Everyone knows that it is important to play very tight and aggressive. When you play passive you are representing weakness, which you never want to do in a hand of poker. The whole idea of the game is to take your opponent’s money, and it is very hard to do when you don’t bet. Since the point of the game is to get your opponent’s money playing passive is the very worst thing you can do in poker because it doesn’t make sense. If a hand is worthy of playing you should be betting with it to get value out of it.
Passive players can be a great source of income for any poker player. When a player wants to play hands and not get value from them on their own terms you will win a lot of money from them. You are betting when you have a good hand and they aren’t betting when they have a good hand. In the long run it is much cheaper for you to make it to showdown against their good hands than it is for them to see a showdown against you when you have a good hand. This means you win more money from them than they win from you. You are then +EV (expected value) against that player.
Isolating Limpers
Where a huge part of your income will derive from is isolating passive players who limp in early position. This tells the other players at the table that you have a good hand and you want to play so most will fold. The passive player has already told you that they want to play their hand by limping, so you need to make them pay more to do so. When you isolate limpers like this you are giving your hand a better chance at being the best. The more players that are in the pot the less likely you are to have the best hand at showdown.
Another great thing about isolating limpers is that you will always at least win the 2.5 big blinds. This is a quarter of the win rate you should be going for in every 100 hands (about an hour of play). When you are allowed this free extra blind it might not seem like much, but it is a big deal. When you are aiming for only 10 big blinds one extra blind is 10% of what you need to win at this desired rate. You steal a few more times and you have achieved your goal.
Be Aggressive
You need to be as aggressive as possible against passive players. These players play most comfortably checking down to the river to see if they have won or not. You need to punish these players by being extremely aggressive against them. It will pull them from their comfort zone which will encourage misplays from them and calling bets that they have incorrect odds to call.
You want to prey on the weak in poker. Passive players are obviously weak, so take advantage of them as much as you can. You will see a great increase to your win rate which should be rather satisfying when you check your bankroll.
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