Why You Always Lose to Bad Poker Players (It's Not What You Think)

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.

Imagine flopping a top set against a recreational player. You make a continuation bet, they raise. 

You shove all-in, they call. You show your set, and they flip over J♦2♦. There’s only one diamond on the flop. The turn: a diamond.

The river…

A diamond. No paired board.

Situations like these make you question not only your aspiring poker career, but your whole existence. 

How is something like this even possible? How can someone play so terribly and still win?

And worst of all, why do situations like these keep happening? 

If something like this keeps happening to you, keep reading. 

This article will try to answer why you keep losing to bad poker players, and is there anything you can do about it except quitting poker altogether.

1. Poker Variance Can Be Brutal

The most obvious reason why you always seem to lose against bad poker players is variance. 

You’ve heard of the term before, you know it exists, and you know it can be brutal, but a lot of players still have a hard time wrapping their head around it. 

Simply put, variance measures the difference between how much you expect to earn on average versus what you actually earn over a small sample size. 

The bigger the variance, the more “swingy'' your results will be. 

For example, if your average winrate is 4 big blinds per hundred hands, it doesn’t mean you will always earn that much. 

Sometimes you’ll win 10, sometimes you’ll lose 20, and sometimes you’ll just be breaking even. 

In other words, luck will play a role in your short term results. And this is exactly why you’ll always struggle versus bad poker players. 

They don’t play for the long haul. They don’t care about the expected value of their ill-conceived moves. They play to have fun, right here, right now.

This is of course the complete opposite of how a professional poker player thinks about the game.

  

They know that having the math on their side as often as possible is the key to their long term success in this game.

Not so with our fishy friends at the poker tables though.

By the way, if you just want to learn my simple no BS system for exactly what hands to play, when to bet, raise and bluff, I cover this in extensive detail in my brand new training program, Play Fearless Poker.

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But even though the math is not on their side over the long run, in any given session, anything can happen. 

This means that as long as you play poker, you WILL keep losing to bad poker players. 

But as frustrating as it may be in a moment, always try to keep an eye on the big picture. 

If you know you are beating your current limit over a meaningful sample size, suffering a couple of suckouts here and there shouldn’t phase you one bit. 

You know that these are just bumps in the road on an otherwise profitable journey. 

This is all easier said than done, of course, and it does take a while for this mindset to really sink in. 

Nobody likes losing, especially when money’s involved. And it’s even worse when someone wins, even though they obviously don’t “deserve to win.” 

So there are two catastrophic situations at play here: a) you lost your money and b) some idiot won money undeservedly.

But poker is not really a fair game. If it were, it probably wouldn’t be as popular. It’s random, unpredictable, and people don’t always get what’s coming to them. Kind of like life. 

But just like in life, the ones that endure will eventually come out on top.

And of course you can also improve your chances of winning in poker significantly by learning a proven winning poker strategy.

2. You’re Actually Playing in Profitable Poker Games

Another reason you always seem to lose against bad poker players is the fact that you’re actually playing in profitable games. 

This may seem counterintuitive at first, but hear me out. 

Since poker is a game of skill, the only way to win consistently is to play against players that play worse than you. 

And the more bad players you’re up against, the bigger the chances of some of them getting lucky against you. 

Think of it this way. If there’s only one fish at your table, you will suffer an x amount of bad beats against them, because they will routinely put their money in with a mathematical disadvantage. 

But if there’s five recreational players sitting at your table, you will suffer five times more bad beats on average. 

As they say, all the fish are actually one giant fish. They have strength in numbers. 

The more recreational players, the bigger the likelihood of you losing in a particularly unlucky way because amateurs like this make all sorts of obvious poker mistakes. 

For example, recreational players tend to play too many hands and stay in them far longer than they should. 

So if you have a table full of fish, it’s quite likely you will often find yourself in a lot of multiway pots (the pots with more than two players involved). 

The more players involved in the pot, the less hand equity you have. In other words, the more players involved, the more often you’ll lose. 

Here’s an example. If you are dealt pocket Aces and you’re up against a single opponent, you have about 85% equity against any random hand. 

In other words, you can expect to win 85% of the time. 

Now, suppose you’re dealt pocket Aces again, but this time you’re up against four opponents. Your hand equity drops precipitously to just about 56%. 

But I’d still rather play at this hypothetical fishy table than against players who actually know what they’re doing, even though it means suffering a bad beat here and there. 

Remember that good players can also get lucky and have a great run of cards. I’d much rather play against a lucky fish than a lucky regular.

By the way, there is tons of good poker software available these days to help you quickly tell the difference between the fish and the regulars at your poker table.

Learn to Make $1000 Per Month in Small Stakes Games With My Free Poker Cheat Sheet

Are you struggling to create consistent profits in small stakes poker games? Would you like to make a nice part time income of at least $1000 per month in these games?  

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It shows you how to crush the small stakes games step by step. Learn exactly what hands to play and when to bet, raise and bluff all in! 

These are the proven strategies that I have used as a 10+ year poker pro to create some of the highest winnings of all time in these games. 

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3. Poker is Designed to Keep the Bad Players Playing

The reason you keep losing to bad poker players is the fact that poker is deliberately designed in a way that anyone can win in the short term, regardless of their previous knowledge (or lack thereof). 

This is what makes poker exciting in the first place. 

It doesn’t take a long time to learn, and due to the short term luck element involved, even total beginners can win sometimes. 

The structure of the game prevents bad poker players from losing their money too quickly, otherwise they would just stop playing, which would obviously be bad for business.

By the way, I discuss this in much more detail in my new Elite Poker University training. 

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Here are a few ways bad players are “protected” when playing poker:

A) They almost always have some sort of hand equity. 

It’s rarely the case in poker that one player is drawing completely dead (i.e. there’s no chance whatsoever for them to win the pot). 

Even if they make terrible decisions, there’s almost always a number of outs that can turn a significant underdog into a winning hand. 

Even if they have only one out in the whole deck (an out being a card you need to improve to a winning hand), there’s a 4% chance they will improve from flop to river. 

