Fish cyclopedia: aggression

At the micro limits, when a lot of hands go to showdown, it’s important to figure out how much they like their hands in relation to their money. Some players are super aggressive, and bet with nothing, but more often than not they don’t bet very much. Some players are super passive, they never bet, but will call ridiculous amounts with terrible hands.

I try to break their hand up into one of four groups:
1.nothing,
2. something… anything up to about two pair
3. something scary… a set, a straight, a flush…
4. something indestructible

They don’t always agree with my groups. Heck, you may not agree with my groups. Pocket aces can be dazzling, so they think it’s a group 3 hand rather than a group 2 hand. Another thing to consider, is emotional state. When someone gets tilty they probably get more aggressive… but I’m going to save that talk for later.

For each player at the table, figure out what a bet means. Some people min raise literally everything. A bet means absolutely nothing. They are successful, because the other fish play their hand, they have nothing and therefore fold. The min raisers hand quality can only be measured by reraising. Generally they fold to a reraise. Sometimes they call if they have something, sometimes they min raise again if they have something. Now, if this min raiser gets a full house, what does he do? Usually he panics. He bets way out of his normal habits. He makes money on winning lots of small pots. he either checks, or makes a monster bet. Tough to tell which, but the extraordinary bet is your signal to get out of dodge. Something bad is going to happen very soon.

Another common fish is a caller. They have a value in their head for every hand. They just won’t tell you how much it is by betting. Some folks will give up on an ace high flush with a pot sized bet, they are so scared of being beaten. Others are so stubborn, they won’t fold a nine high to a pot sized bet. Figure out where they stand on that scale, it can be tricky because the table may not bet into them the way you need them too. You may have to get into a hand with them for information, just keep it cheap. This guy, if he ever bets or raises that’s your queue to fold.

The most common kind of fish seems to bet small when they have something, and fold to bets when they don’t. Occasionally they will catch a monster and slow play, or push. They generally don’t have any understanding of pot odds, so they don’t make pot sized bets, they just bet, usually the minimum, occasionally more if they were called on the flop.

A more rare kind of fish swims upside down. They check and call when they have a hand, and bet when they don’t. They can be confusing when you first encounter them, but once you see how and why they bet, you can destroy them.

The most important thing to realize about aggression at micro limits is the fish will decide to call, or not. It doesn’t often matter if the bet is 1 big bet, the size of the pot, or his whole stack. It’s only a few bucks. Once they decide they like their hand, the value of the hand is usually much greater than the value of their cash.

I used to think I should never bluff at micro limits, but if you have a good idea about what hands people like to play, and how much they like their hands. You can’t bluff every player every hand, but you can absolutely bluff every player sometimes. You need to understand what they’ll likely have in their hand, and how they’ve played with it.

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Step 1: classification
Step 2: fillet
Step 3: batter and deep fry

Serve over chips with some malt vinegar.

Nice post. You will occasionally run into some crossbreeds... they can trip you up.

- sed

Originally Posted by whileone

A more rare kind of fish swims upside down. They check and call when they have a hand, and bet when they don’t. They can be confusing when you first encounter them, but once you see how and why they bet, you can destroy them.

OK, so now I'm interested! Please tell me *why* they bet like this.