I read this post from dgiharris and it got me thinking about asking more experienced players about understanding how people think, esp. when they don't separate bets as value(protection)/(semi)bluff and have very haphazard lines. This is something that is quite important in live poker as it happens a lot.

You know the people I am talking about - in the example above villains put hero on a bluff with low equity yet they played very aggressively against him.

It requires us to understand a different kind of logic to adjust our reads - so I thought it'd be interesting to have a discussion on that (which is very specific to llsnl) and how you guys figured out that part of exploitative play + the most common situations where this applies.

each person is an individual and there are no "common psychology spots". you have to learn these types of things for each individual and understand that they can change from night to night, from sober to drunk, from winning to tilted, and you need to be able to recognize these changes and use them to your advantage by exploiting their tendencies a u see them. this is how u make more profit than just using standard play

I disagree, I think the vast majority of poker hands are played with very imperfect info on opponents and that developing assumptions is the most important part of the game (obviously if you know somebody's exact strategy in a certain spot there isn't much of a challenge.)

I would bet most of your winrate comes from having good assumptions. E.g. If you had a piece of someone playing his first live game and he asked what to do if facing a 3bet from an unknown rec you would never tell them "every single spot is different, there are no common spots" - you would say "they're pretty much doing this for value almost always, and most of the time with JJ+ AK".

Interesting topic, and not to forget pretty essential to be able to crush live low stakes NL.

DGIharris has been a dooropener for me, because he has written several fantastic posts of understanding and thinking like the fish. One of his mantras is that you make a big critical mistake if you credit the fish your own mind and skillset- and when i was able to really grasp that it was a big breakthrough for me.

Key points for me in the part of exploiting fish and learn about what types of fishy players they are:


1)One of the main issues for me is to observe very carefully when a villain showdown hands in certain pots (for example in raised pots or 3 bet pots), to get a realistic impression of their ranges. What you see is what you get, no magic about it. If a guy are willing to call 5 BB preflopraises with hands like K4 suited or Q5 i label him a donkey and i will valuebet him to death with strong top pair hands or better. If a guy 3 bets preflop twice in a 8 hour session, you better be willing to fold your JJ if he 3 bets you. They are turning their hands face up, so take advantage of it.

2)I am watching out for betting patterns, as many fishes have major leaks here or give away big tells by the amount they raise or bet. A common example is that they raise to lets say 3 BB with their mediocre to weak parts of their raising range, and 5 or 6 BB raise when they hold a premium starting hand. When i pick up on such patterns (many villains dont even know that they give away those betting pattern tells), i start to 3 bet them pretty relentless in position preflop when they open for 3 BB raise. And vica versa i can rape them when they raise 5 or 6 BB, because i pretty much know their hand or their strength level.


3)Abuse many fishes lack of ability to put betting/raises into context. What i am thinking about is for example that if a fish see you C-bet bluff 8 BB into a 11 BB pot with air, he can label you a bluffy maniac and apply that completely wrong and station you down light in massive pots later on. He can be capable of calling you down 3 streets with weak top pair or even lighter in a 200 BB pot on A-5-2-10-j board, because he has seen you bluff one time on the flop earlier in the session or the session before. You can have anything here on the river when you fire a 55 BB bet right?

When you learn in wich way your one particular villain/fish lacks the ability to understand situational context of your bets or raises you can literally destroy him on a regular basis. If you play with many of the same fishes on a somewhat regular basis this is especially useful of course.

What you are talking about applies more to regs than "fish". It is true that "when you are the shark, everyone is a fish."

But for discussion purposes, "fish" are more level 0-1 players.
They are calling down with TPNK, because they always call down with top pair, not because they remember something you did the session before.

Maybe not the most accurate example by me to illustrate my point, but still relevant i believe and both the actual hand and villain is taken from a homegame some time back. Fishy villain said in a frustrated manner right after he called my riverbet that it is hard to believe i have it everytime, so my earlier bluffing and aggressive C-betting strategy obviously had something to do with it.

But the lack of the ability to put bets/raises patterns (how ranges change after flop bet, double barrell and triple barrell) into context is for me a big key to exploit fishes i play with on regular basis. Its a very big and complex topic of course, with many variables and possible examples.

Yeah. I wasn't debating the merits of your discussion, merely the term fish.
Most of us think of a fish as a loose, passive villain who doesn't think much beyond the absolute strength of his hand.

I agree that understanding villains' leaks is the key to crushing.

Okay man, understand. You was clarifying the term "fish" compared to the term "regular". Then we are on the same page

But yeah, i find many "regs" quite fishy also - even though many is above level 1 thinkers.

Which is why I'm locking this thread. It is too broad a subject to answer in a post. Keep in mind that the villains in dgiharris' story aren't fish. They were sharks to him for a long time. They are probably successful. It is just that he figured out what they were doing and counteracting. That's what you have to do.