Not a lot, but if it happens, it’s hardly a statistical anomaly.

 

In practice, however, there’s a number of spots where players have roughly the same hand equity, i.e. the chance of winning a hand comes down to a coinflip.

Check out my poker odds cheat sheet for much more on how to quickly calculate your odds in a poker hand by the way.

B) Bad poker players probably play even worse than you think. 

Because of the fact that you can’t see the player's hole cards unless there’s a showdown (which doesn’t happen in most hands), their terrible plays often go under the radar. 

For example, if a player makes a terrible call on the flop, an even worse call on the turn, but folds on the river, you don’t get to see their hole cards. 

This means that you don’t know that they made two terrible mistakes, which you could see had there been a showdown. 

So every time a bad player folds or mucks their hand, you don’t see just how terrible they are playing. 

The point is, if you saw how they were playing from their perspective, you’d figure out just how easy it is to take their money. 

Unfortunately, players don’t have a huge FISH sign tattooed on their forehead, so by the time you figure out that they are indeed a fish, it could already be too late, as someone else could have already stacked them.

C) Bad players can have strong hands, too. 

Just because someone’s a fish, it doesn’t mean they can’t flop a nut straight. 

Despite the fact that recreational players can hide their fishiness for a time, after a while it becomes glaringly obvious they don’t really know what they are doing. 

At that point, you might stop giving them any credit, and think it’s only a matter of time before you take their money. 

But here’s the rub: the player you’re giving absolutely no credit can wake up with a monster hand just as easily as you.

This is something Daniel Negreanu talks about in his recent Masterclass poker training.  

When that happens, they will be the one to completely stack you, instead of the other way around. 

For example, you see a huge calling station calling down huge river bets with something ludicrous like a third pair. 

You flop a top pair top kicker, bet all three streets for value, only for them to flip over a set. 

They trapped you, and you lose your whole stack. 

If something like that happens, it’s obviously infuriating, but it just goes to show you how brutal poker could be, even if you’re way more skilled than your competition.

D) Bad poker players can be unpredictable. 

Even though bad poker players make terrible mistakes, it doesn’t mean playing against them is a walk in the park. 

Since they play so many hands, putting them on a range is hard, if not impossible. This makes hand reading against them close to futile. 

While it’s usually a good idea to try to narrow down your opponent’s range throughout the street, if someone is playing 60% of all hands dealt to them, they could hold virtually everything. 

You have no way of knowing for sure. 

Not only can you not predict what hands they will play, you have no way of knowing what they’ll do next. 

They can pull off huge bluffs out of nowhere, they can trap you with monster hands, or make any sort of ludicrous plays that even they can’t wrap their heads around. 

They’ll shove all in into an unraised pot, they will donk bet a minimum amount, they will check-raise you at random etc. 

The list goes on, and playing rationally against someone deeply irrational is no easy feat.

This is something that is discussed in a lot more detail in the "Fish Psychology" section near the end of Crushing the Microstakes.

Why You Always Lose to Bad Poker Players (Summary)

The simplest explanation as to why you keep losing to bad poker players is variance. 

No matter how good of a poker player you are, or how much advanced poker strategy you learn, variance can significantly impact your short term results. 

Coming to terms with variance is challenging, so it’s worth reminding yourself that variance is what makes poker profitable in the first place. 

Without it, all the bad players would simply stop playing, and there wouldn’t be any money to be made.

But the bad players will only keep playing if they win at least some of the time. 

And there are a lot of mechanisms in poker that keep the players playing longer, regardless of their lack of skill.

Despite how bad some players may be playing, they almost always have some sort of hand equity. 

They can also get dealt strong hands, which virtually guarantees them to win some of the time.

At the end of the day, losing money playing poker is inevitable. Losing to bad players is also inevitable, but it usually hurts our ego way more than our wallet. 

In the long run, you’ll win it all back, and then some. But only if you don’t let your ego get in the way.

So try to take your losses in stride, and remember that it’s better to lose against fish than against players who actually know what they’re doing.

Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy I use to make $1000+ per month in small stakes games, get a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.

Why You Struggle vs Bad Poker Players (Brutal Truth!)

This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.

You’ve been told that the best way to make money playing poker is to play against the recreational players, aka the fish. 

You already know you need to play tight, play in position, and value bet your hand relentlessly, so you do just that.

You get dealt pocket Aces, isolate the fish preflop, bet the flop, bet the turn, shove the river, only to find out that your opponent called you down with a fourth pair and spiked a set on the river. 

You lose your whole stack and your patience along with it. Yet another session ruined by an idiot donkey. And it keeps happening again and again. 

So what gives? 

Playing against these players should be profitable, yet they keep getting lucky against you, and you keep losing money. 

Should you jump the stakes where players play more logically and don’t make such asinine mistakes?

Not exactly. 

Before you jump the stakes where players “respect your raises”, you might want to find out why exactly you’re struggling against bad poker players, and more importantly, what can you do about it, if anything.

1. Poker is Designed to Keep the Bad Players Playing

In a way, poker is designed to keep the bad players coming back. Even though poker is a skill game, it does have a short-term luck element involved. 

This means that even the players that have absolutely no clue what they are doing can get rewarded from time to time for their ill-conceived plays. 

In psychology, this is called intermittent reinforcement, and it’s particularly effective in developing compulsive behaviour, or gambling in this instance. 

In other words, players will keep coming back to play because they will win occasionally, regardless of their knowledge of the game (or lack thereof). 

For example, they’ll play any two suited cards on the off chance of hitting a flush, or chase an inside straight draw without having any clue about the pot odds and the actual chance of hitting their miracle card on the river. 

By the way, if you just want to learn my simple no BS system for exactly what hands to play, when to bet, raise and bluff, I cover this in extensive detail in my brand new training program, Play Fearless Poker.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

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Instead, they’ll do certain actions based on superstitions like feeling lucky, or something like: I missed my last four draws, so I’m bound to hit the next one.

No and no. In poker, the odds of certain events occurring are always the same, and don’t change based on previous events. 

If you missed your last four flush draws, you’re equally likely to miss the fifth time as well.

