[Mortalpawn]

What do you do when the fish are schooling???

Last night I played in a NL Holdem cash game with a set of players that really are new to the game and barely know the difference between two pair and a flush.
- They played every hand pre-flop
- They called just about any bet - only folded if they had nothing at all
- They would stay in with middle pairs, low pair, other poor holdings
- They always bet the same small amount (usually 3-5x the BB) no matter what they held
- It was almost impossible to put them on a hand, since half the time they did not even know what they had

My play (I've been playing for many years and done very well):
- My overall strategy was to play tight-aggressive
- I played fairly tight pre-flop - probably about 30-40% of hands
- I raised pre-flop when appropriate
- Post flop, I played pot odds and made reasonable size aggressive bets
- I did stay with some marginal hands, but in every case I was getting fantastic pot odds (sometimes 9 or 10 to one) to stay in
- I only bluffed a few times all night, but only when heads up and in position

The bottom line - I got killed all night. When I got a decent hand, the flop would totally miss me. When I actually made a hand, someone would draw out a flush or full house on the river. If I had trips, someone would get a straight. One guy rivered me at least four times. I think I won maybe four hands all night - and one of those was a bluff. Very frustrating!

The biggest problem was the "schooling effect". So many fish would stay in with marginal hands that there was a high probability that at least one of them would draw out. Even though they were playing against the pot odds, collectively they created positive expectation. Further you could gain very little information from their bets - they might be playing a low pair!

Any advice on how to beat a school of fish?

Doc

[bigjohn]

When there is so many people splashing around in the pot I find it needless to throw my money in unless I have a really good starting hand...AA- 1010. AK-A10s. I'll limp in with anything under 1010 and hope to hit a set then bet it hard...

[MacGrad]

Originally Posted by Mortalpawn

What do you do when the fish are schooling???

Last night I played in a NL Holdem cash game with a set of players that really are new to the game and barely know the difference between two pair and a flush.
- They played every hand pre-flop
- They called just about any bet - only folded if they had nothing at all
- They would stay in with middle pairs, low pair, other poor holdings
- They always bet the same small amount (usually 3-5x the BB) no matter what they held
- It was almost impossible to put them on a hand, since half the time they did not even know what they had

My play (I've been playing for many years and done very well):
- My overall strategy was to play tight-aggressive
- I played fairly tight pre-flop - probably about 30-40% of hands
- I raised pre-flop when appropriate
- Post flop, I played pot odds and made reasonable size aggressive bets
- I did stay with some marginal hands, but in every case I was getting fantastic pot odds (sometimes 9 or 10 to one) to stay in
- I only bluffed a few times all night, but only when heads up and in position

The bottom line - I got killed all night. When I got a decent hand, the flop would totally miss me. When I actually made a hand, someone would draw out a flush or full house on the river. If I had trips, someone would get a straight. One guy rivered me at least four times. I think I won maybe four hands all night - and one of those was a bluff. Very frustrating!

The biggest problem was the "schooling effect". So many fish would stay in with marginal hands that there was a high probability that at least one of them would draw out. Even though they were playing against the pot odds, collectively they created positive expectation. Further you could gain very little information from their bets - they might be playing a low pair!

Any advice on how to beat a school of fish?

Doc

A couple of things:

-- Playing 30-40% of your hands is not playing tight-aggressive. Sure, you're tighter than the rest of the table, but you're still playing loose.

-- Premium hands only, and raise when you get them. If they're going to play anything, you'll get your money out of the table... you just have to be patient. You can also consider high suited connectors, because they're hands that play well in large (multi-player) pots.

-- Bluffing is wasted: if they don't know what they're doing, then they won't know what you're doing. They're playing their cards, not your betting style.

Being aggressive when faced with a pack of calling stations will result in the destruction of your bankroll -- but you figured that out the other night.

[99%evil]

Against peopl elike that, ABC poker. Nothing fancy, no slow playing, no bluffing, no pushing around people. Try playing for flushes and straights, forget betting hard at pairs, top pair will get beat by the jack off that called with J,6 that happened to catch two pair on the river. Bet heavy if you hit a straight and there's an ace on the board, hope someone has the ace and take the pot.

Play suited connectors, but only continue the hand if you have improvement. Hitting flushes and straights can cripple noobs that only pay attention to picture cards.

[Q10 soooted]

1. Don't raise pre-flop. If you can get money out of them after the flop when you hit and are unlikely to chase people with a PF raise then it's not necessary.
2. Play tight, but also play lots of suited connectors and even connectors. These are great because they're high-reward hands. I'd even play most suited Aces knowing that the flush payoff will be big.
3. If you don't hit the flop don't chase.

My view has always been that you should play tighter than the rest of the table, but the looser the table is the looser you can play. In this case nut flushes & straights will be great because the ppl with bottom pair (or top pair) will call you down the whole way. The goal would be to play slightly loose in order to get paid off with a few big hands: flopped set, (nut) flushes & straights instead of trying to win small pots with TPTK.

[jdunford]

I've run into the same problem in the past - have to dramatically stray from my usual style of play. I was going to give advice, but everything I was going to say has been said by MacGrad, so refer to his post. Basically, you should not be playing any more than your fraction of hands if they're all this loose (i.e. 10% if there are 10 players, 12.5% for 8 players, etc.). Choose your battles. Don't throw your money away.

If it's a tournament, it's can be tough to remain tight because the blinds are increasing and the stacks will be fluctuating a lot with so many players in on every hand. You still have to be patient and wait for a set or better, because some donk is going to have bottom 2-pair or similar on every hand. Only play premium hands.

This happened to me in a live 6-man tournament (winner takes all) last night (waiting on a mutli-table tournament to end) where I took out 3 players on one hand when I was finally dealt AA. I'd only played 1 hand in 3 orbits of the table (which I'd won after the turn). I was UTG, just called knowing these guys were raising any hand preflop, and they started pushing all-in behind me. 4 of them went all-in (only 1 had enough chips to cover me). All I had to do was call. One of them was playing 64s and hit a set of 4's on the flop... but an A hit on the turn giving me a boat...