Fish Chasers

Ok, to me this is obvious, but I wanted to see what others thought.

I am playing at a table last night, fairly fishy with 9 players. Two of the 9 seem to be very competent and are slowly pulling all of the money at the table into their bankrolls... I sit down and start playing, get good cards first two hands in and let's just be nice and say my opponents were fishy...

So third hand comes up, I'm in the big blind... I check and pull a pair of 2s. Not a strong hand, one villian, he checks it to me... (small blind) and I bet a small amount. He calls and we check it down. I lost to his pair of threes. He then berates me for 5 lines of chat about how stupid I am playing a pair of twos.

Now.. this has nothing to do with the play... this has to do with his reaction. My question is, when there are fish at the table, people who are obvious calling stations, who never raise, who limp every pot, etc... Why would you berate them?

When there are fish at the table, don't chase them away, suck their money away and let them leave on their own... please, please don't chase them. Follow them to another table, sure, but don't make them feel like crap, it causes them to tighten up or leave with their stacks intact.

The same villian continued to berate others at the table for stupid plays and shortly the table was down to two or three with me, him included. I asked him why he chased all the fish away and received no response...

So I think this rambling post is about fish and tilt. Please don't tilt the fish, they play badly enough on their own, you'll get their money, just let them play.

just keep in mind that the idiot calling the fish stupid and criticizing their play is also likely a fish, just of a slightly different variety, and you can use this knowledge to your advantage.

Surprisingly, though this guy had stats over 60 hands that made him look like a calling station, he played pretty well, IMO... but he was only winning little pots, because he berated everyone, once someone lost a small pot to them they left the table.

I kept waiting for a hand to exploit him on... it never came, and I got tired of waiting and left.

But I agree, they are often no better than those they criticize, and often worse.

berating and making fun of fish is -EV

Don't make small bets into small pots with weak hands. Always pot it in those little limped pots. Particularly with the fish around.