 

Still, this doesn’t prevent some players from actually believing such claims. What’s worse yet, sometimes they will actually be rewarded for their misconceptions. 

This can be frustrating, of course, but that’s what makes poker profitable in the first place.

In fact, bad players getting rewarded for their poor judgment is something you should celebrate. It means they’re more likely to repeat the same mistake in the future. 

Would you rather they learn their lesson and stop making mistakes?

Of course not. Because this is precisely why most people lose at poker.

2. Your Poker Skill Edge is Not as Big as You Think

Another reason you might be struggling against bad poker players is the fact that edges in poker are not nearly as pronounced as you might think. 

Even if you have a significant skill edge over your competition, poker fish virtually always have some sort of hand equity in a given situation. 

It’s very rare indeed for a player to be drawing completely dead (i.e. having no chance of winning the pot whatsoever).

I explain this in much more detail by the way in my recent ultimate poker odds cheat sheet. 

Since a single hand is played across multiple streets (or betting rounds), there’s almost always a chance of a player outdrawing you. 

In fact, it’s often the case that both players have roughly the same amount of hand equity, give or take a few percentage points. 

So even if your hand is a statistical favourite to win, it’s rarely so far ahead that losing can be unexpected.

This is something that Daniel Negreanu discusses in much more detail in his advanced poker training program.  

Here Are a Few Examples to Help Illustrate the Point

You have A♣K♣ and a totally out of control fish on an insane monkey tilt is shoving all-in preflop every hand he gets. 

You snap call and he flips over 9♠8♥. Your hand equity is only 66%, which means you will lose one out of three times.

Or say you have A♦K♦ and the flop comes:

A♥J♣2♥

And your opponent has something like 7♥6♥

You are a favourite with 63% equity, but it still means you’re going to lose one out of three times.

As Nathan discussed in his latest video, amateurs make all sorts of basic betting mistakes.

But this still does not take away their equity (chances of getting lucky against you, no matter how small it is).

A 5% chance for example, will hit 1 out of every 20 poker hands. Slim odds yes, but it will happen sometimes.

There are countless more examples like this by the way of bad poker players "getting lucky." I could go on and on!

And in some other poker formats like Pot Limit Omaha, there are situations where drawing hands are actually a favourite to win against made hands on the flop, due to the insane amount of outs they can have. 

Talk about getting rivered every time!

The point is, you’re rarely so far ahead in poker that losing with the best hand is a surprise. 

But as mentioned, this is what makes the game profitable, because a lot of bad players will, in fact, put money in with the mathematical disadvantage.

By the way, I discuss this in much more detail in my new Elite Poker University training. 

Learn EXACTLY how to start crushing small and mid stakes poker games, play semi-pro or even full time pro. Use my proven elite poker strategies to start winning fast.

Enroll in BlackRain79 Elite Poker University

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Even though the edges are small, they are still significant enough for a superior player to come out on top over enough iterations. But only if they can accept the fact that they will lose from time to time.

It’s like playing roulette. When you’re betting on red or black, you don’t have a 50% percent chance of winning. 

Since there’s also a green zero on the roulette wheel, sometimes the ball won’t land on either black or red, and the casino wins. So your chances of winning are more like 49%. 

This one percentage point may not seem like a lot, but that’s exactly the point. 

This tiny edge allows the casino to be profitable. If you keep playing the roulette for long enough betting on red or black, you’ll eventually end up broke, and the casino will take all your money. 

There’s no way to beat the house over the long run. That’s just the way the game is set up. That’s why there are no professional roulette players. 

On the other hand, poker can be beaten over the long run, because you’re not playing against the casino, you’re playing against other people. 

If you have a skill edge over them, by using a proven winning poker strategy, then you will beat them more often than not. 

But not as often that they won’t be willing to keep coming back for more. So consider yourself a casino running a business the next time a fish sucks out on you. 

Imagine the croupier yelling and berating a customer when they won on the roulette or blackjack table. They wouldn’t. They’d smile and congratulate them. 

Anything else would be bad for business.

My Free Poker Cheat Sheet Teaches You My Complete System For Beating Bad Poker Players

Are you struggling to consistently beat bad poker players?    

Want to learn the proven strategies to start winning much more often against them? If so, then I wrote this free poker cheat sheet for you. 

This is the #1 completely free poker strategy guide available online today. 

It shows you how to crush the bad players in small stakes games step by step. Learn exactly what hands to play and when to bet, raise and bluff all in! 

These are the proven strategies that I have used as a 10+ year poker pro to create some of the highest winnings of all time in these games. 

Enter your details below and I will send my free poker "cheat sheet" to your inbox right now.

Name

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3. Strength in Numbers - All Poker Fish Are Actually One Giant Fish

If you’re struggling against bad poker players, it could be a sign that you’re actually playing in profitable games. This might sound counterintuitive, but hear me out. 

The more recreational players there are in a given game, the more likely it is for some of them to get lucky against you. It’s simple arithmetic.

Consider this very common situation. A recreational player open-limps into the pot. Recreational players behind him are more likely to limp behind. 

You make a big raise hoping to pick up a lot of the dead money, only to get five calls and a huge multiway pot. 

Even if you’re holding pocket Aces, your hand equity goes down significantly because there are so many players involved in the pot.



In fact, as you can see above, if you get 5 callers when you have pocket aces, you odds of winning the pot could be as low as 26%.

Or to put it another way, you will lose almost 3 out of 4 times. And Pocket Aces is the best hand in the entire game!

I actually wrote an entire article on your odds of having your pocket AA cracked by the way, if you want to learn more about the ugly truth.  

Now, this sort of thing is annoying to be sure, but these are exactly the types of player you want at your poker table. 

While they will get lucky against you sometimes (and the more recreational players, the more likely it is for one of them to beat you), over the long run, these players will be your primary source of income, even though it may not seem that way in a given moment.

Think about the action movies where the hero is involved in a gunfight against dozens of goons armed to the teeth. 

He’ll usually come out on top without so much as a scratch, but life isn’t a movie. In real life, a hero won’t be able to dodge bullets, and he will get shot, even if he’s the deadliest sharpshooter around.

