Confession 007 — Tactical Targeting
I confess. I don’t often target weaker players.
While playing poker against stronger players is an excellent (if expensive) way to improve your game, identifying and playing against weaker players whenever possible will fatten your wallet considerably. It seems obvious, but you’d be surprised how few players consciously seek out weaker players to sit down with online on a regular basis.
Players who prefer grinding in meatspace talk about taking down soft tables all the time. Online however, there appears to be some resistance to this approach, with some even calling the practice “bum hunting”. The reality is that weak players lose lots of chips and someone is going to get them. It might as well be you.
There are two ways to identify weak players and tables with weak players.
The most important thing to do is simply to take special note of weak players whenever you come across them at SwC Poker. If you keep a mental list of these players and always look for one of them when you sit down, you’ll insure that you can probably beat at least one other opponent at your table. Target these players whenever possible to improve your chip count.
There is ultimately no better intel on another player than your personal experiences playing against them.
The second way to find weak players is to check the table statistics in the SwC Poker lobby. This is a fantastic resource, only available to online players. A number of key statistics are available which should be analyzed to your significant advantage:
- The first is AvgPot or average pot size. Looking for tables with a larger average pot size is an indicator that players at this table are betting loosely and investing a lot in every hand. There are chips to win at this table. It means there is frequent raising and calling happening. Lots of action. People at this table are willing to put money behind their mistakes. This is a great metric to look for.
- The second metric is the H/hr or hands per hour. This gives you an idea of the general speed of gameplay at this table and can be used along with AvgPot to determine how much action a table is seeing.
- The third metric is Pl/F or players per flop. This metric illuminates how loose or how tight the table is playing. Higher players per flop indicates loose play as lots of people are playing all types of hands, not just high quality ones. Lower players per flop indicates tighter play with players only betting when they have good hands. This effectively means that tables with a high players per flop ratio have lots of opportunities for you to profit from the mistakes of others.
It may not seem like a lot, but this is a game of percentages, and anything you can do to improve your odds, the value you can extract from a hand, or the revenue you can extract from a table equates to more money in your pocket.
Always remember, if you can’t identify the weak player at the table, it’s you.
THE KING OF HEARTS
This weekly column serves as a guide for those who are interested in online bitcoin poker but haven’t yet taken the plunge and for those who are just dipping their toes in the water.
I talk about online bitcoin poker from a beginner’s perspective with the goal of demystifying the various poker game forms as well as all aspects of online play, table and lobby etiquette, and anything else related to this space.
I’m enjoying spending time with you.
Poker Vocabulary and Abbreviations
Soft Table — a table with weak players
Fish — a weak player that makes for an easy target
Bum Hunting — targeting weak players
Grinding — playing tight, low-risk poker to make small steady profits over time
Meatspace — the real world (not cyberspace) — in person
Please send all questions, comments and suggestions to confessionsofapokerhusband@gmail.com.
My opinions and observations are my own do not reflect the opinions of SwC management. I will respond to all messages and I welcome your feedback.
Originally published at swcpoker.eu.
