The Top 10 Strategies to Crush Weak Poker Players
The number one reason why decent players lose money to weak players, is because they don’t understand how weak players think.
To exploit these players, we need to know what their tendencies are. A mistake that some players make is that weak players can’t think. In my opinion, they do think. Their thinking may often be flawed but they do think.
It is important to understand the thought process of these players and plan strategies to exploit this.
In this article, I will list 10 tendencies of weak NL Texas Holdem players . I will also explain to you how you can exploit these tendencies.
1. When A Passive Fish Raises, His Hand Is 2 Pair or Better
Passive players do not generally bluff-raise on the flop or turn. The occasional passive player may raise on the flop with their top pair and draws.
However, these players seldom raise on the turn with a draw because there is only one card to come. Even on the flop, the majority of passive players will just call with draws.
Generally, you should assume that if a passive player raises on the flop, his hand strength is 2 pair or better. If he raises on the turn or river, his hand strength is almost definitely 2 pair or better.
How to Exploit: When you bet on the turn, you can choose a bet size that will determine whether villain has a hand that is better or worse than 2 pair.
Example 1 A Small Turn Bet Is More Likely, Than A Large Turn Bet, To Get Information On Your Passive Opponent’s Hand Strength
This is how the betting went.
Pre-flop
Hero (Cut-Off): Raises 3BB
Calling Station (Button): Calls 3BB
Flop
Hero (Cut-Off): Bets 5.5 BB
Calling Station (Button): Calls 5.5 BB
Turn
Hero?
In Example 1, hero is playing against a calling station. Hero raised 3BB pre-flop. Villain called. Only 2 players saw the flop. Hero hits top pair on the flop. Hero is out of position and he bet ¾ of the pot. Villain called this bet.
What should hero do on the turn? There is a draw on the board. However, even a loose villain isn’t that likely to have this draw. Even if there was a draw on the flop, a single loose opponent isn’t likely to have it.
Hero should bet ½ of the pot on the turn against a calling station. There are several ideas behind this bet size.
Firstly, if villain has a hand that is 2 pair or better, he will raise this bet. In this case, hero can fold will minimal damage done to his stack. The idea is that when hero bets ½ of the pot, a passive player will raise with a hand that is 2 pair or better. However, if hero bet the size of the pot and the calling station has a 2 pair hand or better, he might just call and wait for the next barrel.
Basically, if you bet small on the flop or turn, you are forcing villain to raise to get value when you are beaten by a much stronger hand. However, if you bet big and villain has a hand that is 2 pair or better, villain will already be getting value. In addition, villain will sense that you like your hand, when you put in a large bet. Therefore, when you bet big, villain might feel he can slow play his hand by just calling and allowing you to bet again the next street.
Passive players are most comfortable calling. If they have a strong hand, they actually prefer to call and let you bet the hand for them.
If you are not losing too much value against villain’s weak range (ie draws, top pair weaker kicker, pairs below top pair), you want to encourage a passive player to reveal his strong range before the river.
If a passive player just calls a ½ pot bet on the flop or turn, you know that the top of his made hand range is top pair. This read is almost always correct on a board with draws on it. Most players will raise a ½ pot bet on the flop or turn, when they have 2 pair or a set and there is an obvious draw on the board. Aside from the made hands, the other type of hand villain could have is a draw. Getting this information on the turn makes it easy to play the river.
Secondly, although hero has a decent kicker with his top pair, he does not have top kicker. A smaller turn bet will get less value when villain has top pair weaker kicker. However, it will also lose less money when villain has a stronger kicker. Therefore, hero isn’t losing much value against villain’s top pair range by betting small on the turn.
Thirdly, a smaller bet encourages villain to call. A lot of calling stations will call a small turn bet with a pair below top pair (eg QQ, JJ, TT, 99, 8x). However, they might not call a larger bet.
Fourthly, players are much more likely to call a bet on the river with a weak made hand compared to the turn.
When a player is faced with a turn bet, he still has the river to worry about.
When a player is faced with a river bet, he just has to call one bet to get to showdown. This means that if you can get an opponent to take a weak made hand past the turn and to the river, you are very likely to get a small bet from him on the river. For this reason, it is sometimes wrong to scare a player with a weak hand into folding on the turn. If you scare a player with a weak hand into folding on the turn, you are missing out on both a turn and river bet.
If the river card is low and doesn’t change villain’s pair below top pair into a pair below second pair, hero can get another small bet from these hands on the river.