Same thing with poker. Even if you’re the most talented player at the table, you still have to dodge bullets from all the other players, and chances are, you’re going to get hit with a lucky shot sooner or later.

When playing poker, all you can do is put your money in with a mathematical advantage, and hope for the best. 

Getting annoyed and frustrated if the best hand does not win every time can only cause you to lose more than necessary.

If you struggle with tilt and frustration from bad beats, see my complete guide to dealing with poker variance.  

4. Why Do You Struggle Against Bad Poker Players in Particular?

Playing poker against bad players can be frustrating, especially when they keep getting lucky against you. 

Still, it’s far easier and more profitable to endure a couple of bad beats than to play against opponents that actually know what they’re doing. 

Remember, skilled players can get lucky too. I’d rather play poker against a lucky incompetent player than a lucky and competent one. 

Since recreational players will get lucky from time to time (that’s why they play the game in the first place) and there’s not much you can do about it, it might be worthwhile to consider why you are struggling with them in particular. 

More precisely, what is it about them exactly that irks you. The answer has nothing to do with them, and everything to do with how you approach the game. 

Articulating the problem for yourself is the first step to actually solving it. 

Do you feel like they’re stealing your money? 

Do you think they shouldn’t be winning as often against you because your level of poker knowledge and skills are way above theirs? 

Do you believe it’s not fair for you to lose because you made the right play and they didn’t? 

Is it all of the above, or something else entirely?

There are no right or wrong answers here. Whatever the reasons might be, they probably do have some merit. 

But they still don’t change the fact that when you play poker, you sometimes lose to inferior competition, and there’s nothing you can really do about it.

What you can change instead is your perspective on the issue, and rework some of the faulty thinking that is causing you frustration in the first place. 

To do so, you need to figure out what is actually bothering you. It’s definitely not the fact that some idiot donkey called your bet with incorrect pot odds and hit his backdoor flush.

It might be the money lost that’s bothering you. If so, are you playing with the money you’re comfortable with losing? 

Are you playing the right stakes within your bankroll? Are you chasing losses in the games you shouldn’t really be playing?

If you think you’re a better poker player than your opponents, your pride could be wounded. 

In these situations, it’s often the case that your ego is protecting you from taking a good hard look at your game and seeing you might not be as good as you think. 

It’s easier to say your opponents got lucky than to admit you don’t really have a firm grasp on light 3-betting or triple-barrel bluffing. 

If you really are better than your opponents and are beating your limit over the long run, an occasional bad beat shouldn’t bother you as much. 

In fact, you should welcome it, because it means you’re playing in a profitable game. If it bothers you to the point it affects your decision making, you’re playing in the wrong game.

Maybe it’s not the money lost, and maybe you really are better than your opponents, but you keep getting the short end of the stick over and over. 

If that’s the case, you probably didn’t come to terms with the nature of variance in poker yet. To say that it’s not fair is an understatement. 

It’s brutal, it’s punishing, and it’s definitely not fair. But as bad as it is, you can always make it a hundred times worse.

How to Beat Bad Poker Players (Final Thoughts)

In short, there is not much you can do about bad players getting lucky against you. All you can do is put your money in with a mathematical advantage, and hope it holds up. 

Over the long run, you’ll win far more than you will lose, but only if you accept the cruel reality that you will lose sometimes, even if you did everything right.

And even if you have studied all of the best advanced poker strategy available these days as well. Fishy players will still beat you sometimes.  

Remember that poker is designed to keep the bad players playing. 

This means they will get lucky sometimes, because they basically always have some sort of hand equity. It’s very rare indeed for a player to be drawing completely dead in a given hand.

What’s more, the edges are sometimes only razor thin, and there are a lot of situations where the winner of the hand is basically determined by a coinflip, i.e. both players have roughly 50% chance to win the hand. 

But even if your edge is as small as 1%, it’s still enough to be a profitable long term winner. Long term being the key word, of course.

So while there’s little you can do to increase your chances of winning coinflips, something you can and should do is to improve how you react to situations when cards don’t fall your way. 

Everyone can play well when the deck is hitting them in the face, even the fish.

 

When playing poker, struggle never really ends. The only thing you can do is struggle better than the rest.

Lastly, if you want to know my complete strategy for crushing bad poker players, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.

9 Reliable Ways to Keep Your Cool Against Bad Poker Players

We have all been there when playing poker. You bet your overpair the entire way and a bad poker player shows up with some bizarre two pair that he hit on the river.

Or you flop your trips and there is simply no amount of money on earth that you can bet to get them to fold their flush draw (trust me I have tried).

Of course the river comes with the flush card and he bets into you. This is the third time in a row this has happened. You already know you are beat before you even toss the chips in the middle. And as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, he turns over the flush and scoops the pot.

How do you deal with stuff like this at the poker tables without losing your mind? This is one of the main challenges that you will face coming up in small stakes cash games whether live or on the internet.

By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know my simple system for exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

There are lots of complete beginners, lunatics and fish at these stakes. Even some of the regulars have very little clue what they are doing and will call you down with all sorts of ridiculous holdings (and nail it on the river of course!).

Well I gotta be honest with you, I don't have all the answers. But I have a lot of experience dealing with players like this. In this article I am going to provide you with 9 ways to keep your cool against the bad poker players.

Since many people have big problems with tilt at these stakes learning how to maintain your sanity when things go horribly wrong can really make a big difference to your long term winrate and ultimately your profit.

Alright let's get started!

1. Laugh it Off

Honestly, this has always been my main go to when the bad players hit something ridiculous against me. There is a point where you just have to see the comedy in it.

Poker simply isn't a game where you can win every hand. Being able to just laugh it off (much like in many other situations in life) will go a long way towards keeping you relaxed. And ultimately boosting your winrate and profits.

This is something that I talk about in a recent video I made about how to beat all the bad online poker players.

Always remember this, at the lower stakes online we are often playing for amounts that are equivalent to the price of a cup of coffee or a movie ticket. How much does it really matter?

