How to Beat Weaker Players

BetfairCanada

Hi guys,

Just to let you know that Marcus Bateman has written a great article about how to beat weaker poker players using a clever combination of group mentality and timing.

According to Marcus, it is human nature to conform in group situations and you can really use this to your advantage:

"If you play fast in a hand, weak players around you will tend to speed up their own play as a result, and vice versa if you slow down".

So, to summarize Marcus' theory, if you've flopped a big hand and you're confident that your opponent has a marginal one, speed up your decision time to lull them into making quicker choices themselves.

The reverse can be useful when bluffing weak players.


If done properly, this technique can be one of the most satisfying in poker strategy.


Have you ever had any success with it?

Graham

Thats actually an interesting concept. I am obv the weak player and find myself doing this a lot. Will have to give this a try.

PokerKai

I think the positives gained by playing faster against weak players is VASTLY countered by the mistakes you make yourself by trying to play faster. If a player is weak, your going to gain a ton more information by taking an extra few seconds to take in all of his nervous ticks, gestures and reaches. Way more then some ethereal hope that he becomes worse by playing faster.

I would advise the exact opposite. I personally have been trying to slow down my actions and really trying to do all of the mental gymnastics every single time the action comes to me. I would suggest that too often players of all skill levels narrow down their options too quickly without truly considering the possibilities laid before them.

Monteroy

This definitely feels like fancy play syndrome on uppers. I guess if it makes a player feel better about how they are playing that has some marginal benefit, but this just seems like a way to think yourself into circles and eventually create patterns based on expectations that may not actually be accurate.

Anyway, easier to just open 6-10 more tables online and not worry about stuff like this and just grind out money. Live, I yield to those with better experience (like Kai), but my gut feel is again is this is a lot of activity and little productivity.

trigs

i have noticed that varying your time to make decisions in low level online cash games really effects the way your opponents react to you. it obviously depends on your specific opponents and their tendencies though.

there have been a few times where i'd suddenly slow down my play for a few hands (or even a few streets), and my opponent would instantly do the same. depending on my opponent, i might have been bluffing or fishing for a call, but in either case it definitely influenced my opponent's actions.

i've also done the opposite and quickly picked up the pace of my decisions. sometimes this would speed up my opponent, sometimes it would slow them down, depending on their specific style.

i would not suggest simply speeding up in general against weaker players. any strategy that stresses one style of play only is questionable imho. however, varying your speed of play fairly dramatically at random times especially online against lower level players, can be a very good strategy. i have definitely induced crying calls and big laydowns with this strategy.

here's my very general rule of thumb:
against a quick player - playing slower will induce a fold, playing quicker will induce a call/bet/raise; against a slow player - playing slow will induce a call/bet/raise, playing quicker will induce a fold

on a side note, if you try to keep your general play at an average speed, it makes it very easy to suddenly switch to a quick style or a slow style at any time (as opposed to always playing quickly and only having the option to slow down).