How Do You Play Amateurs, Fish, and Downright Horrible Players?

We've all been in those games, the fish are prevalent, the maniacs are crazy, and you are stuck in the middle of it all licking your chops. But you end up losing more money than you win, you are frustrated, on tilt, almost ready to quit the game of poker, "If I can't beat these amateurs then I must really suck."

Playing these games requires a different skill set altogether. You can't play these people like you would play those tough games, the psychology is all different, the mistakes are different, and thus your strategy to exploit them must be different. I will break it down for you between all the different characters you will meet at the felt whom you have and want to take their entire stack.

How do you play the Maniac?

The maniac. One of the trickier of players to play, but often maniacs are a feast or famine type of player, they will either bust out quickly or generate a big stack which they will either cash out or blow it all away quickly.

For those who are unaware, this is the definition of a maniac. Someone who is ultra aggressive no matter the situation. Will raise with any hand, any draw, and isn't afraid to 3-bet 4-bet or even go all-in on a bluff or semi-bluff. Some more sophisticated maniacs will slow down and fold when they face fierce resistance and lots of raises and re-raises but maniacs are often the first to start the betting.

The number one strategy for this player is patience. You must continue to play a tight game, maybe even tighter now because you can't play hands that require draws like flush draws or straight draws without paying dearly every time he bets and raises.

So only play the premium hands listed here: Pocket Pairs, play them for a limp or call preflop, then hope for a set. Be aggressive with QQ-AA preflop. Fold the smaller pocket pairs if the betting and raising gets out of control and would force you to put in around 1/5 or more of your stack preflop.

Premium big cards. AK you would play aggressively preflop, and only continue playing post flop if you hit a pair or better, and/or a flush draw. AQ and AJ I would play passively preflop and continue playing post flop if you hit top pair or better, and/or a flush draw.

If this player tends to slowdown to people who push back with re raises then just call his bets when you have a good hand. If he does not, then re raise him when you have a good hand.

This player can be frustrating, but you can profit quite well off of maniacs if you are willing to be patient. Maniacs also have the side effect of loosening up the rest of the table, this will make the game even further profitable.

How do you play amateurs who don't know how to size their bets?

This is probably one of the most prevalent of people who play at the lower limits. These are people who over bet their bluffs, and under bet their good hands. They slow play every hand, and when they bluff they go nuts with huge bets. How do you play these players?

Reading is key. You must generate a pattern for this player, does he over bet his bluffs? Does he under bet his big hands? What pattern does he have when playing preflop?

Once you have these questions answered, you can easily figure out when you can call his over bet with a good hand, and when to fold your marginal hand against his small bets, but if you have a good draw you should call and make him pay for letting you see a card for cheap. Just make sure your read is accurate, there are some very shifty players who can vary up their over/under betting to their advantage depending on how they think people are reading them.

Here is a quick explanation why you shouldn't under or over bet your hands. You should keep your bets around pot sized, and vary around 2/3 to 4/3 the pot depending on the player you are playing. If you over bet your hand, you are risking too much money to win too little back. If your bluff is going to work, then it will work with a small bet as much as it would work with a big bet.

If you underbet then you allow your opponents to see cheap cards. When someone is drawing to a straight or flush then you want to make pot sized bets because it would be incorrect mathematically to chase their draws now. If they do make the call then you have induced a mistake and you should profit from these plays.

Remember this when betting or raising:

Value Bet: It's a bet you make when you want to be called. This doesn't mean this bet should be small, because if the bet is too small you are giving up the advantage you have with the best hand by giving your opponents the correct pot odds to chase their draws. A value bet's size depends on several things, the tendencies of your opponent and what their range of hands are. Generally though you can never completely predict the tendencies of your opponents, so you should figure out what draws your opponent is possibly chasing and bet so that they pot odds given are worse than the odds he has to make his hand.

Bluff: It's a bet you make when you do not want to be called. This doesn't mean this bet should be big, if it's too big you will risk too much money to win too little money.

If you opponent will fold to a half pot sized bet 50% of the time, fold to a pot sized bet 55% of the time, and fold to a one and a half pot sized bet 60% of the time then do the math.

You risk 50% of the pot or pot odds of 1:2 for a 50% chance of making him fold. That's pot odds of 33% vs 50% fold rate, you should end up having a 17% return on investment with this play.

If you put in a pot sized bet, pot odds 1:1 for a 55% chance of making him fold. That's pot odds of 50% vs 55% fold rate, you should end up having a 5% return on investment with this play.

If you put in one and a half pot sized bet, pot odds 1.5:1 for a 60% chance of making him fold. That's pot odds of 60% vs 60% fold rate, you will break even with this play.

As you can see, it's often the case that smaller is better for a bluff, if it's not then you maybe should not consider ever bluffing this player and just refer to my next section of "Calling Stations."

Semi-Bluff: A bet made when you mostly don't want to be called. However if you are called you still have a good amount of value in the hand because of draws, and even from information garnered from the bet and subsequent action from the opponents.

Example of information gathering. You are in the big blind with QQ and the action folds to the button who bets. His range is any two cards, he is probably just trying to steal the blinds. Calling here will not give you any further information and your hand is far from the nuts.

So you raise him with a "semi-bluff" in the attempt to take down the pot, or to narrow his hand range down. If he calls, then he may have a drawing hand, or is expecting to try and steal the pot again on the flop. If he raises then he thinks you are defending with anything or he may have a real hand and is now trying to define your hand.

Example of a mixed bluff/value bet. You have Jack Ten both suited to the spade. The flop comes down 8 of spades, 7 of spades, 3 or diamonds. Leaving you with a gut shot straight draw, flush draw and inside straight flush draw with two over cards for a possible top pair. You have an extreme amount of equity in this hand, but it's not a made hand. At the moment you only have Jack high, which is rarely enough to win a poker hand.

You bet here with the intention of either making everyone fold (thus profiting from "fold equity"), or you get called but with pretty large odds of making any one of your draws (thus profiting from "pot equity"). This play is a double play, in that your opponent may be "damned if he does, damned if he doesn't." The worst case scenario for this hand is a large re raise that may force you out of the hand with bad pot odds.

How do you play "fish" who are "calling stations?"

What is a calling station? It's basically a loose passive player who will call with any draw and will limp into as many pots as possible preflop. These are often the players who you will profit the most from. These are the players that almost every poker book was written about beating because this was the most common player before the recent poker explosion.

So how do you play these players? Well you play them straightforward, you play big hands, draw to your flushes and straights when the pot odds dictate it and bet aggressively when you have the big hands. Eventually they will continue to just call down with inferior hands and chase draws when the pot odds don't dictate that as a profitable play, this will result in mistake after mistake and you will profit from it.

So what hands can you play against these players? Well if the table is passive enough and your stack is big enough you can play suited connectors and small pocket pairs 99-22 for limps. You should play the premium hands aggressively unless you meet a lot of resistance, AJ+ maybe even KQ. TT-AA should also be played aggressively as well. Just be aware that even the fish hit big hands, so just because they are calling stations doesn't mean you should make their range of hands unreasonable.

Don't try and bluff these players. They can't be bluffed profitably. That's why they are called calling stations. They will call just about anything with anything, so make sure you have a good hand when you bet.