Is there really any point in losing your mind because some donk got lucky against you and won a $10 pot? You know he called with incorrect odds the whole way. You also know that he will lose in the long run if you run this same situation 10 times or 100 times.

Just laugh it off. Next hand.

By the way, if you just want to learn my simple no BS system for exactly what hands to play, when to bet, raise and bluff, I cover this all in my brand new training program, Play Fearless Poker.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

My new Play Fearless Poker training program includes 12+ hours of advanced poker lessons, 100+ step by step example hands and "cheat sheets" below every single video.

If you're serious about taking your poker game to the next level, enroll today.

Enroll in Play Fearless Poker

Get $100 OFF Use Code: 100OFF

2. Understand the Odds

Building off of that, it is important to understand the odds in poker. When you are betting pot or 3/4 pot they simply do not have the correct odds to be calling with their flush draw or bottom pair.

This is why I have always been such a big advocate of betting big against bad players at the micros. Yes it is going to lose you a big pot on occasion but it will win you a big pot on so many other occasions.

If they are calling wrong, without the right odds, this will catch up to them in the end. Winning poker is a process. If you keep the math on your side, you will win in the long run.

Make sure you understand the basics of hand odds, pot odds and implied odds and then you can always bet an amount that keeps you on the right side of the math.

3. Don't Make it Personal

One of the biggest things that I had to learn early on in my poker career was not to make it personal. Don't get focused on Donk X that just bad beat you twice in a row.

It is better to think of all the donks as one big universe of donkdom instead. Collectively they are all geniuses at chasing their draws without the right odds and getting their money in bad.

Always remember that your battle is with the entire universe of donkdom, not some individual donk that has been getting lucky against you lately.

Think about how a place like Las Vegas works. Something crazy like 40 million tourists go visit there every single year. Many of them win. Some of them even win big! But more of them go home losers.

This is because the casinos know that the math is ultimately on their side. So do you think they cry about Donk X who got lucky all night on the roulette wheel and took them for a small fortune?

No of course not.

As long as people keep voluntarily putting their money on the line in a -EV game like roulette (millions every year), they will always win in the end.

Don't make it personal. Don't focus on the specific bad player who has been getting lucky against you.

4. Imagine Being Them

When somebody makes a terrible play and gets lucky against you, it is very likely that they do this all the time. Just imagine how terrible their results are.

Back in the days of good old pokertableratings.com after somebody gave me a terrible beat I would often search them right away. Once I saw their catastrophe of a graph this would help me a lot with point #1 above, just laughing it off.

Trust me, these bad players are getting absolutely owned in the long run. Their graph goes straight down at a 45 degree angle in the wrong direction. They are deposit machines. They bankroll the entire industry.


This is how the poker economy works: 

You have a small amount of people winning big and removing large amounts of money on a regular basis. Then you have a huge amount of people who are situated somewhere around breakeven. They don't take much out but they don't put much in either.

So after the online poker room or casino takes it's cut where does the profit for the good players come from then? Yup, you guessed it. It comes from that fish who just called you the whole way with his 74 offsuit and hit two pair on the river.

He is the reason why this game is profitable. That is why I preach about table selection to no end on this blog and elsewhere.

When you know where the money is actually coming from in poker, it becomes a really easy game.

5. Respect Your Customers

You should also learn to view the bad poker players as your customers. Despite how frustrating they can be to play against sometimes in the short term, they will ultimately be your biggest profit source in the long run.

If you get mad at them and berate them one of two things can happen:

• They will feel disrespected and stop playing
• They will realize that they suck and get better at poker

You should know that both of these results are absolutely terrible for you. If you happen to be one of those people who berate the fish when they suckout on you I hope you remember this next time.

I know you are emotional in the moment. It's frustrating to lose a big pot to some goofball who doesn't even know what he is doing.

But these guys are the lifeblood of the entire industry. It is better to learn to respect them as your customers. When they lay some ridiculous beat on you give them a simple "nh" (with no sarcasm) or just say nothing at all.

They are just there having fun. They will get lucky from time to time. That's why they keep coming back again and again to give away more of their money.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you. This is something I discuss more in my free poker cheat sheet.

6. They Don't Even Know What They Are Doing

Sometimes the recreational players honestly just don't even know what they are doing. How can you even be mad when this is the case?

You see this the most in low limit tournaments online because they attract more totally clueless fish than any other format. Sometimes you are actually playing against play money players who won a freeroll to get their seat.

I remember a hand awhile ago early on in a $2 dollar tournament online. I hit top set on the flop with my pocket 9's but the board was monotone (all hearts I believe).

I knew that my opponent was really bad and would call with any flush draw so I just shoved my entire stack in the middle knowing that I would be a big favorite.

Before calling he got in the chat box and told everybody his hand, naked ace of hearts. He wanted to be sure that if another heart came that he would indeed make a flush.

That's right, doesn't even know the rules of the game! Proceeds to call off his entire stack with about 27% equity. Nails it on the river of course.

Seriously, how can I even be mad? "That's poker."

7. Humour Them or Troll Them

The art of table talk is sadly a bit lost these days due to the solitary nature of online poker. But there is a lot to be learned from the old school pros in this regard.

I know it is rare but there will be occasions when you actually get lucky against the fish yourself. And you should expect to get solidly berated about it. I know because I have been called pretty much every name in the book over the years at the poker tables!

Legendary live poker pro Barry Greenstein once told a story (in his famous book "Ace on the River" by the way) about getting lucky against a recreational player in a particular hand. The fish subsequently let loose about how terrible Barry was at poker for what seemed like forever.

After the lecture was finally over (face to face by the way, this is live poker) Barry simply replied with the following:

"If you think that play was bad, stick around for awhile, I am sure I will make much worse ones than that!"

Consummate professional.

On the odd occasion when you actually get lucky against a bad poker player expect them to lose their cool and perhaps berate you. Don't ever engage with them on any level. Just let them have their say.

The best policy is just to say nothing at all back to them. But if you do make it short and simple like this and hopefully tilt them even more.

8. Inject the Logic

A term that I often steal from renowned poker mental game coach Jared Tendler is to "inject the logic." I actually interviewed him here on my blog last year by the way.

