An old archived message I'd heard before pops into my head today. "If you don't know who the fish at the table is, then you are the fish." Only problem is, my fish finding skills are poor at best. Sure I see someone minbet a couple of times, or goto showdown with ace high in a big pot, but I can never sit down at a table knowing who the fish are quickly.
So lets look at what a fish is first. A fish is someone we can more easily make money out of. At lower levels, this is someone making a lot of mistakes, at higher levels this is probably someone with exploitable tendancies. This might mean, we can always bluff them. It might mean they bluff too often. It might just mean they overplay their weak hands or slowplay their monsters too much. Basically we have more than a few spots against a fish where we can expect to make money. If our game is well rounded, we could probably expect to pick up a lot of money off fish when we have position on them, especially if they are the type to bluff too often. The higher the stakes are, the less holes a player needs to be considered a fish, so we might consider someone a fish simply for folding to often to 3 bets at higher stakes.
So how to exploit a fish. The first step is to understand it is +ev to play against fish, but that doesn't mean we win every pot against them. Sometimes it simply means they always tell us when they have a big hand, at which point we could fold easier than normal. You have to use the reads you have, and compare them with the current situation. If he shows strength, you have to be able to fold. If he shows weakness you have to be able to make a move. But don't just expect to win a pot becuase the fish is up against you, still use your poker skills to not pay him off too.
Lets take a look at getting some reads going to help find a fish. The purpose of a read is to know how a villain plays a certain type of hand, so we can get more information about them for later hands. Here are a few things I'm going to be working on to improve my reads:
1. Situational lines. A line is how you played 3 streets with a certain hand, and the parts that make that up. If someone calls the flop, then the turn, then bets the river strong and shows a completed flush on the river, we can see how they like to play draws. If they call a cbet with a flopped set, then check raise the turn, we now know how they play big made hands. Even if you can't watch a pot, becuse you are playing another table, lookup the HH to get a better idea of how big pots played out.
2. Bet sizing. It takes a bit of time to get real information in big pots, but especially smaller pots, it's very easy to get an idea of what someone bets bigger with and what they bet smaller with. A good first step is what do the minbet with (if they ever do)? Then what do they bet full pot size with? This can go either way, so make sure you get these reads.
3. Timing tells. Someone calls pre flop out of position, heads up. The flop comes out A52r, and he checks very quickly. If he folds to a cbet, then his instant check means weakness, if he calls or raises, it means he's trying to get a bet out of us by quickly checking to us. Again if it's a long wait until he checks, then throw out a cbet and find out what that timing tell is. It only takes one or 2 cbets to work out when he does what.
4. Misplayed hands. Once you see a hand showdown, you notice one guy played his hand very poorly. Note down his mistakes, and use that information later, and also to identify him as a potential fish.5. Activity. Obviously the big 3; VPIP, PFR, AF. Very basically VPIP is how many hands a player plays, PFR is how often they raise pre flop, AF is how often they bet as opposed to call post flop. Pokertracker lets you have these stats live, so you can see just how active your current opponent is. If they are not usually that aggressive and are suddenly using big 3 bets on the flop, it's very likely they have the goods, regardless of what other reads are
telling you. A couple of other good stats to have include cbet % and fold to cbet %.
6. How do they react to re-raises? Do they fold too often, or do they call too much? Both of these are vital to know, as we can easily exploit this, or avoid 3 betting them if we know they won't let go of a medium strength hand. If they do though, you should of course raise your really good hands, hoping to get a call too.
So all this goes together to bring our information levels up. If your feeling is he either has a draw or a set, knowing a couple of these reads may make your split decision a lot easier to make the right decision, and that is worth a lot of value.
