Beating normal

When it comes right down to it, there are three classes of poker players you need to consider.

Like Miyamoto Musashi, you will cross swords with people that are better than you, people that are worse than you, and people about the same in skill. That reality is a time-varying function, as you get better your average on the continuum will go up but it still amounts to three classes, only your percentile behind decreases ( or increases ).

Luck will be a factor in short term outcomes. Luck, or as I call it a convergence of circumstances, varies over time, in this case in card sequence iterations. You can't cancel luck in the short terms, but you can cancel it over the long term. So in effect for the present discussion we can negate the impact of luck.

Against better players, you will come out on top less than half the time over the long term.

Against similar players, you will end about even barring luck most of the time over the long term.

Against worse players, you will end up beating them more times than not. Most players are normal.  Normal players are worse than average. That's almost the definition of normal.

You need to beat normal players to make any money at poker.  Over the long time, you need to understand how the poorest decision makers, the biased thinkers, the outcomes-based emotionalists operate.

It used to be called the dead money, but let's call it by what it means. It means people that are more likely to make bad decisions over and over.

That's

Aces full of Eights - Dead Man's Hand

Dealer: daemondave has a full house, Aces full of Eights
Dealer: Hand #152504394986: daemondave wins pot ($22.32) with a fullhouse, Aces full of Eights
Dealer: Hand #154544400775: daemondave wins pot (9,903) with a fullhouse, Aces full of Eights

Play where you are comfortable

One of the problems with people succeeding at poker is the style of play.  At first you need to start small. But after this you really don't need to prove anything by changing levels.  You can play tournaments or cash games, but what makes sense is up to you. As the book Your Worst Poker Enemy extols: you are the greatest weakness in your game. You are the one that is going to make the good and bad decisions. Why play at stakes or against players that don't make it comfortable for you?  If you want to play against the worst players forever, who cares. If you think you can sit with the big players then make sure you're comfortable at that level.  You are going to be sitting a long time with those opponents.

If you can make more money at one level than another then do it.

David Ripley's Story

David Ripley's Story

David Ripley, I converted your story into an epub in my cool book poker fonts if you are interested in it.  I hope you don't mind. Enjoy!

Here it is as a GIF:

Here it is in downloadable form...

Here's how bad players lose: reopen raising in a multiway pot

Here's how bad players make things worse for themselves; instead of just calling against really tight players when they have drawing hands, since they don't realize they are probably putting money in bad 5 times out of 6, they reraise in position.

If you have been playing loose, the tight players don't believe you. The times you will have them dominated will be fewer than the times they will have you dominated. So they want you to put more money in drawing against them. They are going to win 4 of those races and they are going to show down if they have a big hand. You can't bluff someone that doesn't believe you. So they are playing the long game against you time and again.

So if you want to see flops to catch and win, your better strategy is to call them all times. You lose the minimum and can see flops. Is it a winning strategy in the long term? No. But if you are in a tournament or are playing for a short period of time you could eke out a win if you are the one that minimized aggression.

The reason I can do it and get away with it, is that I don't play one strategy. I don't have a pattern so they are never sure how good my hand is, and I study the people I am playing with. I know when to stop reraising, then reraise when I have it. As I explain in my book, I actively conduct information warfare while playing poker.  I am watching you while you are watching the cards. I record what you do.  I am unpredictable, I reraise with the nuts and air, I go all in with aces after 2-bets, and so on. I deny you all information you need.

I can sit down at any table and make money without just luck, although luck helps. I get felted when some guy has no idea how lucky he was or they took a gamble to beat me . That's not a sign of weakness in my strategy, it is a part you must accept with gambling!

If you want to dominate them, use a superior strategy to what everyone else is using. Read my book!

The hardest players to read are the most straightforward

The players that are the hardest to understand are not the smartest players but the dumbest players. The ones that bet when they have something and check when they don't means that they have no ulterior motive to their game. I find bad dumb players the hardest to read because they do the most obvious things. The problem with that is you are not supposed to play in way that increases profits. If you have no deviation in your game that means one can understand exactly what play to make is certain situations.

They raise with certain cards and always do the same things in the same situations. Always the same thing. Always! Well that is a mathematical-like, playing the odds mentality. That is a strategy rooted in a pragmatic philosophy that just do the most likely things and it will result in the best outcomes. The problem is it's predictable.

If you are multi-table playing, or just don't think too clearly about your strategy then it makes sense to stick to a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approach.  If you don't want to win or lose too much, you just bound your winnings and losings into a range and this makes sense if you are trying to float at poker and just win or lose within a range.

If you play that game against the same kinds of players, I find them working their bad play on capped low limit games, then I guess you are just there treading water anyways like they are. Live and let live.

The problem with that isn't that it is wrong. The problem you have is when you meet a player that studies how you play they make the game about exploiting your weakness.  The game then isn't about cards or what you have, it's about making plays you won't expect and taking your money when you give up too easy. Most importantly, to let you play your game and then trick you into losing your whole stack when top pair isn't best. 

I'm Lying

In order to run an effective deception campaign, sometimes you need to tell the truth.

I won about $200 last night telling people what I had but never showing them. I told the truth for once. These two players didn't realize that I did in fact get Aces, Queens, and then Aces again on the same table in about four hands.  So I chatted what I had, then didn't show them. Until the last guy threw in $100 with a pair of fours because he refused to believe me.  They threw their chips away because they assumed I was a regular table bully who was running a scam.  I was, only it wasn't the scam they thought.

I was varying how I do things. I was adjusting how I play to make sure I don't give off a predictable pattern. That's part of making sure they call when you have a set and they have an overpair. You make yourself unpredictable so they don't know where you are in the hand.  Since most are players are on autopilot it helps to throw in misdirection. You can't just worry about other players, you need to be unpredictable as well. That is what guarantees they play wrong against you.  Most European players can't get over themselves long enough to pay attention. Exploit them!