Reading Fish

[masman21]

We all know you have to adjust your game according to who you are playing against. Most books talk about the tight player or the aggressive player but there is never mention of the dumb player. How do you play against a player that doesn't realize the strength or lack of strength of their hand? More so, how do you read these people? They don't come around in cash games too often but some of the tournaments I play in bring these people out. Is the best strategy to stay away from them and play only the cards against them?

[jstill]

they dont come around in cash games? what are u talking about...

is this limit or NL youre refering to...

you "read" fish by the same type of sterotyping, you have assumptions of what a loose passive or loose aggressive is generally liable to show up with and you apply that to the hand based on action, board, your holding ect.

the best strategy is to play as many pots vs them as you can because their range is wide and thus you can assume generally weak. U want to make sets straights and big hands and stack them for their chips (as they generally ck and call so you control pot size), ideally (as vs any player) you want position in any hand you play vs them, or when you 3bet pre you want to raise to not give them the odds to stack you.

fwiw many many books mention what to do vs the dumb player, SSHE the limit book is only about these players (for the most part), and NLPT and PNL both have references to the dumb player over and over.

[masman21]

I'm mainly refering to the people that think if they have an Ace at the end of the hand they win kind of people or all black cards equals a flush. Those people generally don't show up at higher buy-in ($500+ live) cash games.

Based on your answer though, it sounds as though position is a higher priority than your "read". I usually rely on betting patterns, ticks, gestures, talk etc. to "read" my opponent, but that is with the assumption they know something about poker. When they don't even know what they're doing, a "read" is more difficult if possible. I'm also going to assume bluffing these players is not a good idea. That said, is the idea to really push the pot more with these players when you get in a hand with them?

[nearlyalex]

against these sorts of players i rarely bluff, value bet with weaker hands and value bet bigger.