We all know what a fish is in the real world don’t we? Well in the world of poker the term “fish” means something totally different. It is in fact a rather polite term for a weak player or novice. The number of descriptions that fit both good and bad players in the world of poker are numerous but in this article we are going to be taking a look at how to spot “fish” or weak players not just in online poker but in live play as well.
Firstly it has to be said that there is absolutely nothing wrong in taking a little extra time to locate the weakest tables and the weakest players. There is very little to be gained by locking horns with good players except perhaps ego gratification. If only more poker players took a little more care with their game selection then they might just turn themselves from losers into winners.
I would rather play poker with a table full of novices any day, at least that way I know that I have a positive expectation in the game. So now that you have finally decided to go and look for the poker weaklings, just what sort of things should you be looking for?
The watcher watched!
One of the factors for why people lose at poker is because they are impatient. But this fact mirrors life in general, people on average not only want success but they want it now….this minute! This means that players don’t take the time to get the necessary skills or to select the easiest games because it is just too much trouble and they just want to dive in and play right now.
Sitting and watching an online game for thirty minutes or so to get an angle on your opposition is something that very few people do but yet it can be unbelievably rewarding. One of the factors for why players don’t do this online is because many of them are trying to fit a short session in around other commitments and simply do not have the time to do this before they have to go and do something else.
Whether it be warfare, business or poker, it is wise to simply “know thy enemy”. Taking notes is a valuable way to identify weak players because if a player is weak, then they are simply not going to be a good player should you run into them the following week or so.
Scan the boards!
So let us say that you have been diligent and have thoroughly taken notes on dozens upon dozens of players. When you first log on to the site then you need to see if these weak players are around and more to the point…where they are! Many players scan the sign up boards for things like average pot size and the percentage of players seeing the flop and hands per hour and all that sort of thing.
But by far the most important consideration if you have the necessary information at hand is the table make up. Spotting a game with four players who are on your “fish list” seated in it could mean that your session may just end up being a very profitable one.
Understanding the mentality of the weak player
One of the key ways to defeat not just weak players but any opponent is to understand just how they think. Once you can comprehend their mindset then you can begin to formulate strategies to use against them. But you can also make progress by understanding just where the weak players are likely to go as well. A sign up bonus is to a weak player what a flower is to a bee and a light to a moth. Good players and professionals rarely base their game and site selection on sign up bonuses alone. Whatever the sign up bonus is, it will still pale into insignificance when compared to what a really good player could potentially earn.
If the site that they are playing on is offering a juicy bonus then the professional will take it but they will not base their site selection on who us offering the biggest bonus. This is what weak players do because they feel that it gets them off to a “winning start” and they like the feeling of being ahead. Of course this is an illusion for most players and is a reason why many people crow on about the so called “cash out curse” which simply does not exist and is merely weak and naive players failing to understand the effects of standard deviation.
Good players and professionals tend to avoid the smaller sites for the simple reason that the action is limited. But the weak players get drawn to them because of the bonuses. Once again a strategy presents itself, if you can be patient enough to go and play where most of the other players are not and not get disgruntled if you happen to log onto a site and there is no game then serious profits could result from this tactic. A situation could easily develop where the site is paying juicy bonuses to the new weak players and they are passing substantial amounts of it across to you.
Too much calling
One of the biggest failures of weak players is their propensity to call too much, whether it is before the flop or at any other stage of the hand. In general, calling is a bad poker play. Sure, if there have been numerous limpers in a limit hold’em ring game and you have a hand that plays well in a multi-way pot then calling/limping is a good play. But many players chronically abuse the play and do crazy things at times.
I have seen people continually cold call raises in NL hold’em and then simply fold to a continuation bet on the flop. All they are doing in these situations is contributing even more money to the aggressive players stack. Once again it all boils down to watching the screen because in online poker, your information is hardly going to come from anywhere else in the room now is it?
You really would not have to be watching a poker game for long to soon discover the players who are chronic callers. This is a terrible weakness to have and good players simply exploit this by value betting their strong hands and not slow playing them and the weak player simply calls their money off.
Chip Skill……or Lack of!
Switching across to live poker now and what things can we look for to identify a weak player in a bricks and mortar game? Well if I were sitting in a live cash game and a new player sat down and was fumbling their chips, to me this would indicate that even if his person was not new to poker that they were at least new to handling chips. I worked as a croupier for the better part of ten years but some of the regular punters could do chip tricks that even I could not do.
All experienced live gamblers and poker players can handle chips well, to the uninitiated even picking up a standard stack of twenty chips in one hand is far more difficult than it sounds.
Not understanding Poker terminology
Any poker player who does not understand poker terminology is once again showing their inexperience with playing poker despite whatever act they may be putting on. Of course faking this apparent lack of knowledge could also be a ploy by certain players but tactics like this would not fool a professional who would also be assessing the quality of their play as well.
Being unaware of rules and etiquette
Another big fat clue of lack of poker experience is when players are unaware of rules and especially poker etiquette. Although in the era of online poker one has to be more careful because good experienced internet players who had never played in a live game (of which there are vast numbers) may in fact demonstrate all of the signs of being weak by simply being blissfully unaware of many of the procedures that are inherent in live poker.
One of the most common is string betting and is a rule that many online players who had never played live would simply be unaware of. String betting is the act of betting or raising without putting your chips into the pot in one motion. For instance, I will give you a really over the top example to highlight a point.
If there was say $500 in the pot and this was a Pot Limit Omaha game, if I wanted to bet the pot then I would either have to verbally declare that I was doing this or put an amount of chips in the pot that equalled $500 but this must be done in one motion if you have not declared your intention to bet the pot previously.
This prevents a player from creating an angle by saying “raise” and dropping $100 into the pot and assessing his opponents reaction as he does it. If he does not get the desired reaction then he drops another $100 into the pot after a second or two thus making the raise now $200 and so on. This is ethically wrong and is called string betting but many players who have only played online are unaware of this rule.
Buying in too small
This is a sure sign of a weak player in the vast majority of the cases and is also something that could be applied equally well to live games as well as online play. Weak players come in all different shapes and forms but whenever a player buys in with insufficient funds to play that game properly then the chances of them being a very good player are close to nil.
Good players want to play deep money so they can break as many players as possible on the table. Bad or insecure novice players simply do not trust their ability to play with more money and this is one of the reasons why they sit at the table with the minimum hoping to double up. An extension to this is when a players stack gets eroded down to a level where it is too small. Good players either in cash games or tournaments will simply not allow this to happen.
So take these words with you the next time that you decide to enter a poker whether it is online or in a bricks and mortar establishment. Spotting the weak players and concentrating on them will add to your bottom line at the end of the year and will prove far more productive than mixing it with the good players.
This article was written for the official magazine of the World Poker Tour and has beed reproduced here with their kind permission.
