PKR _ How to Spot Weak-passive Players and Take Their Money

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How to spot weak-passive plaers

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 plaers

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 littlehope of winning in the long term unless they change their game. Despite this,

some people continually get themselves into sticky spots against these weak-

passive players, but theres really no excuse for doing so.

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/#uX1Z3Q













Passive players are the most profitable to play because they love to call and

hate to raise. Its 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 wont fold, so as long as

you dont burn money by getting your bet-sizing wrong, its not a particularly

taxing task to felt them. The other brilliant thing is that its not difficult to see thestrength of their hand, as they wont 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 isthat they overrate their own ability to assess what aspects of a weak-passive

players range theyll 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







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 havent 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 stakein 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 handsor, 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 weak-

passive 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.

Eploiting passive plaers

So, given what weve 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. Lets say a calling stationlimps 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 three-

betting range. In three different hypothetical hands you are dealt 5-6 suited, T-

8 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 youre going to get three-bet frequently once he realises what

youre doing. Now, if you both had 200BB it would be a different story. In thatcase if you didnt 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?







Shae

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 willonly 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 wont 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.

youve 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 hes

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

Commen

poker as much luck as skill, unless your a pro who can propley get the luck

factor down over time







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 Kmbolie - 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 plaing on line plaers see man more hands

per hour. The hands run so much faster that a plaer would see more freak

hits in a short period but in actualit three times as man hands would have

been plaed. If a person is plaing 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 Gunomcfuno - 02/11/09 (Report)

cheee

Comment b Gunomcfuno - 02/11/09 (Report)

Strateg dosnt count for much when these plaers 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