Fifthly, it would be wrong for hero to target the draw here with his bet size. In the above example, there aren’t many combinations of spades, with which villain would have called a ¾ pot flop bet. The flush draw has less than a 20% chance to hit anyway. It could slow the betting down if it does hit. However, compared to draws, there are so many more combinations of made hands that villain could have. Therefore, this is the range of hands that hero should primarily be thinking about when making his decision.
Hero does need a plan for situation when the draw hits on the river. When a passive player doesn’t have the draw, he may be tempted to bet if hero checks on the river. It is only minority of passive players who will do this. However, if hero bets small, a passive player is very unlikely to turn his hand into a bluff and raise.
A small bet acts as a blocking bet and a thin value bet. If villain has a pair, he will just want to see if his hand is good. Therefore, he will just take the cheap showdown. As such, if the draw completes on the river and villain raises hero’s bet, hero should fold.
You will be wrong sometimes. However, you have to go with your reads in this game. As long as you are correct the vast amount of the time, you shouldn’t be concerned about being wrong once in a while.
A big mistake that a lot of players make when they have a strong hand is automatically targeting the draws with their bet sizes.
NITs are the worst for this. They hit a set and they see a draw on the board and panic. They remember the poker guru cliché,”you have to protect your hand from the draws”. Then, the NITs bet so big that their opponent folds. If their opponent has top pair, he would have called 2 nice sized bets on the turn and river.
There is the other scenario where the NIT has a set and villain has the draw. If the river card simultaneously completes villain’s the draw and the NIT’s full house, the NIT can win his opponent’s stack. If you want to win money, you should be aware that the cliché,”you have to protect your hand from the draw” is very often wrong.
It’s only in pots, where a lot of loose players see a wet flop that, you need to really worry about the draw.
In multi-way pots, it is much more likely that one of your opponents has the draw. It’s also more likely that players with weak pairs will drop out of the hand early. Even loose players know that a weak pair should be folded when several players see the flop. This would usually mean that most players, who see the turn card, will have a strong made hand or a draw. If you have a strong made hand in this situation, you can focus on getting as much money as you can from your opponents on the turn.
Altering bet sizes is exploitable. However, if a passive player has a weak hand, he will just be grateful to see a small bet. He will not turn a weak hand into a bluff. In fact, he may not even consciously be aware that you have bet smaller in percentage terms on the turn compared to the flop. This is because, in absolute terms, a ½ pot turn bet is larger than a ¾ pot flop bet.
For now, you should just be aware that the small turn bet has 2 potential advantages:
- Getting your opponent to raise earlier in the hand when your top pair is beaten
- Keeping pairs below top pair in the hand.
The disadvantage of the small turn bet is that you will lose value against hands that might have called a bigger bet, such as top pair weak kicker and draws.
2. When a Passive Player Acts Weak and then Suddenly Acts Strong, He has a Very Strong Hand.
If you have been aggressive in the hand and a passive player responds back with aggression, he always has a big hand.
How to Exploit: Fold when a passive player suddenly shows strength unless you believe your hand is stronger.
Here is a typical example.
Example 2 A Showdown Monkey Suddenly Bets Into You On The River
So, in the above hand, the betting went as follows:
Pre-flop
Hero (MP): Raises 3BB
Showdown Monkey (BB): Calls: 2BB
Flop
Showdown Monkey (BB): Checks
Hero (MP): Bets 4.5BB
Showdown Monkey (BB): Calls 4.5BB
Turn
Showdown Monkey (BB): Checks
Hero (MP): Bets 11,5 BB
Showdown Monkey (BB): Calls 11.5BB
River
Showdown Monkey: Bets 35BB
Hero: Folds
I haven’t a clue what the showdown monkey has in his hand. However, he just checked and called all the way through the hand and suddenly bet on the river. This sudden show of strength strongly suggests that he has a 2 pair hand or better. It’s easy to think that this player is a bad player and therefore, his bet on the river could just be a bad bluff. Occasionally, it could be a bad bluff. However, the vast majority of the time, hero is beaten here.
The other point is that, you shouldn’t get involved with thoughts such as,”I am getting the odds to call”. When you think like that, you are assuming your opponent has a certain percentage of bluffs in his range. There are some passive players who never bluff. There are others who will c-bet on the flop and steal but will never bluff on expensive streets. There are some who will bluff if you have shown weakness, such as checking back the turn after betting on the flop.
However, there are very few passive players who will bluff when all you have done in the hand is show strength. In fact, unless a scare card hits the board, there aren’t that many aggressive players at 25-100NL or low stakes tournaments, who will bluff when his opponent has shown nothing but strength on several streets.
