player types

[voo-doo]

can everyone out there give me any tips on how to identify player styles and the type of hands and flops to play back at them with.
I just played in a mtt and everyone was just limping in on all sort of hands calling any sort of raise and betting if they hit the flop or not.meanwhile after 6 levels of this I have AA ep raise 3 and half bb and get 5 callers .. its a low flop 5c 6c Qh I bet 1/3 of my stack and get 2 calls and a reraise so i folded..the 2 callers stayed in and the orignal reraiser had 78 os and hit a 4 on the river .. how on earth do you play these guys..???

[jlp_2908]

These are the players you want at a cash table, harder in a tourny. Against players like this I usually play alot looser, but dont play their game just pretend you are. Limp in with suited connectors, Axs, pocket pairs(for your flopped sets), play your hands really aggressively if you do have the best hand to avoid being drawn out and establish table image and spook these players.
Umm..for AA maybe you should have pushed your stack pre-flop you would have probaly got less callers(which is what you want), but in a loose tourny game I bet someone would have called you with A10 or something similar.
Sklanskys book, The Theory of Poker, has a chapter on all the stuff Im talking about(except the AA example).

[Dromar]

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after 6 levels of this I have AA ep raise 3 and half bb and get 5 callers .. its a low flop 5c 6c Qh I bet 1/3 of my stack and get 2 calls and a reraise so i folded..the 2 callers stayed in and the orignal reraiser had 78 os and hit a 4 on the river .. how on earth do you play these guys..???

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Not folding there is a good first step. You said they were really loose. Did you think you were beat? Did you even examine your pot odds?

No matter what type of player you're playing against, you can beat them if you make better decisions than they do. These decisions are a direct result of analyzing your situation.

How often do you need to win the hand to make a profit?
Will you win that often (or more often)?

If you had asked yourself these questions, you wouldn't have folded those aces. As it turns out in your example, the raiser made the nut straight on the river, but it doesn't matter. Had you gone all in on that flop, you would have been putting your money in as a favorite.

Putting your money in as the favorite is the essence of profitable poker.

[mvdgaag]

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No matter what type of player you're playing against, you can beat them if you make better decisions than they do. These decisions are a direct result of analyzing your situation.

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I totally agree. Here is the adaptation I make to make better decisions against this type of player:

Play a bit looser and play more agressive.


You bet preflop for a couple of reasons, the most important of which:

1 You think you have the best hand (value)
2 You want to get position the rest of the hand (forcing players that act behind you to fold)
3 As a (semi) bluff
4 Deception
5 To steal the blinds

Now point 3, 4 and 5 won't work very often against these players. Point 1 works very well, even if you bet more and point 2 works only if you bet quite big. So you should bet bigger in gegeral.

You also have the best hand a little more often (since they play with bad kickers quite often). So you should be a little looser.

Most of the time these players will be quite honest with their bets and raises, so play an even more positional game do not put them on nothing all the time, just get more value when you DO have something. These players will call far too often, so do not bluff them at all.

Building a pot with suited connectors and small pairs will be a good idea as long as you can fold if you do not catch a descent draw. You do you will be payed off generously most of the time you do hit.

GL

[SplawnDarts]

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can everyone out there give me any tips on how to identify player styles and the type of hands and flops to play back at them with.
I just played in a mtt and everyone was just limping in on all sort of hands calling any sort of raise and betting if they hit the flop or not.meanwhile after 6 levels of this I have AA ep raise 3 and half bb and get 5 callers .. its a low flop 5c 6c Qh I bet 1/3 of my stack and get 2 calls and a reraise so i folded..the 2 callers stayed in and the orignal reraiser had 78 os and hit a 4 on the river .. how on earth do you play these guys..???

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You got Brunsoned [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

In a fast tournament (which it sounds like this was), if you've got AA, the board comes in with no straight, flush, or pair, and there is action, you're going to try to get all-in on the flop. It's just as simple as that. Opponent bets and raises are most likely inferior made hands or semi-bluffs. If they actually outflopped you with a set or bizarre two pair, that's just bad luck and you can't be faulted for paying off.

Oh, and if 3.5BB is getting 5 callers, try 7.5BB.

[jay_jaywalk]

Speaking of multiple limpers with marginal hands in small buy-in tournaments, one weird thing happened to me and I’m still curious about the hands that they folded in sequence.

Here is what happened:

In the first level of a tournament I was dealt AQo in the big blind. After five limpers, I naively decided to raise $100 (5xbb) to narrow the field (!) but I was utterly confused when all the limpers called my bet with a chain reaction. I almost became desperate about my chances to win the pot and ready to fold if there was some action after the flop even I hit the top pair. Anyway, an ace and two rags (rainbow) hit the flop and I had to act first by thinking that my top pair was probably beaten by two pairs or a set. So I decided to raise the same amount of my pre-flop raise ($100), which is actually a very foolish bet giving enough odds to the bottom pair to justify a call. But I did not want to risk my 300 or 350 chips in a 6-way pot.

Then the weirdest thing happened which did not even cross my mind. All the players folded their hands one by one. I am still wondering the probable hands that they called a 5xbb raise with… J8o, K5s, T7, etc… Who knows?

[King Spew]

Think pocket pairs, Jay.

[sayuncle]

local bar has a weekly tourney. same crowd each time and they play the same way described here. I started out playing ABC Poker but i got crushed with 3 suck outs. I learned:

When you have a hand, raise more PF. 3-5X the BB is not enough. I go 8-10 X BB at the tourney as that seems to run out the schmucks who will call with K4 (but they're sooted!)

Play fewer hands early (i tried the more hands once but that just encourages them)

I never limp. If I'm in, I'm leading and for a 6-12 times the blind.

Like my dad says: you can't play poker with an idiot. but you can gamble with one.

[sayuncle]

Oh, even though I'll get bashed, the best way i've found to practice for such a game is to go play the free MTTs at pstars. it's a good way to learn to play against idiots.

[LazyFool526]

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Play a bit looser and play more agressive.


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In a cash game (i dk about tournaments), wouldn't u want to get tighter, as to only get in with premium hands? Maybe folding unsuited broadway cards as they are -EV in big pots. The only hands i would be a little bit looser with would be would be PPs and suited connectors.

I guess I would prob Raise with AA-JJ and AK-ATs, KQ-KJs, maybe QJs. Limp with PPs/suited connectors and fold the rest.