Fish
Just a pet peeve of mine. Why do players insist on calling people fish, or stupid or bad players. The bad players are the ones giving you money. I find I need to treat my meal ticket much better than referring to them in a derogatory manner. In fact, I go out of my way to treat them well. And when they play poorly and win, well they paid their money to play and if they win, they deserve to win. Obviously, they're playing for a reason other than winning. Personally, I'm happy to make that trade (most of the time) -- give them what they want (gamble/friendly chat/banter/fun) in exchange for their money.
Comments
I wrote an article about this once. The moral was "Be careful with your trash talk, because occasionally a player that you think is an idiot has, in fact, outplayed you completely and utterly and you are so ignorant that you don't even know it happened."
At the table as long as i'm in the mood to talk and not playing lots of tables, i'll make every effort to be nice to those players and keep the dialogue going, including congratulating them on wins and the such.
I find having one of those trash talkers at the table to be a great oppurtunity. Depending on the situation i'll defend the weaker player, and actually indicate that the guy has every right to play anything he wants. I'll basicly make it so that this book player wants to beat me, while currying favour with the 2 or 3 players who are sitting and are insulted by what the trash talker is saying. So now i have an easy to read player giving me action and at an underlieing level the people i stood up for won't play against me quite as hard. I'm not saying they won't play against me, but since i'm thy're only friend on the table now, they may not check raise me etc...
Gide
They are people who don't understand poker, except for their narrow view of it..
I was called a fish at a gaming club table last night.. I'm in the BB with 3h5h, UTG raises and 6 players call in front of me. Getting 11 to 1 for my suited connected junk I called to close betting on the flop. Flop comes A25, 1 heart and 6 players call a single bet. Turn brings a 2nd heart and 3 players call. The river brings a 3 and I crying call the river bet with mr know-it-all.. I land up winning and then get the ol verbal barrage for my preflop call..
I don't mind though, I prefer these players yell at me than actually scare away the crummy players. So I usually try and deflect their arguments to me when I see a table coach act up..
I agree with this 110%. It is poker idiocy to not relish playing against poor opponents.
I have sometimes gone out of my way to needle the person who is berating a fish, basically to "draw their fire" towards me instead of the fish.
Often times, the nice side effect of befriending the fish occurs. This, I think, is not entirely hypocritical of me either. Generally, what kind of person would I want to make friends with at the poker table? A "fish" who is having some fun playing poker and enjoying himself/herself, or some bitter sod who's got nothing better to do than critisize and insult players?
Dave also has a great point about the whiners typically being "textbook". Though they may or may not be aggressive (i.e. bluff a lot), you can usually count on the fact that these kinds of players will almost never play a weak draw (a gutshot, bottom pair, etc.) past the flop.
ScottyZ
Good. We needed the fishes perspective on this topic.
I've tryed something like this aswell but it uaually ends up in a heated argument, so now I just stay clear unless the guy keeps going on and on and on and on and on and on .... you get the picture.
2 outs, that's two outs more than i need to win a hand
This is a great example of what happend last night on a 20+2 sit and go on PP.
Blinds are 30-60 with 9 players at the table. Early position player raises to 225(TT-agressive). Next to him raises all in for 950, SB calls and TT thinks for no more than 4-5 seconds and calls.
TT shows KQ off
Next shows AK spades
SB shows A2 hearts
Flop= Ac,10h,Kh
4th= 7h
5th=2s
I personally am thinking no way should the TT or the SB player should have called!
And then the TT lets loose with the verbal ###@#!@#$!@.
"how could you have called gone all in with that", and contiues for the next 6 hands berating the SB player untill he(TT) looses his last 20 chips.
I am thinking to myself shut up, let him play the bad cards and he will not make the money. So I ask the TT if he thought calling the rest of his stack off with KQ off was a good idea, because he must have known he was beat with two all ins before him. Well he let me have it too, and I was glad the pressure was off the SB and on me.
I got a good chukle on this one.
Rob M
P.S. None of them made the money and I finished 2nd for $60.00. :cool:
They tend to understand that it is a game and you win some and lose most. I really only play for fun now. It is nice to find a fish-type player and make a few bucks (sometimes I think I fill that role) but if not, at least a friendly, grumpy old man-free game will do.
Therefore, fish=fun on more than one level.. and they tend to give more than they take of course.
I agree playing with a table full of rocks is no fun ... i'm a rock but i still mix it up on occassion. what's the fun of watching only big pockets running into each other, it's so mechanical
Much of the thread was about berrating other players at the table. While that's part of my peeve, I also include off-ice name calling as part of my peeve.
Saying things like "where do the fish" play is not helpful. If you're doing this, you're missing a huge edge in winning. The edge comes from knowing your game and the type of environments in which it excells. What types of weaknesses are you good at exploiting? Then you can say, I'm looking for a loose passive game with about a 42% flops seen percentage, with no more than 10% of pots being raised pre-flop. Or, I'm looking for a loose aggressive game with about 42% or flops seen and 25% of pots raised pre-flop. Or, I'm looking for a tight-aggressive game. Or,....well you get the picture.
I really like the term action-player as it starts to describe the type of opponent you're looking for. Not all bad players are action-players, so that's only one type. But there are others.
Anywho, I just wanted to clarify.
Cheers
Magi
In a home game environment i can be an action player or a cannon if i want to. What that means is building pots with late position raises, raising drawing hands and otherwise playing fast but play half decent after the flop.
I think actually calling action players a fish is likely a bigger mistake.
Now what is a fish?
For the lack of a better word 'fish' are different things to different people. Just like some people fish salmon and other trout, we each have certain types of players we like playing against.
a good poker patient poker player can do well at a table with these loose passive players. An agressive, but good post-flop player would much rather play with a table with tight-passive players, since he gains by his opponents caution (by scooping unowned pots) ... while a patient poker player gains because of the extra calls he gets when he makes his hands.
So based on how people like playing, they want to fish where they'll get the biggest haul.
I would say a fish is anything a shark feeds off of. That can be many things but generally someone who is less experienced. I have been called a fish but never by someone I would consider a shark. I guess it's true since I've been playing for less than a year. But it's nothing a few quick *'s can't take care of!
P.S. Chugs, can you loan me a few bucks?