Recognizing bad players

Replay Poker Poker Strategy
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Hello! I’m back with a new post. It’s still mental, but I still think it’s necessary. It’s: “Recognizing bad players”

Many concepts such as loose, tight, aggressive players can be understood by beginners, but it is still difficult to know whether they play well or not, because whether they play tight or aggressive, it is not certain that they play correctly, so it is difficult to know whether they are good or bad players, from which it is still impossible to apply tactics to them. I can observe from 1 to 3 people, but more is difficult, and for bad players, it seems that they play based on feeling, so the way they play is always changing, it is impossible to get the pulse".

  • Identifying good and bad players

First of all, it is necessary to clarify that whether a player plays loose or tight has nothing to do with being good or bad. If they play well, they can play 50% of hands and still win, while if they do not play well, even if they only play 5% of hands, they will still lose as usual. One trick I use a lot is to hold a 95s, 43o call when sitting on the button against a nit raiser, and flop based on the face to outplay the opponent, because their hand is too obvious.

Aggressive players are usually better than passive players, but not all aggressive players are good. If your opponent plays aggressively but doesn’t really know what you’re doing, it’s even easier to win money than playing against a very cautious player, who will throw a lot of chips into the pot with a weak hand…

  • In general, some of the big mistakes that inexperienced players often make that we can easily recognize and exploit are:
    • Limp preflop, especially when the blinds are big
    • Not knowing about commitment
    • Betting too much, betting big when the hand is strong, betting small when the hand is weak/bluffing or vice versa
    • Betting too small or betting too big often
    • Ready to play a large stack with a top pair/overpair hand
    • Playing expensive buys without enough implied odds
    • Calling all in too loosely in the short stack phase
    • Playing too tight in the short stack phase
    …

  • Those are the big mistakes, but there are many other smaller mistakes that are harder to recognize: calling too many 3-bets when out of position, not defending your blinds, c-bet too much, fitting or fold (hit the flop to play), one and done (c-bet 1 time then give up)… When your level is better, you will recognize these types of mistakes of your opponents to attack.

  • Observe many people.

More, If you are not in the habit of observing many people, you should focus on observing the 2 people sitting on your left and 2 people sitting on your right. These will be the people you play with most often, happening in situations where everyone folds to the 2 people sitting on your right to steal your blind, or you open in the last position to steal the blind of the 2 people sitting on your left.

  • Thanks for reading, contributing and Good luck at the tables!

NgDang

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Great list!

Another easy one to spot: they check down too often when the other player in the hand is also checking. This is a clear sign of a fit-or-fold player aka, they rarely or never bluff. Very easy to exploit!

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Observing other players is a must skill at any level. Hopefully, that skill becomes more intuitive after some time. I would add that if a player keeps calling/limping even with 10bb or less he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

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It DOES NOT MATTER whether, if a player is a good or bad, etc player in a way, especially in tournament play.

The most important things in tournament play:

  1. Try to make right decisions, do not over focus on results.

  2. try to eliminate, try to dont do the mistakes, leaks, etc, that others could exploit in your game.

  3. Observe and play according to situational nuances, etc,

  4. Discipline

  5. Adjust, switch gears, etc.

  6. The reason it doesn’t matter if a player is bad, good, etc, is that whether good or bad, a good player still has to adjust, counter, handle, outplay, etc, whatever they do, good or bad, in order to win over the long term. Good or Bad is just a lable, term, perception, truth, etc, and is not as important as how they actually play, good or bad, and not as important as overcoming their play over the long term. Even if its Phil Ivey who’s in the pot with you in a tournament, you either find a way to deal with his play or lose, etc, as in a tournament, its not like a ring game, where “Phil Ivey is at that ring, cash game, I better pick another, different table”, etc. Does not matter whether Ivey is a good player or not. So I dont care if they are good or bad, as I care HOW THEY PLAY, and HOW TO DEAL WITH THAT.

  7. Just because see a player do something once, does not necessarily mean that they either do or dont do that, etc. If see something, note the POSSIBILITY, and depending on what see, maybe start to watch even more carefully. Try to quantify, qualify the possibility, likelyhood, in order to try to: Example. Say you see a insane bluff or 2, and your in a tough spot, dont know whether to call, etc. Say you try to quantify, qualify bluff chance, and say you put them on about 13% to 27% bluff chance. In that situation, you would either need about 73% equity or chance to be ahead, etc, or be getting about 3.75 to 1 to 7 to 1 pot odds, on about 13% to 27% that your ahead, or if call, win about 3.73 times out of every 5 times that call, to correctly call. In that situation it does not matter whether they are a good player or not, as to whether you call in that tough spot or not. That player could be very good, picks good bluff spots, etc. Your still going to have to try to correctly figure out if should call or not in that spot.

  8. Try to correctly Study, practice good sound poker priciples, etc, from good sources. Always keep learning, improving, adjusting, to both the overall poker meta, and to specific tables, tournaments, stakes, stack sizes, players, nuances, situation, etc.

  9. Good Bankroll management

  10. Not playing at stakes above your bankroll, and above your skill level

  11. Learn, apply, use both GTO, Exploitative play.

  12. Use tools like Poker Tracker, Solvers, between games, to find plug leaks in your game, and to find out intel, info on other players, to try to figure out how to adjust, counter, deal with their play, etc.

  13. If can, take some notes on some players

  14. Learn how to read situations, players, tells, betting patterns, hand ranges, comparative ranges, flops, board textures, etc

  15. Play Positional Poker. Playing semi tight to semi moderate according to position, where later position is EVERYTHING, where money tends to flow to LATER POSITIONS, and semi balancing out, mixing up game according to LATER POSITION, players, situational nuances, etc, is highly recommended for most players, even most pros, as if going to play like a Phil LAAK, Gus Hanson, SUPER LAG, etc, you have to be EXTREMELY GOOD, and a extremely good READER. So semi tight to semi moderate, semi careful, selective aggressive according to later position, players, GTO, situational nuances, etc, is usually better, semi best, etc.

