who coldcall the loose/passive's under the gun raise with KJs. The ones who insist on betting the turn with their flush draw, rather than taking the free card. Understand your opponents, know what they're doing, and learn to recognize who's capable of folding TPWK vs. who's calling down with ace high every time.

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Can anyone think of any competetive game or sport where one would have a better chance of winning by competing against better players?

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I took a martial arts class during my second freshman year of college. Nothing Jet Li-like--I basically learned exactly enough in the way of martial arts to get my ass royally beat in a fight. But I learned a lot from our instructor in other areas.

He told us a story once about a grand master who was giving a demonstration on a college campus. Lots of choreographed fight scenes, feats of strength, etc. At the end of the performance, he would ask for a volunteer out of the audience to come up on stage, hand the guy a knife, and tell the man to attack him with it. Of course, being a kung fu badass & all he would sidestep the attack, disarm the student, and that was that.

Except once. It turned out that the volunteer from the audience had grown up in a fishing community, and had spent most of his childhood shucking oysters with his father. Had it down to a science, really--just a flick of the wrist and out of the shell it came. So this kid took the knife, did exactly what he'd done every day of his childhood, and lopped off the demonstrator's ear. Right there on stage.

It's not always about who's best at what. Just about who makes the right move at the right time.

[jjshabado]

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Add a rake, tips and BBJ and maybe player 3 cant beat a game full of player 1s.

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Nah, I don't think my made up example applies to poker (except maybe extreme examples where a player could pick up on huge massive tells on a thinking opponent while a random retard doesn't know enough about their hand to know if its good or not to give off tells).

You could clean up against a table just acting randomly. You just know what hands are +EV against X # of random hands and go for it to the river. It would be INSANELY profitable.