What does this actually mean?

Well I see it as doing your best to use the rational part of your brain during a stressful situation (such as a bad beat), rather then using the emotional part.

As I said above, know the odds. There are a million little free equity programs out there. If you use Pokertracker 4 then there is one built right into the software.

Just plug in the hole cards and the board if you don't know the exact odds in a particular situation. And then you can see the exact equity in the pot that each player has for yourself.

If your opponent got the money in bad against you (had the worse odds), then you actually win in this situation. This is because in the long run this guy is just handing you his money. Be grateful for that.

The thing with poker though is that the hand with the best odds doesn't always win. It is very rare that somebody is actually drawing stone dead (0% equity in the pot).

So sometimes the guy who plays badly and gets all his money in the middle with 27% equity gets to win the pot. But logically you know that you cannot fight the math like this and expect to win in the long run.

However, if we didn't throw the bad players a bone every once in awhile they wouldn't keep coming back again and again, depositing their money and bankrolling the entire industry.

As frustrating as bad beats can be, try and view them in a rational and logical way instead of with anger. If you got the money in good, you won. Let the cards fall however they will.

9. Take a Step Away

Now I wanted to save this one for last.

Despite everything that I have said above, sometimes the best thing that you can do when the bad poker players are getting lucky is to simply walk away.

It just isn't worth tilting off a few stacks to them because this is the stuff that absolutely destroys your winrate and profits in the long run.

There will be days at the poker tables where you simply will not be able to win no matter what you do. If you feel angered, frustrated, have a feeling of hopelessness, find yourself making bad calls or wild bluffs, you should step away from the game.

And preferably for the rest of the day. Remember, the games aren't going anywhere. They will be there again tomorrow. Also, don't even bother reviewing the session right now. It will just piss you off even more.

Just go do something completely different (and totally unrelated to poker) and come back the next day with a clear head. Review the session before you play again and you will be able to see without being emotional, what actually happened.

If you lost a bunch of pots when you got the money in good, don't worry about. Inject the logic, you won.

If you got the money in bad though in some spots, or perhaps some of those "coolers" weren't really coolers (you could have found a tough fold), then consider some ways in which you can play these hands better next time.

You could also get a second opinion by posting them on a poker forum or asking some of your poker playing buddies.

Bottom line, some days at the poker tables you just won't be able to win. It is better to accept this and learn to quit before you start tilting badly and do some real damage.

Final Thoughts

Keeping your sanity against the bad poker players can be difficult under the best of circumstances. But you gotta remember that they are the reason why you are able to profit in this game. And yes, they do lose huge in the long run.

Sometimes in the heat of the moment though anything can happen. This is the big illusion that makes this game so great and enticing to the bad players. The very best poker players are able to see right through it.

I hope this article gave you a few ideas to help you keep your cool next time the recreational players start handing you some crazy bad beats.

If you want to know what strategies I personally use to crush these types of players make sure you pick up a copy of my free ebook "Massive Profit at the Micros."

Lastly, make sure to let me know in the comments below what strategies you use to keep your cool against the bad poker players.

 

7 Advanced Strategies You Can Use To Crush Bad Poker Players

Ah bad poker players, you gotta love them. These are the guys who play way too many hands, call you down with anything and ultimately just give away their money in the long run.

But many people do not know how to get the maximum value out of them when they finally get a good hand. They leave serious amounts of money on the table by trying to get fancy with slowplay, under betting the pot and so on. 

Since these players are often rare in today's games this is a seriously terrible blow to your winrate. The top winners know that you absolutely have to take full advantage of the situation when these players are at your table. 

In this article I am going to provide you with 7 actionable strategies that you can use right now to start crushing the bad poker players.

By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

1. Get Involved

One of the biggest reasons why a lot of regulars in today's games do not get full value from the fish actually has nothing to do with any technical poker ability. 

It is because they simply do not play enough hands when the bad poker player is at the table!

It is fine to nit it up if you are grinding a ton of tables against the regs. I mean, I don't really suggest this strategy these days if having a big winrate is what you are after. But fine, I get it. Wait for the nuts, just grind. 

But once you find the big fish it is a serious mistake to keep folding so many hands. The only way that you are going to win a big pot is by getting involved with the bad players. 

This is something that I talk about in my latest video about how to beat all the bad online poker players.

If you need to wait until you have aces, kings or a set every time before you play a big pot with them guess what is going to happen? 

Another reg like me who is actively targeting the fish will have busted them long before you ever get a chance.

If a bad poker player is at your table, and especially if you have position on them, you should start opening up your game by playing a lot more hands and isolating them with a wide range. 

By the way, if you just want to learn my simple no BS system for exactly what hands to play, when to bet, raise and bluff, I cover this all in my brand new training program, Play Fearless Poker.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

My new Play Fearless Poker training program includes 12+ hours of advanced poker lessons, 100+ step by step example hands and "cheat sheets" below every single video.

If you're serious about taking your poker game to the next level, enroll today.

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2. Adjust Your Bet Sizing Upwards

Another huge mistake that people make when playing against the recreational players these days is using cute little GTO style 50% of the pot bets. 

Again, this is a totally fine strategy if you are playing at a table full of regs. But if you have a fish at the table you are costing yourself a fortune by continuing to under bet the pot. 

As I talk about in my first book, I will bet at least 75% of the pot with a good hand versus the bad players and often I will just pot it. 

Now some people are actually afraid to do this with a good hand because they think they will "scare the fish away." This is a mistake in thinking because recreational players love to call if they have anything. 

If they like their hand they are going to call a 50% of the pot bet just as readily as 75% or 100%. But sometimes they simply won't have anything at all and they will fold. There is nothing that you can do about this. 

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you somehow scared them away. Two people have to have something in poker for big pots to happen. Just the way the game works.

3. Do Not Slowplay

Another way that regs routinely leave huge amounts of money on the table versus the bad players is by slowplaying their big hands. 

This is a serious mistake because once again they are not adjusting for how a recreational player thinks about the game. The fish is thinking about his hand only. If he likes his hand, he will call. That simple.

