I've been playing poker for a long time, but only seriously for a couple of months. At the moment I'm on PokerStars and PartyPoker with 4bb/100 over 10000 hands, so doing okay.

However on both sites I've noticed a lot of players with extremely high VPIP and very low (or 0) PFR stats. Their game plan seems to be to see almost every flop that's not 3-bet and fold if they don't get a piece. If they do get an average hand, they'll keep playing if it's cheap. When they hit a strong hand it's always very well disguised as their range is close to 100%.

I would have assumed these folk are completely clueless apart from the fact that they always seem to be doing well. Everyone else at the table is keen to play pots with them and stack-off light, so they get a lot of action vs. fairly average hands and when they win cop a lot of abuse in the chat which they typically just laugh off.

Are they playing some kind of strategy I don't know about? Or are they just being lucky?

Sorry for the noob question.

People just don't know how to play against them. They don't value bet light enough when they have a decent hand since the fish is likely to call woth worse. And they keep bluffing when it's obvious the passive fish will call with any poeve of the flop. And when the loose passive fish shows aggression he has the nuts but they will keep playing with marginal hands because "they're in a pot with a loose passive fish and should win"..

Any solid reg who knows what they're doing will destroy these players

Yeah ... I kind of figured in the end to fold TPTK or below when they show a bit of aggression and to value bet every street if I have TPTK or better.

The problem is exactly what you said I think: people believe they're entitled to win against these players and will stack off light when really they should be folding to any aggression. I forgot to mention I also noticed the AF of these guys is usually very low. Like below 1. It's just weird whenever I see one they seem to have racked up 2 or 3 buy-ins so it got me thinking.

I guess the fact that I'm play 5/10c has something to do with it... :P

A few of these players are very lucky in the short-run*. All of them go broke eventually. Some of them go broke very quickly indeed.
At 2NL on 888, some of the biggest winners in my database were fit-or-fold SLPs playing 25/4. These players get crushed at 5NL, but their style is very profitable against 2NL droolers.

* "Short-run" might be anything up to 100,000 hands or so. A 5bb/100 "loser" has about a 2% chance of making money in 100,000 hands due to running much luckier than expected.



If you look at this variance simulation, the luckiest player ran 65 buy-ins above EV in 100k hands. He made 15 BI, despite being below EV for the first 25,000 hands. Anyone can go on a heater.

if they are limpin to see every pot.. just start 3bettin them every hand

easy game

Why would you 3bet (raise actually if they are limping ) them every hand including the ones that are behind on an ATC range ?

If your opponent calls too much. You bluff less and value bet more. So you raise preflop your hands that have value (very important aspect is you being in position) If they call the raise invariably, there is no use raising your speculative hands, you might as well limp them behind if you are also able to profit from their postflop errors in position. (fold them if there isnt that much opportunity to abuse them postflop or if there are players behind you who will abuse you)

On the flop you judge again what their tendency is. Maybe they are again loose passive in which case you dont bluff and just valuebet, or like in SNGs i am now playing i see a very strong tendency to play fit or fold on the flop after calling ATC preflop. So now they are playing the opposite on this street. Therefore so will we. Time to bluff now

You absolutely do *not* need to wait for TPTK+ to value-bet every street. Thats what a previous poster meant about value-betting thinly.
These guys are calling you down with runner runner straight draws, backdoor flush draws, and pocket 2s. If you have midpair+ and the board has any draws at all, pot it or over bet it all streets. If it connects at some point and he donks out at you, believe him & fold until given reason not to. Position is also paramount because you can bet 2 streets then if the river connects simply check it and see showdown. Yes sometimes hes going to have a better pair, but draws make up the vast majority of his range.

Simply folding to their aggression is the best move readless, but you can drastically increase your winrate vs them by noting which kinds of hands they fight back with:
Will he stack off with K9 if the flop comes 972 regardless of your preflop action?
Will he re-raise with draws?
Does he play a flush like the nuts when a board has 2 pair on it?
Ie. is he aware of relative handstrength, or only that he's holding a set and a set is a monster! very likely @ the latter

Its well known that these loose passive players only show aggression with the "nuts" and that you should fold, but what allows you to trample them is when you figure out what they THINK is the nuts so you can stack off with the better hand, and don't end up folding too often.

I think taking notes on a few of his all-in pots is more valuable than a HUD vs this type of player.

ps. as the poster before me was possibly alluding to, you can play speculative hands MUCH more passively vs these types. Limp/flat SC, see the flop as cheaply as possible, and then when you do hit it watch him go all vs you for 98bb into a 2bb pot with an overpair.

Above poster pretty much crushed it on how to play LPs.

Also OP, no these guys are not winning players but you will sometimes see them win spectacular pots, especially vs. bad players who aspire to LAG it up because they think poker is about being a badass. It's no good firing 3 barrels with AK, repping AA/KK, when your LP will simply call you down holding pocket 8s, with two overcards on the board.