3. Passive Players Will Usually Call a River Bet, with a Weak Pair, if the Turn Checks Through
If your hand is strong and villain’s hand range is weak, it can sometimes be correct to check on the turn after you have bet on the flop. Even if you don’t induce a bluff, you may get a call from a weak hand when you bet on the river.
This is because the line you have taken will read like as follows:
- Flop bet: You took a stab on the flop as a bluff
- Turn check: You checked on the turn because your hand missed the board
- River bet: You decided to take one last desperate stab on the river because villain checked twice.
This line is especially useful against NITs. Typical NITs will call a bet on the flop with a pair just below top pair. However, they will usually fold such hands to a second bet on the turn. Therefore, checking back the turn when you have top pair is the best strategy to get an extra bet from a NIT with a pair below top pair.
How to Exploit: If you put your opponent on a weak range, consider checking the turn back to induce a bet or get a call on the river.
Example 3 If You Put Villain on a Weak Range, You Can Check on the Turn and Pick up a Bet on the River
So, the betting was as follows:
Pre-flop
TAGfish (UTG): raises 3BB
Hero (Button): Calls 3BB
Flop
TAGfish (UTG): Bets 5BB
Hero (Button): Calls 5BB
Turn
TAGfish (UTG): Checks
Hero (Button): Checks
In Hand 3, a TAGfish raises pre-flop and c-bets on the turn. When villain checks on the turn, he is saying that he doesn’t have a king or a made hand that is better than a paired king. If villain had a stronger hand than a paired king, he would definitely bet on the turn, especially when the spade flush draw appears. Villain could be getting sneaky with AK of spades. However, that is just one combination.
As villain raised from UTG, it is likely that he has a premium hand. He c-bet on the flop. A c-bet from a TAGfish doesn’t mean much because these players c-bet almost their whole range in heads-up pots. Some TAGfish do raise from UTG with medium and low pairs. If villain has raised pre-flop with a lower pair than JJ, hero is unlikely to get any more money from him. If villain has QQ or JJ, hero might be able to get another bet from him.
Therefore, villain’s range will consist of hands that have missed the flop (eg AQ), pairs that he will not call any more bets with (eg TT, 99) and pairs that might call one more bet (eg QQ or JJ).
BET ON THE RIVER
Hero shouldn’t put in a significant bet on the turn because this type of player will fold. Although there is a draw, hero should not worry about the draw. A TAGfish doesn’t play many draw hands from under the gun. If the draw completes on the river, it will slow the action down. However, there is less than a 20% chance of this occurring. The main point is that villain is not going to call a big bet on the turn anyway if he has a pair below top pair. He might even fold to a ½ pot bet. Hero should try and get some more money out of his opponent.
There are a couple of ways that hero could play this. The first is to check on the turn and then, bet ¾ pot (or less if hero doesn’t think his opponent will call this bet with QQ or JJ) on the river. As I have mentioned before, the idea of this line is to make villain believe that hero doesn’t have a king. Therefore, villain might believe his QQ or JJ is good.
The second way, to get money into the pot, is to bet very small on both the turn and river. By small, I mean about a ⅓ of the pot. This type of player will not bluff-raise. If he has a pair below top pair, he will just be thankful that hero has bet small.
You will often hear that, you should mix up your play. One way of mixing up your play is having several decent betting lines for the same situation. This makes it more difficult for thinking players to get a read on you.
4. Loose Passive Players Like Chasing Draws
The types of players, that I am talking about are showdown monkeys, calling stations and weak-tight players.
A lot of regulars get scared, when they have a strong hand, and they see a draw on the board. They bet so much that they price weak players out of the pot. This scenario frequently occurs on the turn, when the regular has a hand that is 2 pair or better. In this situation, some regulars will shove. This play is really bad. Playing this way with a monster hand only wins the money that went in pre-flop and on the flop.
Loose passive and weak-tight players will take bad odds to draw to their flush or straight on the turn. However, there are limits to how much they will pay with one card to come.
How to Exploit: Give these players a bad price to draw but keep them in the pot. You should charge them something like 75-100% of the pot on the turn. If you are responding to their bet, you should raise close to the sum of the pot and their bet combined.
However, remember to figure out whether you should target mainly the draws or the weak pairs and top pairs with your bet sizes.
The regulars who want to end the hand often worry about what they will do when the draw completes. If you are one of these regulars, I can take that worry away. You can fold 100% of the time the draw completes on the river and villain bets.
I’m not saying that this is always correct or that you will never get bluffed when the draw hits. What I am saying is that, in the long run, if you give your opponent the wrong odds to draw on the turn and you fold every time the draw hits on the river, you are making more money compared to pricing the draw out of the pot 100% of the time on the turn.
