Here at Juicy Stakes Poker, we thought about calling this article “characteristics of good poker players” but we chose to go the other way. We are less inclined to teach players how to spot poor players as we are to help players become good poker players.
It is a lot easier to discontinue poor playing habits than it is to incorporate good playing habits.
Terms We Try to Avoid
There are a number of very pejorative terms that some poker players use to denigrate other players. We will do our best to avoid using any of those terms. You will recognize players by the way we describe their play rather than by a dismissive term that is sometimes applied to that type of player.
This does not mean that we will avoid using terms that describe the general player types. Passive is passive and aggressive is aggressive. You will soon see that we encourage aggressiveness against players who are weak and avoid being aggressive.
Poor Players Stay in Too Many Hands
Even the top pros, who might raise with a really weak hand in order to throw opponents off their track, will still fold about 70% of all dealt hands before the flop.
This is especially true of hands dealt to players in early position. Not paying attention is a category that demonstrates weakness and not paying attention to position is one of the many ways poor players make mistakes in the less desirable position.
Whether to bet in early position or not is one of the harder skills to learn. A player who always folds with a relatively weak hand in early position will telegraph to the other players that he or she has a good hand when they call or raise, especially when they raise, from early position.
Calling from early position is called limping in and a player who limps in is generally seen as a poor player who simply wants to see the flop.
The general rule of thumb here is that a player who clearly plays too many hands is a weak player who can be defeated relatively easily.
Poor Players Do Not Incorporate Poker Math in Their Play
Poker players have always used poker math to help them decide how to continue a hand. This was the case even when they didn’t know that they were using math. Counting outs and calculating the odds of hitting a straight or a flush is poker math.
Deciding on a course of action based on pot odds or expected value is poker math. In the old days, a player would look at the pot and decide that the pot was too small to continue against an aggressive bettor or the pot was big enough to take the chance.
Poor players simply have little to no idea how to use even the simplest poker math. They can be detected by their mistakes.
Understanding the Odds Based on the Number of Players
On the one hand, the cards are dealt randomly after they have been shuffled. But the more players there are, the less value a high pair has. The more players there are, the weaker early position is. Most online games have about six players. If you fall into a game with only four or five players, you can reevaluate your hands accordingly. The same is true if you fall into a game with seven or more players.
In early position, the range of hands you should raise with narrows if there are many players at the table. You can see this situation as causing “hand inflation” and everyone knows how too much money chasing too few products causes price inflation.
Poor Players Do Not Know How to Adjust Their Play
We touched on this a bit earlier. A poor player will telegraph a good hand by never calling or raising unless they have a textbook good hand. The result is that a poor player may win the same number of hands as the other players at the table but the poor player’s wins will be smaller. Thus, they end the games on the losing side of the ledger.
Poor Players Overestimate Hands
This is also a very common flaw in some players’ play. A medium pair may win some hands but it will lose many other hands. Similarly, an ace king is a good hand but it loses to any pair.
It is much more common for a poor player to overestimate a hand rather than to underestimate one. But very passive players can be impelled to fold in the face of aggressive betting. If you are playing this kind of poor player, you should take advantage of their fear of losing and bluff them out of a hand.
Poor Players are Often Too Aggressive
We touched upon this one above. A player who suddenly shows aggressive play is telling you that he or she has a strong hand. If you have any kind of “less strong” hand, the other player’s surprising aggressive play is a clear signal to fold.
This is also true of a player who never or very rarely bluffs. This kind of player will almost always have a strong hand if they are still in the hand after the flop and usually before the flop as well.
Poor Players are Afraid of a C Bet
If you know that you are up against a poor player and he or she calls to the flop, if you can telegraph a big hand from the flop, you should continue bet because the poor player will probably fold.
Poor players are either calling machines or folding machines. A C bet will give a folding machine a good reason to fold.
Poor Players are Afraid of Being Aggressive
A good player will be able to spot the overly passive player pretty quickly. But sometimes a poor player will also play aggressively. A poor aggressive player will usually play too aggressively.
Poor Players Don’t Have a Winning Instinct
There is a very powerful strategy in which a good player will make a substantial bet just in order to get a weak player to fold. This is called winning without a showdown and it works against weak players.
Lacking a winning instinct is also seen in players who seem to be playing just to have fun. We all need fun but poker also requires cold calculation.
Poor Players Tilt
Poker is a game of rising and falling emotions. A player who tilts at an unexpected loss can be defeated in the next few hands by aggressive play since they will be paying less attention to details.
Poor Players Drink Alcohol
This one is too obvious to elaborate on. Even one beer can alter a player’s actions. In online poker, it is a good idea to communicate with the other players via chat. Then, if a player shows any sign that he or she is under the influence even slightly, they are ripe to be defeated.
Poor Online Players Believe That There are No Tells in Online Poker
The tells are certainly different online as opposed to land-based poker but they are definitely there. An observant player will take the enormous amount of time that they are not playing a hand to pay attention to everything that is going on with the other players.
In this way, a good online player will detect a tell or two of a poor online player.
Juicy Stakes Poker Offers Great Online Poker
We encourage every player to improve their game incrementally. Very few poker players are natural-born players at a high level. Poker excellence is learned. Juicy Stakes provides a good learning environment so that you can improve well.
