Going where the Sharks are

I recently made a blog entry advising beginners to choose their poker sites wisely and avoid the sites where the good poker players hang out to increase their profits.

I would now like to make an exception to this rule. If you are already a somewhat experienced player. Sometimes, you would actually prefer to play with experienced players. For 2 main reasons: (1) you can pick up new tricks/betting patterns from better players. (2) you can anticipate the moves of better players and react accordingly.

No. 2 is quite important especially near the bubble of an STT. The correct push at crucial times will mean the difference between ITM and a big fat egg. Let's say you're in the dealer position with A-x or a small pocket pair and the action is folded to you. You have about 6 big blinds left in your stack. Automatic push for you. But you don't necessarily want the call from the blinds, a fold is just fine because there is no risk involved and the blinds are already significant during the bubble.

With good players in the SB and BB who hold mid level stacks. Holding hands like K-10, Q-10, J-10 or K-J, folding would be an easy thing to do. They'd usually look for better spots to make a stand especially if they can still afford to. They'd correctly assume you hold some kind of A-x hand and they'd gladly get out of the way with their K-10 as they know they're behind and they can afford to fold.

But if you happen to encounter a fish/beginner in the SB or BB, K10 is an insta-call. Not even seriously thinking about it, just seeing the guy with the moustache and sword makes their teeny-weenie penises go hard and folding is not even an option that they would consider.

You might say, so what? You are still ahead with your A7, but its only around 57-43. Holding a small pocket pair like 5-5. The odds would be 52-48. Almost close to a dead heat. This means that almost 1 out 2 times, you'd get beat. I would rather just steal the blinds.

Do you understand what I mean ? I won't put complicated math into the scenarios regarding the equities of calling and the equities of folding. I'm just simply pointing out that playing against experienced players, you can usually anticipate how they think and make the correct move or response especially with some kind of tracker data in your hand.

Playing against fishes, you're in limbo. You're constantly guessing. There is sometimes no logic in their calls. Obviously, you'd be happy if they called with Q2 suited. But consoling yourself with the thought that you were way ahead with your AJ doesn't really mean squat once they luckbox the 2 in the river.

Berating them via chat doesn't do any good. They're happy just to be lucky because they don't realize how stupid the move was.

If its not too obvious, I'm actually ranting about some bad beats and disguising it as a poker lesson. Heheh. Thanks for listening.