Playing 1/2 at the nugget last weekend with a player on my left who was the biggest LP I ever saw. Frustrated the hell out of me because I could never get the button from middle/late position, and somehow despite calling 80% of his hands to the river, he was stacking crazy chips and always seemed to be showing down winners. The one time I beat him at showdown was when he called down my pocket 88 on a board w two overs w a paired 7, no kicker. That hand made me think this guy has some semi-magical hand-reading ability.

I'm usually able to at least pinpoint what about a player's strategy is helping them dominate me, but playing LP seems to me the cardinal sin of poker, and this guy seemed to have perfected the art of +EV LP play. When he raised preflop, he had QQ+ or AK. When he bet after the flop it was at least two pair. But any time he had any piece of the flop, he NEVER FOLDED. Nor did I see him fold preflop to any raise once he had limped (though he did fold pre occassionally from early position).

Was this guy getting lucky, or is it wise to call a street or two with small pairs at certain tables? My only guess is that he had some sense that our table was really bluffy and therefore was able to profitably make really thin value calls.

Also, how to get a player like this off your back? I raised UTG w/ KK to $20 and he still called, prompting the rest of the table to overcall - paired board came out - of course I checked, and two players in MP and LP ended up duking it out because both had flopped trip 8s...I know seat change is probably the best move, but is there anything else?

You make hands and value town him.

It really is that simple. You don't want him out your hair. His hand is face up according to you. If you really don't know how to beat this guy you really can't beat anybody.

Calling stations win big versus lagtards and lose big versus tags who thin value bet

I don't think you understand the question. His hand is the opposite of face up because he plays everything. Also, are you familiar with the concept of position? And finally, yes, I can beat many players which is why this particular player was disturbing. Try re-reading original post.

He raises big hands and calls down with weak ones. How is this not face up??????? If we have top pair we don't care whether he has 69o for a gutshot or K7 for middle pair.

Bet/Fold MPGK+. .

As said above, the answer is yes. Bobby Hoff in HOC described an old time player who was exceptionally good and almost never raised pf and always called on the button. Keep in mind that the conditions need to be right for this to work. In Hoff's games, the table was in modern terms extremely deep where a raise just wouldn't be enough to prevent people from calling pf. Today, a table that is mainly limping and consists of players that are going to overvalue TP in those conditions can be beaten by a loose passive that plays well post flop.

I know for practice when I played on-line, I would go to 2nl (2 cent BB) and play 80% VPIP (seeing the flop). It was to allow me to work on my post flop game and I made money doing it.

What do you mean "of course" you checked with KK cause the flop was paired? That's like, not standard at all.

He was getting lucky imo. If you saw some of his previous sessions, or sit down with him in the future, im sure you're gonna laugh inside when you realize that u actually gave this guy credit for being a good player once upon a time. Dont let it frustrate you. Hit hands and value bet the balls outta him. Discipline. Easy game.

Not unless you are playing a ton of aggro spewtards at your table who wont adjust.

*grunch*

the problem is that poker has a very very distorted feedback loop.

what does this mean?
it means its hard to tell whats going on with the relation between the quality of your decisions and your results.
it works the other way around too, when evaluating another players play.
If you focus on the players short term results
you will gather nothing.
you are tricking yourself, OP. playing a mind trick on yourself.
short term results happen in live poker over 100s and 100s of hours;
you are trying to ascertain something about villians play based on a tiny fraction of even that, so youre thinking is entirely wrong,
and it's tilting you, and getting you off of your game.
big leak.
what do you do?
you stick with your game. make sound decisions, while V makes suspect ones, even while you may be watching him drag every pot, and you cant win a chip in the meantime. it's called variance. the results dont matter.
what does matter is that you are making profitable plays, and you are observing
unprofitable ones being made by villians. sounds to me like your villian plays exactly like a donkey. loose/ passive is the absolutely worst style. that doesnt mean that someone cant run good playing it.
ive seen a donkey win 22 sessions in a row, and i have to admit i started thinking, "maybe im mistaken, and hes not a donkey?"
still, i kept seeing him make bad plays; he was just running good.
geuss what happened when his heater cooled off?

He was smart and never to be found?

...orrrr is he a degen addict?

I doubt he could read hands well. You said he called 80% of his hands to the river. He just didn't get lucky against you when he had his pair of sevens. He was playing it the same way he played a lot of his other hands. You did say he was the biggest LP you ever saw, so it shouldn't be surprising that he called you down. That's what LP players do.

I don't think I would be frustrated if this guy was stacking chips and showing down winners. I would be delighted. I get frustrated when these guys lose all their chips to other players and leave the table before I can take their chips.

Those are some incredibly huge leaks. He never threw his hand away with a piece of the flop, and he didn't fold to any preflop raises after limping in? That sounds bad even for a LP player. I've seen a lot of LP players that are better than that.

That depends on pot odds, implied odds, stack sizes, position, hand strength, etc. Do you think this player was considering these things before making his decisions to call almost every time? The player you describe sounds like he was just mindlessly calling and getting lucky.

You did say he was the biggest LP player you ever saw. I think that's why he was making all those calls.

Sit to his left. Don't sit far away from this guy. Also, when he calls your raise with KK for 20 dollars, why is that a bad thing? You should especially want this guy to call you, but it sounds like you wanted him to fold.

The player you're describing is not even close to being aggressive. Have you ever heard of a great passive poker player? Me neither.

Nothing worse than a fish losing chips. You want them to WIN..just not against you.

Any style can be a winner. "Yeah that's right any style". I didn't realize that until huds/research.

But to answer your question, loose passive strategy can be a winner, I see all the time. They bleed chips but when they hit, it seems players over play their hand vs them in big pots.

