Quote:
Originally Posted by dadjoey
Who are the worst players and how often to they play? What is their leak and how do you plan to exploit it? Games often end up with many good players just grinding out the bad players.
I disagree with a lot of this.
1. Your winrate is primarily a function of your skill differential vs the field, not your skill differential vs the worst. Being the second worst player at the table isn't much better than being the worst, at least financially (morale-wise, it's good to shot-take with a known fish so you feel better). If you're not in the top third of players, it's really unlikely you'll be making a solid winrate.
2. Almost every player has multiple leaks. The most obvious is that they play too many hands. But as you move up, you should identify multiple small/subtle leaks in your opponents. Even among people who play solidly preflop, many will cbet the flop wrong or wait for the turn wrong. These are exploitable.
3. Games rarely have that many good players. Sure, relative to the entire pool of people who play poker, a middle of the road 80/160 player is good. But at the 80/160 table, being the 4th best player puts his winrate about 0.
Really, the longevity of the games, especially the 30/60, is about the middle of the road regs who think they are elite. Variance is a ***** and there are plenty of people who have won 500 BB over 500 hours who are not 1 BB/hr winners. When you exploit them, it's a real long term catch because they think their strategy is +1 BB/hr and they can't understand how it is they run so bad and they feel almost zero pressure to change.
Sure, it's nice to have a whale come in every few months and drop a rack of Sklansky bucks on the table. But really, the day to day money comes from the guy whose unpunished leaks at 15/30 have allowed him to build a bankroll and play 30/60 as the 4th-6th best player.