How to beat the donkeys at the table

Playing poker against weak players should be lucrative, in fact most of your poker earnings as a solid player will come from weak opponents, but do you often find yourself losing to players who have no idea of what they are doing? This can be a huge frustration for players who have put in a lot of time and effort to study and practice the game, only to find themselves being outdrawn by unskilled opponents getting lucky river cards.

The fact is that if you take the time to study poker books and videos, put in the practice and continually look to improve your game, then it seems likely that earnings should follow, and your bankroll should be increasing. Often times however, even though you do play strong poker your bankroll may have nothing to show for all your effort.

Let’s come to terms with this, horrible bad beats are going to happen to you and they are usually at the hands of these types players. Now obviously, they did not commit in training time like you did and as a result have a very different view of poker than you do. They will not be playing in a manner that can make any sense to you. It’s rather improbable that you’re going to figure out why they are playing to win and are, and in fact since they likely don’t know either, this isn’t worth your time. You merely need to ambush players like this with quality hands and more than a reasonable chance of a profitable outcome. Now there’s a few ways you want to be doing that so as to preserve your chips at the same time.

Pot size management. It’s critical to not let the size of the pot run away from you until you know you have the best hand, or even the nuts. Weak players will play any two cards so you won’t be able to gauge what they will have, which leaves the burden on you to make sure you are ahead before your chips goes in. That’s when you make the saps pay, otherwise don’t get involved in big pots with players who can beat you holding 83 offsuit.

Don’t play the hand. This will be more challenging because you will frequently have a better starting hand than your stupid opponent, and folding is always tough. However this is going to keep you out of guessing games and maintain your stack for a more lucrative situation.

Patience. You might not get all of his chips this time, but they will pay you off if you have patience to wait for the right situation. Keep in mind, it might not be that exact player because the opportunity just may not present itself, but by grouping these ridiculous players into a cluster of opponents, you can be sure that they will show up at your table no matter when you resolve to play, they will pay you off.

Playing positiion profitably. The idea is to rigorously avoid out of position plays against weak players that often minraise with no forethought, and allow other players to reraise the limpers. You need to see very inexpensive flops against this player and make them pay when you hit good cards.

Avoid bluffing. Poker fish think that if they have any sort of hand then it can’t be beaten, no matter how bad the board texture is against them. Do not, I repeat do not try to bluff players who do not understand the strength of their hand.

Rope a donkey by the tail. Once you do get a lousy player in the good situation, then you need to do your best to trap him for all his chips. He may want to bluff you, but he may also call a lot off as well. You need to know what kind of idiot he is by profiling.

Nobody likes to lose money to terrible poker players and every lost pot has heartache associated with it. Just don’t forget tough, you are a stronger player, and you know how to get money from them in the right time and right hand.

Be patient, study, and practice – rinse and repeat!!!