I treat a loose passive like a bad lag: who calls too much pre, peels light post and aggressive with tp+.

Tighten up your range post, bet for value draw for cheap. If you do that he should not be a problem. Position, but you should already know that.

Because the flop was paired AND I was UTG in an 8-way hand playing face up. No one is calling w/o trips here. In fact, two players had trips. I was practically done with the hand once I got the 4th caller preflop. I'm just glad I got away from the hand for $20...

In general, I agree with this concept, and 99/100 times I love playing the LPs. But something felt different here. He seemed confident. He looked like "he'd been there before." Not like the typical LPs who win a couple big pots by calling down a bluff and then give it all right back.

I just think we should be open to ideas that challenge our assumptions. Most of the improvements I've made in my game have come by watching someone play well while making plays that looked stupid to me, only to eventually understand what they were doing.

We've all played against the old man who bets 5 on the flop and turn into a 50 dollar pot and wonders how you stuck around to hit trips, calling you an idiot calling station. These people stay bad players because they don't try to understand why your plays work. This guy seemed like he knew what he was doing, so I'm just trying to better understand his game to either exploit it or adopt any aspects of it that may be profitable.

in the defence of the villain in your 88 vs 7x hand....

88 is kinda a bluff on a two overcard board like described, so he probably hit the top of your bluffing range here? If he puts you on air a lot of the time (maybe you have a betting tell!) then he has to be smooth calling anyway... raising is pointless and folding is also spewy!! I mean, if the 7 was 3rd pair then I think his line is fine. If it was 4th pair then it gets a bit more iffy.


Also, I have a habbit of playing LPA kinda like described. I have pretty much developed a nice strategy of playing super passive in position and trying to make big hands to stack people. Of course, you call the occasional 46s in position, hit bottom pair and then call a flop bet to try and spike it, simply because people commit too light in hands and you can put people on hands!! [certain tables this is].

- You can set up 3bets with QQ+ and AK
- I open JJ+ and AQ+ in position
- Open 22+ and AT+ from any position to 3bbs IF and only IF i'm deep and the table is not 3bet/4bet trigger happy

otherwise it is just limpy limpy! Catch your set and clean up vs Q8 on the Q28 board (with 22 ofc) ez game


One way to see if he is profitable.... simply check his aggression factor when he makes a big hand!!! Or better yet, how much money does he get in good??? Y'know, if he puts in a few small bets here and there then stacks a big stack then it obviously works. It is the gameplan he has adopted. It is all whether he can fold in spots where he is more clearly beat or make the correct long term plays given a lot of people will also make hands with him with his style. Against spewers it can work.

I think you should check out your betting patterns though. If this guy is taking a good line, then he might be picking up on your betting patterns... maybe your bet just looks bluffy? Maybe you bet bigger with bluffs? I mean you shouldn't really concern yourself with his strategy, just stick to your game! If he seems to have an edge then just sit to the left of him! ez game

Calling a $20 pre-flop with 89s against KK is not a bad play. And if the flop comes 882 then you get a LOT of villains who will stack off with KK. I mean we are talking a $20 investment to win the bloated pot plus your stack matched by someone who spewplays KK. Incidently, I liked your line with KK.... Big laydown. But as I was trying to point out, people spew there.... and that is where I think your LPA villain profits on this sort of table.

There are a huge number of bad players that get confident and think they know what they are doing when they get very lucky. Yesterday I read an old article by Roy Cooke, and he was talking about a terrible player who was getting super lucky, who was talking a lot and looked super confident about what he was doing. It was an article about limit hold'em, but a lot of the ideas are the same. Roy Cooke knew that this guy didn't have a clue despite the fact that the guy was winning and was sure he knew what he was doing.

Your opponent was probably confident because he was clueless about poker. That seems strange at first, but it actually makes a lot of sense. If you don't have a clue, then you're not going to realize how difficult the game is, and how many mistakes that you're making. People also tend to be way too results oriented when they don't have a clue about poker, and I'm sure this guy was the same way.

We shouldn't underestimate our opponents, but I am not surprised at all that this guy actually seemed confident in what he was doing. He might have even thought he was on some kind of rush.

It also wouldn't surprise me if this guy was winning because the other players weren't any good either. I doubt at 1/2 NL that they were doing a great job at taking advantage of his mistakes.

A bad player can crush a game if the field is even worse than him/her.
its all relative. you have every skill level imaginable in poker. just because what he's doing seems to work in this lineup, and it might for him, does'nt mean that its correct, optimal, or profitable in the longrun against a random field. stick with the fundamentals.
is he making fundamental mistakes? yes.
if so, he's fighting with one arm tied behind his back,
so what if he gets in a few punches?
poker only exists because the weaker player is allowed to win, and sometimes for what seems like long stretches. it's actually a beautiful thing.

It is possible to be a successful player who changes gears a lot and has a loose passive gear. It can be profitable to play loose-passive in position, especially preflop and decreasingly so on later streets. You obviously have to jump into LAG mode if you make a hand at some point in order to get maximum value.

It may have been a mistake to barrel with 88 against this guy.

If you expected him to fold a better hand, that's nuts; and if you were surprised that he called with worse, then your bets served no logical purpose.

I think you may be grossly underestimating the skill of this player and misclassifying his playing style. You mention that he only raises with premium cards and has the ability to fold to raises in early position preflop. However, your critiques from his play comes from calling raises in late/button position. The reality may be that your playing style and the game you were playing in was an overall really weak passive game where he could see speculative hands cheaply in LP and profitably bluff at pots when people showed weakness. I think a little more context on the other players at the table may change your mind about this type of player. I actually find a lot of the observations about this player to be good elements of a winning 1/2 NL strategy where it's 80%+ first level thinking players.