This is what “giving your opponent the wrong price to draw” means. “Giving your opponent the wrong price to draw” means that they are paying too much to hit their draw if you don’t put money into the pot when the draw hits. In addition, if you have a set or 2 pair, the river card will occasionally complete both your opponent’s draw and your full house. A weak player is almost never going to fold his flush in this spot. You will often get his stack when this happens. This possible scenario is another reason for not forcing your opponent out of the pot on the turn.
5: Weak Players Do Not Read What Your Bet Sizes Mean
Unless your bet is really small or really huge, passive players are not reading your bet size. If your bet is between ½ of the pot and below a pot size bet on the flop in a single-raised pot, they won’t be thinking that you bet ½ of the pot in certain situations and ¾ of the pot in other situations. The price may make a difference to their decision to call. However, that is an emotional response to the bet size. Compared to a single raised pot, in a 3-bet pot, you can get information for a c-bet that is cheaper in terms of the percentage of the pot.
Passive players decide whether to call based on their hand and the price. Unless the board is scary, they are not really thinking about your hand.
How to Exploit: Size your c-bets to get the most information when you have a showdown value hand.
This idea is similar to the idea of betting small on the turn with top pair in order to get information. I’ve added this in because, the fact that passive players do not differentiate between bet sizes on the flop, means that you can use different bet sizes to get the information you want. If you were playing a player who notices your different bet sizes and is capable of playing back at you, you couldn’t alter your bet size for information so easily.
Example 4 Playing Top Pair Weak Kicker Against A NIT
Pre-flop
NIT-Type 1 (MP): Raises 3BB
Hero (Button): 3-bets: 10BB
NIT-Type 1 (UTG): Calls 7BB
Flop
NIT-Type 1 (UTG): Checks
Hero (Button):?
In Hand 4, hero has top pair with a weak kicker. His opponent is a NIT. As such, if this opponent has top pair as well, he is likely to have a better kicker. His opponent is passive and the board is wet. In a 3-bet pot, normal bet sizes are generally smaller, in terms of the percentage of the pot, compared to single-raised pots. Hero should bet ⅓ of the pot or less. If villain has top pair, he should raise. I have said that a passive player will usually only raise with 2 pair or better. They can sometimes raise with top pair on the flop, especially if the bet is small and the board is wet. A NIT is unlikely to bluff-raise in a 3-bet pot. He is also unlikely to raise with a pair below top pair in a 3-bet pot. He would just try to get such hands to showdown as cheaply as possible. When I play online, I’ve seen players min-bet on the flop against NITs in a single-raised pot. Even in this situation, they don’t often raise unless they have a strong hand.
The small bet is designed to induce a raise from villain if he has top pair or better. This reduces hero’s losses if he is behind in the hand. If villain just calls, he is likely to have a showdown value hand or a draw. In other words, hero will know he is probably ahead in the hand if villain just calls. Villain’s weak hand range will be QQ-99. If the draw misses on the turn, hero can bet ⅓ of the pot to try and extract money from villain’s weak made hands and the odd possible draw. If the draw misses on the river, hero should try and get another small bet out of his opponent. If the draw completes on the turn or river and villain comes out firing, he probably has AQ of hearts. Therefore, in this situation, hero should fold.
The bet size on the flop gives draws a good price. However, hero is playing against villain’s whole range. The range includes hands that beat hero (Kx or better), showdown value hands that are losing to hero (eg QQ-99), draws and hands that missed the board.
Against a NIT, draws are a tiny part of that range (ie only AhQh and possibly, AhJh).
6. Passive Players Are Sensitive to Your Turn Bet Size
A lot of players call bets on the flop because the price is inexpensive. However, they are more likely to fold to an expensive bet on the turn.
How to Exploit: Target villain’s range when you have a made hand. If you want to keep weak hands in the pot, bet smaller. If you have a very strong hand and villain could have a strong hand that is second best, bet larger.
For example, let’s say you have a really strong hand like a set and you have got a read that villain’s hand is on the weak side.
Example 5 How To Play A Strong Hand When Villain’s Range Is Weak
So, the betting was as follows:
Pre-flop
Calling Station (MP): Raises 3BB
Hero (Button): Calls: 3BB
Flop
Calling Station (MP): Checks
Hero (Button): Bets 5.50 BB (¾ pot)
Calling Station (MP): Calls 5.50 BB (¾ pot)
Turn
Calling Station (MP): Checks
Hero (Button):?
