Poker School - Lesson 6 | Different Players Require Different Tactics

In this article I'm going to go through some of the usual player types that you'll find in the small stakes games, and also some that aren't that common but which you'll eventually meet.

Loose-Passive, aka. Fish/Calling Station

This is the player you'll want in your game in as large numbers as possible. It would be great if you could play with a table full of loose and passive players (it can be argued that one loose-aggressive player would make the table even better). As the name suggests, these guys will play very loose (almost any two cards might look good enough for him to play) and passively, not betting or raising without the nuts or close to nuts.

Many people complain that they can't beat loose-passive players because these players will call down with anything and pretty often someone will catch a miracle card on the turn or river and turn their hand to a winner. That's just an example of a player who can't make the right adjustments to beat these games.You don't want to be one of those whiners.

How do you beat these loose-passives then? It's pretty easy, you just keep rigorously betting your good and mediocre hands until the end and then see who has the best hand. As these players will call you with variation of weak draws and abysmal made hands (like bottom pair) you have to get the money in when you're probably ahead, and totally quit bluffing because bluffin just won't work against these guys. You also need to bet many marginal hands for value on the river because they will keep calling you with even lesser holdings.

If you see a loose-passive player betting or raising, you need to get out of the hand as soon as possible unless you're holding something very close to the nuts, it should be easy to fold two pair when the board shows three to a straight and three to a flush on the turn and very passive player of any kind bets out or raises unless the pot is big enough so you have correct odds for drawing out on him.