Undisciplined Players

[JJT]

"Undisciplined" may not be the word I'm looking for, it sounds too pretentious, but I can't think of any other way to describe the people I play poker with. This is free, for-points B&M NL poker and a lot of the players are the type who've learned from someone who've learned from someone else. I don't think a one of them has ever read a poker book, so what you have are the "play any 2 cards" from any position types, super-bluffers, and major suck-out artists.

What is the point of trying to play smart, or at least ABC, poker when no one else does? It's not that I don't take chances, when I can, but I've found that for me, playing rag hands just doesn't work. Suited connectors and suited one-gappers? Seldom, if ever win with them. And there's no point for me to try and bluff. Even if I have a good hand and raise significantly, I get callers who then go on to suck out.

One example, I had A-K in the BB, with blinds 200/400, and raised it 1600 to go. I got one caller. He had Q-6o. This guy tabled a straight. Why was he even in the hand? I thought the idea of a raise was to weed out the poor hands.

Sometimes I leave these games with the worst tension headaches because I just don't know how to play against these types of players. Any advice?

[Soupy]

be happy he played Q6o against you for a raise? thats my advice

[Edukashun]

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major suck-out artists

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When someone sucks out they've made a mathematical mistake this means money for you in the long run.

How did the AK hand play out (including stack sizes, position), I'm far from perfect myself but one of the things I've learnt is the worse the player the easier they are to beat.

You have to review your hands and see if you made a mistake.

[pernicus53]

If you're playing in freerolls, you'll always encounter maniacs.

[holdme]

im very disciplined

[OziBattler]

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be happy he played Q6o against you for a raise? thats my advice

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and say hello to Captain Variance. Seriously, the games you describe will probably have lots of it...when you get postive variance youll be laughing all the way to the bank. suck it up and ride it out and youll be fine in the end. If you cant stomach playing those games then maybe seek out a game that is loose but more passive but be careful about wishing that they would respect your raises, you just might get what you ask for [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[pzhon]

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I thought the idea of a raise was to weed out the poor hands.

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This is a common misconception. Raising accomplishes many things. When people call too much, the main purpose of raising is to get more money in before they see that their garbage missed.

That your opponent made a mistake from a call generally means you benefit on average. You don't win every hand, but on average, you should do better than if the player correctly folded.

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What is the point of trying to play smart, or at least ABC, poker when no one else does?

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I play poker to win money (and sometimes for social reasons). Playing solid poker will win a lot of money in these games.

Part of the problem may be that your expectations are too high. You shouldn't expect to win the tournament every time you outplay your opponents. If there are 10 players, and you win 20% of the time, that's great, even though you will lose 80% of the time. You can't sustain anything like that in tough games where people fold Q6o.

AK is a very strong hand, but it's not a huge favorite over some poor hands. You shouldn't expect to win every time you have it.

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One example, I had A-K in the BB, with blinds 200/400, and raised it 1600 to go.

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If several people limped in, and you raised to only 4 times the big blind, then your raise was quite small, and it's suprising that you only had one caller.

[LiveInPeace]

If you're unhappy with your results against the muppets good luck when you come up against some real opposition.

You're probably playing too big for your bankroll if suckouts bother you so much.

[Yoshi]

Just like what everyone else said be happy about your situation and realize you can't and will never win them all.

Some advice for you in these games is to find their threshold point for calling preflop raises. Im sure Q6o is not calling an all-in and if he will then push all-in. But somewhere between that 4xBB and an all-in is a threshold point that he is going to call some and fold some. The idea here is to put him to a tough decision. If you miss the flop then just make a small cbet or check it down. If you hit the flop take him for all his chips.

Get lots of money in preflop to build a potentially enormous pot. When you hit your hand these kind of players in the type of tournament your talking about are going to pay you off a lot because all they see is all the chips in the pot and they know the only way to win those chips is to put more in.

Its a great thing. BUT YOU WON'T WIN THEM ALL!

[JJT]

This game isn't a bankroll situation. It's free poker, we start with 740 in chips and build on that, and the Q6o suck-out didn't hurt my stack at that point altho a 1200 raise was quite a bit.

But I'm getting mixed signals here. Is a pf raise supposed to be 3X the BB or not?

I just feel that bad habits playing free poker will migrate to bad habits when real cash is on the line. I don't want to play like that; I am a TAG pretty much all the time. I just can't see me becoming as wildly LAG as some of those I play with.