Therefore, you do not need to ever get tricky against players like this. In fact you are only costing yourself money by doing so because you missed a bet that they would have called.

Now of course there are always exceptions to the rule though in poker and so once in awhile it can be ok to slowplay versus the right fishy player and on the right board, like in this hand.

Versus a table full of regs though it is a totally different story. You should absolutely mix things up and balance your ranges in all situations in order to keep them guessing. But against a level #1 thinking recreational player slowplay is (almost always) just suicide for your winrate.

Just bet every street against them. You can't go wrong. Make the totally, ridiculously, obvious play and profit more.

4.  Check/Raise or Check/Call the Aggro Fish

Most recreational players at the micros are passive as heck. They will show up with stats like this on your HUD:

• 44/6/1 (VPIP/PFR/AF)

However, once in awhile you will encounter an aggro fish or a maniac with stats like this:

• 44/34/4

Getting max value out of this type of player requires a totally different strategy. At the risk of totally contradicting what I just said, you can get a little tricky against a bad player like this sometimes.

Why?

Because unlike the standard fish, this type of recreational player loves to bluff at the pot if you show any sign of weakness. Therefore, instead of taking the ridiculously obvious bet, bet, shove line with your good hands like you should against most fish, often against the maniacs you should either check/raise or check/call.

The main reason why is that lines like this allow them to toss dead money in the pot with their bluffs. If you just constantly mash the pot button when you make a hand, you take this play away from them. 

Aggro fish are extremely rare at the micros. But they will show up sometimes especially on the weekends (often drunk) and it is pretty hard to miss them.


But be on the lookout for wild stats on your HUD like:

• High VPIP (40+)
• High PFR (30+)
• High AF (3+)
• High 3Bet (8+)

If you encounter a player like this and you have a good hand give them a little bit of rope to hang themselves sometimes by taking check/raise or check/call lines. And never ever try to bluff a player like this. 

5. Tilt Them Until They Are Your Personal ATM

One of my truly all-time favorite strategies to crush the fish is to tilt the crap out of them until they become my personal ATM machine. 

How do you do this?

Well first off, you really need to make sure that you get on their left. This makes isolating them and CBetting a ton much easier. 

But secondly, like I mentioned in point #1 above, you just have to get involved with them a lot more often.

You want the bad player to view you as a bully, as pushing them around. You simply can't do that if you are sitting around like a little mouse waiting for your aces.

So any time I see them limp I am in there raising it up with all sorts of ridiculous hands like:

• Q7
• J8
• 75
• K2

Preferably suited of course but often unsuited as well. But how can you play all these terrible hands you might ask? Maybe it is me who is actually the fish?

The reason why you can get away with this is because they are playing all sorts of crap as well. And secondly, since you have position on them, and a huge skill edge, you are actually a big favorite to win most hands anyways. 

But most importantly, I am trying to put them on tilt by relentlessly raising and betting them. And maybe occasionally getting lucky against them too. 

So even if I am giving up a little bit of equity right now with some questionable starting hand selection, this is likely to pay off for me big time down the line when I finally catch a big hand.

6. Shove Action Rivers

One of my all-time favorite tactics to stack the fish is to shove action rivers. I mentioned this several years ago in Crushing the Microstakes and I displayed it in action several times in my recent video series. 

There was one particular fish in those videos who I stacked again and again by getting him on tilt and then shoving every action river. This is why my winrate was something ridiculous like 34bb/100. 

But hang on, what do I actually mean here by an "action river"? I mean a board that looks something like this:

3♥4♥6♣7♣8♥

or 

6♠6♦7♠8♦T♠

The river card on both of these boards completes an enormous amount of draws like straights and flushes.

Let me let you in on a little secret here. Bad poker players do not fold any straights or flushes. You can literally bet any amount on earth, they will re-mortgage their house to call you down. 

So this is why when I happen to have a monster on these boards such as a full house, the nut flush or the nut straight, I will always just over shove the river.

The pot might only have $5 in it. I am shoving $50, $100 or whatever I have in front of me into that pot. That is what I mean by "over shove."

This allows me to win an absolutely massive pot out of nowhere. This is a huge amount of big blinds that most regs miss out on by the way. This is one of the biggest reasons why my winrates are elite whereas most regs struggle to get by.

I make the recreational player pay the absolute maximum every single time in situations like this. Fish don't fold straights, flushes or even two pair sometimes. If you have the nuts or close to it, it's all-in on these rivers every time.

7. Chase the Fish Around

This last tactic to crush the bad players is frowned upon by some as "predatory" but I disagree. My goal in poker is always to win at the absolute highest winrate possible. So I am going to use whatever strategies possible, which are within the rules, to achieve that.

If I bust a fish and he leaves the table (or even if somebody else busts him), the first thing I am going to do is pull up the search feature that most sites have and find out what other table he joined. I will then immediately join that table. 

You see most fish live in a fairytale world of make believe where some tables are "lucky" for them and other tables are "unlucky." If they are doing poorly at a certain table, they will often go join another more lucky one.

I personally don't live in this make believe world though. So I am happy to keep chasing them around and busting them all day on whatever table they want.

In today's tighter games table selection is more crucial to your winrate than ever. Not only should you always be playing with at least one fish at the table but after you bust them, you should actively go chase them around as well. 

Final Thoughts

Bad poker players bankroll the entire poker industry. You can't have a bunch of people (and the poker sites themselves) constantly taking money out, if a bunch of other people aren't putting money back in. 

This is where the bad poker players come in. They play the game for fun, make all sorts of ridiculously awful plays, get lucky on occasion but mostly just lose their money at a frantic pace. 

Because of this they regularly have to deposit more funds into their accounts and this is the money that the winning poker players and the poker sites make a profit from. 

So it makes no sense to sit in bad games full of regs. If you are having a hard time finding the fish at the poker room that you play on, then go play on one of the soft poker sites.

But just as important, once you get on the same table as them, you absolutely have to be getting the maximum value out of them. 

More specifically you need to play plenty of hands against the fish by isolating them in position, CBetting and hopefully tilting them. You should also be betting big and frequently anytime you make a good hand. 

