Every time you play poker, whether it is live or online, you will meet a varied assortment of opponents: young and old, experienced pros and newbies, sharks and weak players.
If you do end up sitting at the Everygame poker tables alongside a couple of weak opponents, you have two goals: first, identifying the weakest link, and after that – figuring out how to exploit their inexperience to your advantage.
How can you clock a weak player and who is not? And should you flush them out straight off the bat or not? Follow our simple guide, and by the end of the night, you might find your wins have increased exponentially.
How to Identify a Weak Poker Player
You must already know that reading your opponents and figuring out their limits is a big part of becoming a successful poker player. In most cases, weak players will exhibit certain behaviors that you could easily pick up on and use to your advantage.
First and foremost, most weak players don't fold preflop or on the flop. While experienced players know the odds of each hand and pick their battles carefully, inexperienced players tend to make decisions based on feelings instead of knowledge, and it shows.
In their mind, even if they have the smallest chance of winning, they will keep playing, adding more money to the pot as they go. Their main goal is to have an entertaining experience, and folding often seems boring to those who only play to have fun.
Secondly, they show unusual hands on the river. They will reach the end of the round, showing their cards, and bam! It's a suited 2-9 combination that most experienced players will stay far away from.
From time to time, even those weird hands can get a player a win. But even though it is rare – the weak players will feel encouraged by the unlikely victory, deciding to stick with most hands until the very end. If you see a player reaching the river with weak hands on more than one occasion, you can conclude with 95% that they are a weak player. Sometimes, even experienced players will play weak hands if they are tilting, and you can still take advantage of that.
The Best Strategy to Dealing with Such Players
When in competition mode, it is in our nature to weed out the weakest link and compete solely with our strongest opponents. However, when it comes to poker, it is in your best interest to keep the weak players invested in the game as long as possible, so they will help grow the pot that they are unlikely to win.
Since weak players don't like to fold, you should take full advantage of their stubbornness by striking hard by value betting as viciously as possible. Since most of those players only play every once in a while, they have no issues with going big. If you make a big raise, they are most likely to think: "I can't miss out on that big pot! What if I fold and discover I could have won? I better keep playing."
You should also three-bet more often to extract as much money from the weak opponents as possible. That means re-raising before or immediately after the flop, and as those players won't fold, they will take the bait and raise as well, adding even more money to the pot. Even if they decide to fold post-flop, you still get more money out of them than you could have gotten out of stronger players.
And lastly, as the game progresses, weak players are bound to get more frustrated with their losses. Since they are not as experienced as you are at disguising their emotions, they will become even more rash in their betting style, and you can trick them into placing bigger and bigger bets as you go.
Don't Miss Out on a Golden Opportunity!
When encountering a weak player, don't let their inexperience annoy you. Instead, make sure to exploit those players and make the most of the situation by tricking them into adding more money to the pot!