How to Exploit Fish
Basic Assumptions about Fish
1) They by definition are playing suboptimally 1. It is a huge mistake to assume they are thinking about poker the same way you do 2) Your most basic plan should be to maximize value against fish while reducing the frequency of your bluffs 1. All the regulars you play with understand these basic assumptions and will attempt to implement them, therefore we need to find ways to: 1) get more value than others do against them 2) lose less money when we are beat than others do against them 3) play more pots against them than everyone else
How to Exploit Fish
There is No Need to Balance Against Fish and You Should Bet Bigger with Big Hands
1) They will not understand OR will pick up your lack of bluffing frequency slower
than your other opponents 2) They will see you bluff in a small pot and assume you are capable of bluffing in all situations 3) You will be aggressive with your big hands, therefore they will perceive that you are so aggressive you must be bluffing a decent amount of the time 4) They will pay you off more than anyone else 5) Make larger bets in all situations for value including preflop and cbets than your normal game *** Experiment to see how far fish are willing to call 1. Ex. Some will call overbets frequently 2. some will defend all big blinds for upwards of 8-10bbs 3. Some will call cbets with 100% of their range
How to Exploit Fish
Lines to Take Against Fish Preflop
1) Eliminate or drastically reduce 3bet bluffs OOP 1. Reason: You don't need to balance against fish and you want to play for value 1. Ex. There is far more value to calling hands like Ax suited, suited connectors, low pocket pairs, lower broadway hands 2) Merge your 3betting range unless they are ultra aggressive in position 1. Reason: Most regs will not call with dominated hands, but fish will often have their opening range = their 3bet calling range 1. Ex. If you are in position and a fish raises, instead of calling in position start 3betting with the AJ/KQ/KJ/TT part of your range. 3) Call and try to spike big hands if they make small 3bets AND are 3betting a small percentage of the time 1. Do not call 3bets with hands like A6, K9o, but hands that don't overlap with his
range such as pocket pairs and suited connectors. 4) Open up your calling range in position 1. Your skill edge will show in these situations 2. Most regs understand what you do that making the pot large with marginal hands against fish is not a very good idea so the chance of a squeeze goes down 1. Ex. If you are normally folding 65ss and K9o button vs CO, start by calling these hands, if you are calling with 65ss and K9o but folding K7s, Q9o, 54ss then call with these. 5) Tighten up UTG and UTG+1 when fish have position on you 1. Reason- often fish and really good players present similar problems to you when you are not hitting hands, they will make moves, won't give up easily and force you to hit hands or make expensive bluffs 1. Ex. If you are UTG and a fish is in the button, consider folding Ax suiteds, lower suited connectors, and lower unsuited big cards 6) Isolate Preflop 1. Make larger prelop raises against fish in the blinds particularly the BB 1. Make it 4x or even 5x in early position with your ~ top 10% of hands 2. If you normally min raise button, make it 3x with your whole range with a fish in blinds, if you normally make it 2.5 or 3x on button make it more with one fish in blinds 1. Fish have an exceptionally hard time folding many hands in the bb, particularly if it ends up heads up 1. Regulars will take a very long time understanding what you are doing, and will be even less likely to 3bet bluff you because it costs so much to do so. 7) Isolate Preflop against Limps 1. If you have passive regs behind you, you can easily justify raising 60% of hands in position to isolate and 50% of hands OOP. 2. If you have other fish behind you, drastically decrease this range 3. They will call cbets with just about the same frequency in position and out of position 4. *** You should absolutely expect these players to call your isolation raise preflop, but then fold a wide range on the flop (some fish call super wide on flop therefore you should be double barreling wider)
How to Exploit Fish
Lines to Take Against Fish Postflop
1) Strategies for Postflop after isolating light (this applies almost always to single raised pots in position against fish other than isolating their limps): 1. You have KT on QJ4- easy cbet 2. You have KT on 223- easy cbet 3. You have KT on 78955- easy check back on flop and mix in some bets on turn and bets on river because you still don't have showdown 4. You have KT on JT4- easy cbet and bet most turns 5. You have KT on K874J- easy triple barrel (don't make the betsizing as big as you would with AK) 6. You have A4 on K32- easy cbet 7. You have A4 on T95- checkback 8. You have A4 on 442- checkback 9. You have Q2ss on AQ4- checkback 10. You have Q2ss on 789- easy checkback but make a stab at some point 11. You have Q2ss on K64- easy cbet 12. You have AK on 766- mix it up 13. You have AK on QJ4- mix it up 14. You have TT on J98- mix it up 15. You have 67s on J65- mix it up 16. You have A8 on T98- mix it up 1. Summaries: 1. If you have top pair, bet at least two and probably three streets 2. If you have middle pair, you need to find a way to get two streets of value against most, and it's better to get value early more often than not 3. If the board is very wet, steal the hand on later streets 4. If the board is very dry, feel free to follow simple cbetting strategy 5. You isolate KT offsuit and the board is 974 it is a simple cbet IF he calls turn is a Q you can very profitably double barrel, IF the turn is an 8 CHECK the turn, you have almost no fold equity 1. You can even TRIPLE BARREL on 974Q2 with KT, but you CANNOT triple barrel on board of 974Q2 or 974Q8 *****Because their calling range is so much wider, this should make your value range much wider and your bluffing range much narrower ***** Often fish don't value the small pots, so use their passivity in these pots to steal on turn or river as opposed to flop against either: 2. Very wet boards 3. Super passive players 4. Fit or fold players 5. Players that call flop with just about their whole range 2. They will rarely fold... 1. Gutshots on flop 2. Good ace high hands (AJ on 378, A9 on 223, etc) on flop 3. Bottom Pair on flop 4. Any pp on flop