And lastly, you should even chase the bad poker players around and keeping busting them up so long as they have more money in front of them. This is what all the top pros have long known because they know where the money comes from in this game.

If you found this article helpful, do my a favor and "Like" or "Tweet" it below. Thanks!

Let me know your thoughts below about how you crush the bad poker players. Do you have any tips for stacking them faster?

The Top 5 Signs of Bad Poker Players [2026]

Being able to quickly identify the bad poker players is crucial to your success in poker.

As I mentioned recently in my state of microstakes cash games article table selection in today's games has become vitally important. That is, making sure that you are always playing against bad poker players.

Example hand versus a very bad poker player (didn't get enough of his chips though):

And table selection in today's games has very little to do with table averages anymore since fish are scarce and all the nits bring down the numbers.

It is important to know how to quickly identify the weaker poker players especially as you move up the limits. You could always just sit down at a random table and play a few orbits until your poker HUD shows you which players are playing way too many hands and not raising very often.

I typically look for players who are playing at least 40% of their hands. 

Anybody playing this many hands is definitely a recreational bad poker player (i.e. kind of guys that we want to be playing against!). They will also typically have a low preflop raise % as well.

But if you are playing live poker or even playing on the internet without the aid of HUD stats there are still several ways to identify the marks at the table as well.

So, below are my top 5 signs of bad poker players.

By the way, if you're new to poker and you just want to know exactly what hands to play, grab my free poker cheat sheet.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

1) Limping

As most people who are serious about the game know by now, limping is almost always bad in poker. There are almost no situations where it makes any sense at all.

Having the initiative in the hand is just much more +EV (expected value) in nearly all spots. So if you see someone limping, especially open limping from MP, LP or the SB, there is no question that this is a bad poker player.

Some regs will still open limp from EP or perhaps over-limp or complete the SB with a speculative hand. I don't always note that. I am looking for chronic open limping especially from positions where it never makes any sense to do so.

By the way, if you just want to learn my simple no BS system for exactly what hands to play, when to bet, raise and bluff, I cover this all in my brand new training program, Play Fearless Poker.

Memorize the charts. Stop guessing. Start winning.

My new Play Fearless Poker training program includes 12+ hours of advanced poker lessons, 100+ step by step example hands and "cheat sheets" below every single video.

If you're serious about taking your poker game to the next level, enroll today.

Enroll in Play Fearless Poker

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2) Posting a Blind Out of Position

This really is another dead tell of a weaker poker player. Basically every regular in the world knows these days that you should wait until the big blind comes to you before posting your blind.

Since poker is a long term game and you can think of every session as just a continuation from the last one, it simply makes no sense to pay for blinds more often than you need to.

This would be the equivalent of voluntarily paying your taxes twice. No sane individual would ever do that!

Some regs may post in the CO in a full ring game especially if there are known weaker players already at the table. I do this myself sometimes. But if you see someone posting their blind from ANY other position it is without question a bad player.

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3) Buying in For Less than 100bb

Since Pokerstars got rid of the ability to buyin for 20bb a few years ago on its regular ring game tables and exploit the well known short stack strategy there simply is no reason to ever buyin for less than 100bb.

There are some people who swear by some sort of "mid stack strategy" but in my opinion this is just leaving money on the table.

There were some legitimate strategic advantages to playing with a 20bb stack before such as being able to ship over regulars who open or 3bet too light.

This is not the case with 40bb, 60bb or any other weird stack size though. These stack sizes require post flop play. And if you are going to play postflop why wouldn't you want the most ammunition on hand possible?

More specifically though as regards bad poker players, one of the easiest ways to spot them is a bizarre buyin with cents in it. Buying in for instance at an NL10 table for $6.43. This is clearly all the money that they have in their account and this shows a total disregard for proper bankroll management.

So these days I generally just mark anyone who buys in for an amount below 100bb as a bad poker player right away.

4) Under-betting the Pot Postflop

This is another pretty clear sign a weaker player. Especially when they are betting amounts such as a 1/4 of the pot or less. No good player would ever do that because it gives the other player(s) almost no incentive to fold at all and clear odds to call with basically any draw.

Even bets of 1/3 pot have very little applicability in a low stakes no limit hold'em cash game. Smaller bets certainly have merit in MTT's due to shallower stack sizes but in a cash game you should pretty much always be betting at least 1/2 of the pot in almost all circumstances at the micros.

5) Mini-Raising Pre or Postflop

A 3bb open is pretty much the standard at the micros these days online. There are some people who swear by mini-raising from LP and it has some merits. But anyone who is chronically mini-raising from other positions is almost always a weaker player.

The same goes for mini-raising postflop. There are some arguments in favor of it in certain spots but I think at the micros (especially NL2 and NL5) you should be raising much more for value most of the time. Mini-raising is just leaving money on the table.

This is actually something that Daniel Negreanu talks about in his new advanced poker training course. He can quickly identify the recreational players by the size of their bets.

6) One Tabling

I know I said the "Top 5" but here is one more way that really should have been included. Credit to Willian Mates in the comments. Most poker sites give you the ability to search a player and find out what other tables (if any) that they are playing.

Bad poker players will be much more likely than regulars to be playing just a few tables and often just one. It is not easy to 24 table when you are playing 58% of your hands!

Final Thoughts

It should be noted that by tagging people immediately as a bad poker player if you notice them taking any of the above actions, you will sometimes find out later that several of them are actually nits.

This is because many regs at the microstakes will do some of the things above also.

This is fine, just change the tag from fish to bad regular once you notice the low amount of hands played.

Very few good regulars would ever do any of the above though and it is good to know who the bad regulars are because we can make lots of money off of them as well.

Lastly, the best thing about tagging your opponents right away is that these are stored on your hard drive and so literally any time you sit down to play on that site, your previous notes will be there.

This will help a lot in knowing which tables to play at and which ones to avoid.

Lastly, if you want to learn how to start consistently making $1000+ per month in low stakes games, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.


Let me know in the comments below any other signs of bad poker players that you know of.