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PKR How to spot weak-passive players and take their money

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How to spot weak-passive pla ers


and take their mone
How to identify and profit from weak-passive players in cash games
By Rick Dacey on Friday 30 Oct 2009 14:15
3Recommend

The might be frustrating to pla against, but weak-passive pla ers


can be a massive source of value if ou pla our cards right
Passive players are without doubt the most exploitable player type in poker,
and that makes them the very best opponents to play against. They will play
their hands face-up, let you control the size of the pot and rarely or never bluff.
They also have the terrible habit of not seeing past their own hand. In poker
terms, these guys are the fish that sustain the ecosystem, and they have little
hope of winning in the long term unless they change their game. Despite this,
some people continually get themselves into sticky spots against these weakpassive players, but there s really no excuse for doing so.
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PKR How to spot weak-passive players and take their money

Passive players are the most profitable to play because they love to call and
hate to raise. It s almost like the raise and fold buttons have been removed
from their poker interface, replaced by a single massive call button. The
beauty of this player type is you can get them to stack off fairly light. If a
passive guy makes a top pair-type hand he usually won t fold, so as long as
you don t burn money by getting your bet-sizing wrong, it s not a particularly
taxing task to felt them. The other brilliant thing is that it s not difficult to see the
strength of their hand, as they won t go beyond thinking about the strength of
their own cards, and once you understand what level that is, you have your
man.

Problems with passivit


The problem a lot of aggressive (good) players have with this player type is
that they overrate their own ability to assess what aspects of a weak-passive
player s range they ll fold. Passive players are often called calling stations
because of their tendency never to relinquish anything they find remotely
interesting. Forget this at your peril.Passive players can be exceptionally
annoying because they will not play intelligent poker on a higher level they
simply find a hand they like and call every street or, if they have the nuts, they
raise.
What passive poker players do is call with every draw, marginal hand or even
air till you hit their pain barrier or they miss. If a weak-passive player ever
raises you, you should pretty much fold with everything but the nuts or near to
it. And if a weak passive player check-raises on the turn, flop or river? You fold
everything but the immortal nuts!

Understanding our image


One of the most important factors in beating a weak-passive player is
recognising your image and adjusting to this quickly. Weak-passive players
are generally fish who will be playing just one table and will be incredibly
attentive to what you are doing. Given that playing poker is just a pastime to
them, they want to focus whatever understanding they have of the game on
just one table. If you are a tighter player in general, you will get a lot more
moves through against this player type than if you are more active.
So how should you go about exploiting whatever image you have at the table?
Well, firstly, you should have a rough idea what sort of hand they have and
what they are liable to call you down with. A large proportion of weak-passive
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PKR How to spot weak-passive players and take their money

players will happily peel a turn with any piece of a flop (4d-5d on Qc-6d-Kd, for
instance), but often they will give up to a second barrel. If you haven t been
getting too out of line, you can definitely get away with betting scare cards and
throwing out big bets on scary boards on later streets. Bet-sizing is crucial to
beating these guys, as they will not be thinking on a high enough level to
assume that a smaller bet is likely to be for value they view bigger bets as
stronger hands and are way less inclined to call a bet that would put their stake
in jeopardy. But if you are going to make a play at one of these guys make
sure your image is CLEAN!

Balancing act
If you play an active, involved style of poker, you will get noticed by this guy. If
you have shown down any air, made big bets with any sort of marginal hands
or, heaven forbid, made a big bluff that got to showdown, you might have to
take a step back to consider your limitations when in a pot with the weakpassive player.
When you are in a hand against this player type, your mantra should be value,
value, value. You should never be thinking about actually playing poker and
making moves, just making strong hands and extracting value from their calls.
As with virtually every single live cash game up to 2/4 in the UK, complex
thinking play will generally be a second-best strategy to just having the best
hand at showdown.

E ploiting passive pla ers


So, given what we ve covered so far, how should you adjust your play to most
effectively exploit weak-passive players? Well, a major factor in your ability to
play a specific range against these fish is stack size. Let s say a calling station
limps in mid position with a 70BB stack and you are on the button. The blinds
are, respectively, a winning but overly tight TAG and a LAG with a loose threebetting range. In three different hypothetical hands you are dealt 5-6 suited, T8 offsuit and 9-7 offsuit. How should you proceed with these hands? Fold, all
of them. Against this type of player this short-stacked, you want to flop a
strong top pair-type hand, and the presence of a loose-aggressive player to
your left means you re going to get three-bet frequently once he realises what
you re doing. Now, if you both had 200BB it would be a different story. In that
case if you didn t isolate with those hands you would be losing money, given
that you have position and would be able to extract a big chunk of chips from
your opponent if you flopped any strong two-pair hand or better. The lesson?
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PKR How to spot weak-passive players and take their money

Your range for isolating a weak-passive player is highly dependent on stack


size and position.
Postflop you should generally be playing a really predictable ABC game when
heads-up against a calling station, only putting in big bets and raises with
super-strong hands. Usually a basic continuation-betting strategy will be more
than enough to beat them. Getting involved in complex multi-street plays will
only get you into trouble. Attempting to represent a hand or make them fold
top pair or better or going for some sort of check-raise on any street (for value
or as a bluff) would be a terrible strategy. Just make a strong hand or strong
draw and bet, bet, bet (assuming you get there with your draw).
Because this player type won t be thinking about how balanced your range is
or what hands you would be checking, betting and raising, you can play a very
straightforward pure value game against this guy when your image is bad (i.e.
you ve been seen bluffing a lot). If somehow you make a big bluff that the
calling station calls you must make a note! Do not bluff this guy again any time
in the near future, as you will get snap-called so fast your arm will come off.
Once a weak-passive player pegs you as a bluffer, especially if he feels he s
being abused, beware, as you will see plenty of ridiculous call-downs and
generally horrible play. If you notice that the fish is wobbling/getting fed up that
you have some hand strength, control the pot size well (because these guys
tilt a lot and are liable to make insane plays when they do snap) and above all
value-bet them mercilessly.
3Recommend
Sha e

Commen
poker as much luck as skill, unless your a pro who can propley get the luck
factor down over time
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PKR How to spot weak-passive players and take their money

Comment b richie9634 - 27/12/09 (Report)


more rake = more adverts
Comment b richie9634 - 27/12/09 (Report)
So right.... keep our strateg for live games
Comment b K mbolie - 05/11/09 (Report)
DrJ77, I know it ma seem that the cards run differentl on line rather than live,
but that ma be because when pla ing on line pla ers see man more hands
per hour. The hands run so much faster that a pla er would see more freak
hits in a short period but in actualit three times as man hands would have
been pla ed. If a person is pla ing multiple tables as well it would appear that
freak hits are occurring all the time.
Comment b WanitaJ - 04/11/09 (Report)
You can reall have a Poker Face on PKR but u need Luck skill and a
good bluffing abilit
Comment b Gun omcfun o - 02/11/09 (Report)
chee e
Comment b Gun omcfun o - 02/11/09 (Report)
Strateg dosnt count for much when these pla ers are so often rewarded b
PKR with miracle cards. Good theor if the odds wernt all out of whack with
boards that seem to be purposel made to encourage action.....How man
times do u see a flush or str8 flop on here? I see it wa more than live poker
but I guess that builds a bigger pot .... and rake
Comment b DrJ77 - 02/11/09 (Report)
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PKR How to spot weak-passive players and take their money

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