Lastly, I don't know if you view winrates on your HUD but you can generally ignore these completely in my opinion since you seldom log the 50K or so hands needed to converge a true rate.

+1 to Arty, though let's remember that realistically a lot of these players will be -20bb/100 at best long-term, and I wouldn't be very surprised if a good many were doing worse than -100bb/100.

It's really impossible to say if these players are actually winning players based on the very limited information you have provided. It's certainly possible to be a winning player despite some weak preflop fundamentals if you have a very strong postflop game. However, having poor fundamentals will cut into your bottom line regardless, so it's important to understand what fundamental weaknesses the player has an how serious those weaknesses are (and whether they have other strengths which make up for some poor fundamentals).

I would look more closely at the players actual play to see what the stats mean. Their VPIP is high, is this because they limp their entire range from any position? Is it because they limp their entire range from in position, but fold a tighter than normal range from out of position? Is it because they limp a wider range than most but only in position? Is it because they call raises out of position? Is it because they call a lot of raises in position?

Obviously no amount of postflop edge is going to make someone profitable if they are entering hands with disadvantages in hand strength, initiative, and position. However, if they are entering most pots with a positional advantage over their opponents this could be profitable (not optimal) particularly at these microstakes levels where even the good players are super exploitable postflop.

Well, thats what im wondering. He plays 40/30. Can you immagine a good player doing that successfully to maximize profit with his post flop skills ? Meaning that it would actually be optimal for him.

With the amount of work you have to put in to get a strong postflop game and how easy it is to eliminate lots of poor parts of most beginners preflop games I'd argue that this situation never really arises.

I think it never arises amongst strong competition. In my local donkament though, I've noticed there are people cashing reasonably often with weak preflop game because they are good at putting their opponents on a hand and are selectively aggressive postflop. It's worth stating that there are perhaps 4 people in a field of 45 who don't have a preflop game you could rate as between "too loose" to "hilariously bad".

Fyi Re Af of 1. For a high vpip this does NOT mean they are passive postflop.

Against a standard station you just need to iso super wide and learn to b/f 3rd pair for vaule.

Ok, so this guy mainly comes in for raises but also limps. This is pretty much how I played when I played online 6max like 5 years ago (sorry, no stats)....maybe a little tighter as I wasn't play junk OOP but IP I played a wide range of hands which included pretty much any suited cards (T3 sooted whatever).

It's certainly possible that this theoretically profitable player has found a style that works for him. When you do play this loose it's very easy to get paid off post flop, but I still maintain that it can't be optimal even against weak competition due to glaring leaks.

You're assuming they put work in and I'm assuming they have done very little studying away from the table and have primarily developed their style through experience alone.

Which would mean they are AWFUL postflop.

Sorry, I'm not following this line of logic.

I was actually just thinking about making a post about this gap between vpip and pfr. Why the ideal is considered to be only a 2% gap or so.

How about the BB vs steal call range ?
How about polarised 3 betting and cold calling raises with a decent range too ?

I have 6% between vpip and pfr. I dont really limp though. Maybe im cold calling raises too much IP. Against the typical 20% openers opening in MP or CO, I cold call SCs like 78s - QJs, QTs, low - med pockets, KT, KJ, KQ, AT, AJ. Sometimes a little wider when i feel the raisers postflop play is particularly exploitable.
Not sure if i should, i like playing IP, i dont like raising those high card hands and making them fold all that i dominate and call only what dominates me.....
Ill find out when later when i have enough hands to learn from the statistics i guess. Comments on this topic welcome too though.

Well, i guess a bit of my 6% also comes from completing the small blind with all but the worst of suited hands in a multiway limped pot which still happens quite regularly on party 2NL

It would make sense to have a gap since vs some player types limping/flatting can be very profitable. When a live one sits down I may limp him IP with almost ATC and wait to flop a monster, esp if others limp him as well.
Esp when trying to squeeze with SC/SGAP etc. is just gonna get a bunch of callers and they never fold post-flop, it's much more profitable to just see a cheap flop then jam it when you hit.

Absolutely fine, especially at 2NL 6-max. When Flix was playing 2NL in his grind it up series, I think he was playing a 'crazy' 33/17 or something like that.

If you have a SB limping range at higher stakes, an optimal VPIP/PFR might look something like 24/17. Most of your non-raising VPIP should be in the BB, however. The "gap" in that seat can be 10 or more and still be correct imo.

i have been seeing this same things in micro stake games.
some regular players (that I see them almost everyday I play) constantly limp with vpip like 45% and winning money.
I think someone above is correct, people just don't know how to play against them

holy necro batman

They're not winning money on the long run trust me, you guys are biased.

They just figured that you don't have to be the best at the table but simply better than the ones paying you off.

Seems like a rather 'braindead' strat (i.e. ideal for multi-tabeling). If it leaves some money on the table but nets you more overall because you can play more tables with the same 'brainpower' investment then it's +EV.