  16. Dont bluff call stations. Do bluff NITS. Dont play too fancy at lower stakes. Do not play at the higher stakes the way that play at lower stakes. Lower stakes tend to both underbluff, overvalue, value own themselves. Higher stakes CAN bluff some more. Lower stakes either dont slowplay as much or slowplay incorrectly in bad spots. Low stakes limp more.

  17. Dont open limp in early position. Either raise squeeze over limps, or limp behind in late position, with marginal hands that have good postflop playability, that make semi deceptive, hidden monster hands postflop, to monster hand mine. There are or can be exceptions to this general rule.

There is a lot to learn, but these thing are generally the most important things to learn, do. This stuff is more important then labeling, terming a player as either good or bad.

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I agree that observing the other players at your table and trying to classify them based on how you perceive their skill level is key to figuring out which players you want to be in the hand against. I like the idea of focusing on the two players to your right and left because, as you say, those are the players who you are likely to try stealing their blinds and the ones who will try to steal yours. You need to know who will fold to aggression and who will defend light and then who will raise light to try to get you off your blind so you should be playing back at them. I think the easiest to spot are those who make incorrect bet/raise sizes and those who play too many hands out of position. Thanks for the post!

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Good post, dangbaonguyen.

You’ve brought up some really valuable points about the complexities of identifying bad players, and I appreciate how you’ve gone beyond the usual loose vs. tight labels.

It’s not enough to categorize players by these broad styles; we need to dig deeper to understand whether they actually have a solid grasp of the game.

I liked how you pointed out that aggressive players aren’t necessarily good players. This is something that can trip up even experienced players—facing an aggressive opponent can be intimidating, but if that aggression isn’t backed by a sound strategy, it becomes more of an opportunity than a threat. Recognizing when an opponent is blindly aggressive versus strategically aggressive can make a huge difference in how you approach the hand.

Your mention some common mistakes made by inexperienced players when it comes to betting patterns and stack management. These are areas where it’s easy to spot weaknesses and exploit them, but they require close observation. Your advice to focus on the two players sitting directly to your left and right is practical. These are probably two of the players you’ll be up against most often, and understanding their tendencies can give you a significant edge, particularly in those critical blind-stealing situations.

Observing how players adjust - or fail to adjust - over time is also key. It’s not just about recognizing a single mistake, but understanding a player’s overall approach and how they react to different situations. This kind of observation can elevate your game as you start to recognize patterns and exploit them more effectively.

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Thanks for the tips . Playing too loose or too tight in short stack mode is a problem , big problem , a good shove fold range and chart is needed . Limping with a pocket pair EP and see the action that followed might not be such a bad player habit , I ve seen it mamy to be fruitful and successful strategy

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It is very good to have read all these tips, in my personal opinion I observe the positions and the size of the bets, I also consider the limp and the 1 bb raises to be bad

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SO BAD DOGG

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I think it’s interesting, but for someone still learning, it can be tough to spot all these types of players. Sometimes sticking to the basics and focusing on a few key observations is a good start.

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Preflop raisers…

Players who raise preflop almost every hand are usually bluffers.

They do this mostly in ring games but i seldom see them do it tournaments.

The raising does 2 things
It establishes aggression.
It allows them to buy a lot of mid pots.(usually against post flop checkers)

This is MY observations.

Won’t be coming back to see comments.

Nothing personal :slight_smile:

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I find using the notes feature helps me.

You don’t have to have observational skills.
Just take notes on things you see, like someone raising preflop with nothing. I take notes constantly, mostly when i think.a player could be a pot stealer.

Good luck

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You play long enough ( i mean old, like me lol ) you will not need to take notes-you can read ppl. after playing with them for 30 minutes or less most of the time and bad players u can read in 10 minutes as they bet way 2 much and all in ( called bingo donky lol ).

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I just observe everyone if I not play too many tables and go from there. Sometimes one needs to wait a bit and show some patience before it becomes evident who at the table makes the real big mistakes.

For me personally people who minbet or minraise pre are usually straight fish. Also people who Oberbett allin on a bad top pair.

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I haven’t seen people here raising pre-flop almost every hand. I play every day. Most limp in ---->pre-flop… if you have a strong pocket pair and you don’t raise pre-flop, you aren’t protecting your hand… just sayin… that said, carry on…

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Yes I tend to agree as some weak hands can come from behind and zap your pot

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Indeed, and more importantly, when we have the good stuff we want the pot to be BIGGER :smiley:

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I know a good player from a bad one when a player uses very large or very small bet sizes in big pots, a bad player plays a lot of bad hands, the bad player doesn’t look at the villain’s hand.

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very large or very small bet sizes alone don’t indicate anything meaningful about strength!

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I think this is a really good point. We all play poorly, making large mistakes probably nearly every hand. As I watch people play, I’m just trying to decide if I should deviate from my baseline strategies to try and exploit any significant imbalances in play that I’ve seen.

  1. Are there bet sizing tells, where they are much more likely to use certain sizes with bluffs or value?
  2. Do large bets and raises generally represent polarization, or protection bets for medium strength hands?
  3. Are there spots where they have very low or very high bluff rates?
  4. Are their opening ranges unusually wide or narrow?
  5. Do they over fold to bets of certain kinds, or will they cling for life with bottom pair on a board with 4 cards to a flush and 4 cards to a straight?

All of these are just imbalances, where someone does something too often, or not often enough, and many players will have many different types of imbalances that are significant and that they don’t remedy quickly.

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