5. Second pair on turn or river 6. KQ/KJ on low board flop 7. Top pair on flop on any street 8. Any 6 out+ draw on flop or turn 9. Their whole range on paired boards on flop 3. Common Lines 1. If a fish limps but then checkraises flop, he at least has a high absolute value hand 2. If a fish limps but then donks flop, you should be raising a very large percentage of the time because they cannot balance their donking range (either they are donking with the intent of continuing or a larger percentage of the time they are donking as a pure bluff) 8) OOP on Flop 1. Don't make the mistake of Cbetting too much 1. Reason: Fish aren't looking at the game as CR members are, they are trying to see more cards to make their hand, they think your bluffing a lot, and are happy to suck out, therefore WE CANNOT USE THE SAME CBETTING STRATEGY WE DO AGAINST REGS 1. Ex. Refer to when they won't fold 2. ******Image Matters 1. Reason: If they see you bluff once or twice on the flop with a cbet, they will immediately assume you are bluffing a ton, therefore they will not fold to most of your cbets 3. Solution- use their passivity in small pots to your advantage 1. Ex. You have A4, K9, or 22 on QQ853. Instead of a very high percentage of your range on flop like you would normally do, check it back and they will bet their hands that beat you, but will often allow you to see free turns and rivers at which point you can then evaluate if you have the best hand or need to make a steal 2. Bet Folding is Very Important 1. Reason: Fish call more than most so therefore our value ranges need to be widened. 2. Reason: We also believe that fish are playing sub optimally so they will not make thin value raises 3. Fish are more likely to make crazy calls than crazy bluff raises 1. Therefore we need to expand value bets but once we are against a raise we can fold against most fishy opponents 1. Ex. KJ on K449Q- if we bet all three streets and are facing a raise on river easy fold 2. Ex. AK on K449Q- same thing 3. Ex. QJ on Q44K6- I definitely think you should be triple barreling for value but if you get raised on turn or river easy fold 4. KQ on Kqs4s9s5- if you get raised on river it is an easy fold against most players 5. 99 on 8872- you double barrel and get raised on turn, easy fold against most **** remember being unbalanced against fish is not a problem!!! 9) Reisolation Against Regs 1. This is so important because: 1. You make the most money playing against fish and we want to be playing the most pots against fish 2. This will discourage regulars from making light isolations which we have already established as a profitable poker play, thus allowing us to make the profitable raise 2. Often by reisolating, regulars are too scared to make such a large 4bet, so while they are comfortable making normal 4bet bluffs, the required 4bet bluff is a large betsize and therefore many regs either do this less than optimally or don't have this play in their games at all 1. Ex. Reg raises to 3bb ---> we 3bet to 10bb they 4bet with whole range to 24bb
= not too risky BUT 2. Ex. fish limp 1bb ----> reg raises to 4bb ---> we reisolate to 13bb ---> fish folds and now reg would have to 4bet to at least 26-28bb = much more risky and why a lot of regs are incapable or unwilling to 4bet bluff against reisolations 3. *** The more money fish see you putting in the pot, the more they believe you must be bluffing at some point, thus setting you up for great value spots in the future (most fish have to have a real hand to call your reisolation bet after limping)
How to Exploit Fish
Classifying Fish into Passive or Aggro
1) Overall Strategies Against Passive Fish: 1. Make them make bad calls 2. If you are on draws or have marginal showdown value, you can get away with small bets on later streets 1. Ex. You have A4ss and board is Ks9s8T- you are OOP and make a standard cbet and fish calls ---> on turn this hits his range so well, you know you are almost never ahead but seeing one more card is very valuable, one option is: BET POT or LESS 2. You have A9ss on QsJs479- you have bet twice and missed everything, but a lot of draws have missed, try betting 1bb or 2bb on river and use their passivity against them 3. Be very wary of river checkraise and river donk leads for big 1. Ex. You have AA and board is K7s3s92s, you double barrel and he donks POT on river or you triple barrel and he shoves All In = easy fold 2. Ex. If you have J9ss on same board, just call the river donk and against certain opponents you can even fold to the river CR. 4. Merge your value 3bet range in position 5. Reduce the amount of Cbet bluffs but then bluff turns and rivers 6. Fish's Mindset- I want to see all 5 cards and folding is no fun
2) Overall Strategies Against Aggro Fish: 7. In position you actually should be increasing your calling range preflop and on the flop because he will get married to hands and barrel off a lot if you happen to hit a big hand 8. They don't understand the concept of showdown value, so they will take stabs with all parts of their range when checked to 9. I'm not a big fan of c-c on later streets, but this concept will apply 1. Ex. You are OOP with KQ on Q7s4s42, Betting flop and turn and check calling river would be very effective 2. Ex. You are OOP and have QQ on Ks3s298, calling three streets is a good plan 1. Ex. You are OOP with AK on Ks3s298s, I STILL PREFER BET FOLDING RIVER TO CHECK CALLING 10. Don't take the betting lead away from them because they can be bluffing in all spots 11. Fish's Mindset: taking opponents off of the best hand is more important than winning