In Hand 5, the calling station raised pre-flop and then checked away the lead on the flop. We will assume that this is a calling station who doesn’t open limp often. Therefore, his range is wide. Hero flopped a set and bet ¾ pot on the flop. He could have bet smaller because his opponent is indicating that he doesn’t have top pair by checking on the flop. However, if his opponent is a calling station or a showdown monkey, this bet size is fine. These types of players tend to call on the flop with just about anything. They then, make a decision whether to continue on the turn.
Hero shouldn’t just think about the strength of his hand and blindly try to get money into the pot. He needs to try and keep his opponent in the hand. There are 2 ways that he can play this. He can bet small in order to keep the calling station calling or he can check on the turn. If there was a significant draw on the board, I would prefer betting something like ½ of the pot. However, with no draw on the board, hero should put villain on a pair that he doesn’t think is that strong. In this situation, I prefer to check on the turn.
When hero checks on the turn, he gives villain a chance to catch up. Villain has 5 outs to turn a 1 pair hand into 2 pair or 3 of a kind. Against a calling station, those 5 outs will make the difference between getting his stack and not getting his stack. Even if the calling station doesn’t catch a card, hero might get some money out of him on the river. Villain will perceive the turn check as weakness and therefore, he might think that his hand has a chance of being ahead.
If hero just blindly bet big on the turn (as a lot of players do with a set), there is a good chance that his opponent would just fold. All the possible scenarios that could occur on the river would never happen in this case.
Any time a passive player suddenly shows strength, they are not bluffing. Most of the time this means that they have at least 2 pair. If these players have acted weak (calling and checking) and then suddenly act as if they are strong (by raising or putting a large river bet in), you need to pay attention.
7: [Sunk Cost Fallacy] Loose Passive Players are Likely to Call a Raise once they have Put Money in on a Particular Street
In economics, there is a term, the “sunk cost fallacy”. The idea is that a business is more likely to continue with a project if they have already put a lot of money into it. They will do this even when continuing is not the best thing to do. It’s basically a fancy expression for “throwing good money after bad”.
Loose passive players are particularly prone to this once they have invested on a particular street. Examples of this are when they complete in the small blind or call their big blind with almost any hand. They feel as if they have already put an investment into the pre-flop street and therefore, they are willing to invest more.
This idea is particularly relevant on the flop. Once they have bet on the flop, they won’t usually to fold to a raise. There are two exceptions. Firstly, if your raise is huge, they might fold. Secondly, if their bet on the flop is a min-bet, they will often fold to a raise.
Although these players don’t often fold to a raise, they will fold more often to a bet. This is because, when you bet, the loose-passive player hasn’t yet committed any money to seeing the next card.
How to Exploit: When you have a very strong hand and this type of player bets, you should raise on the flop. Don’t just call and wait until the turn to show strength.
You should raise his flop bet to get some value now. These players will often snap-call a flop raise, without thinking.
In contrast, if you have a draw, a semi-bluff raise is unlikely to get folds. If you are going to semi-bluff, wait to see if your opponent checks on the turn. You are more likely to get a fold if he checks on the turn, because he has not invested money on the street.
8. Limping with Premium Hands
Back in the day, you would see a lot of weak players limping into hands with AA or KK. When a player raised to isolate, the limper would re-raise.
How to Exploit: Fold if you get limp/re-raised, unless you have a pocket pair, and you are getting a reasonable price to set-mine.
Remember that if you decide to set-mine, you need to be playing against a villain who is capable of stacking off with an overpair.
9. NITs have Very Predictable Starting Hands, Typically Consisting of AK, AQ and all Pocket Pairs
NITs tend to stick with old textbook starting hands. If you haven’t already done so, you need to learn how combinatorics work.
How to Exploit: If you miss the flop, work out how many pocket pairs they have from their VP%, PFR% and cold-calling% by position. Then work out how many combinations will fold to bets on each street.
10. Some Passive Players May Bluff on The River with Busted Draws
I’ve written a whole article about river bluffers on this website, where I explain how to exploit this tendency. Therefore, I won’t discuss this subject here.
How to Exploit: Show weakness on the turn to induce a bluff.
Final Thoughts
Dividing players into categories such as tight or loose and passive or aggressive is useful. However, the habits of players can often be broken down even further. It is important to obtain a clear view of a player’s tendencies and determine how each of these can be exploited.
Exploitative poker is about identifying a player’s habits and then working out how you will play against them. You have to work all this out off the table. There isn’t time to work out a plan while you are playing.
In this module, you also learnt how to use a player’s responses pre-flop and on the flop to plan out your turn and river play. You don’t need a HUD for turn and river play. You just need a plan in your head that is based on your hole cards, the cards on the board, your opponent’s tendencies and what has happened previously in the hand.