The value of mistakes

Player 1 is an 80/5 who enjoys limping pretty much everything. He will call a small PFR with a fair amount of stuff as long as stacks are deep. He doesn't proceed or put too much money in the pot postflop unless he's hit something strong. He's not the type to call "to see a turn card" - he (accidentally, one could say) plays a competent passive postflop game.

Player 2 is a 21/14 who thinks he's a TAG reg but is actually not very good. He thinks top pair is the nuts and talks himself into calling when deep down he knows he's beat. He doesn't really get relative hand strength.

Who's making the more exploitable errors? Who would you rather have at your table and why?

The biggest mistakes in poker are after the flop.

ill chime in later good thread

Player 2. Stacking off real light seems worse than spewing preflop. Going broke with top pair... isn't that the player we dream about playing? Both are welcome at my table, though.

Edit: Player 1 would probably be preferred in a high blind stage of an SNG or tournament, though. Under those conditions, Player 1 would get blinded off, and Player 2 might actually be playing good poker.

as long as this is low stakes, I prefer the tighter player at my table. Anyone who feels "entitled" to win is exactly who I want...

the players who play well postflop are much tougher for me to deal with...I try to be like player 1 - lots of players try to go after me because they see me as super loose...and I do splash a bit, but it's only for image - when the pots get big, i'm in with something pretty good and it drives them nuts -

good question, btw

probably the 80/5 guy because from what you describe he is really exploitable post flop too. the other guy should be easy to make money off too but playing 80/5 and then folding when he doesnt having anything is just going to be exploited almost every hand.

edit: also the 80/5 isnt playing good postflop hes just not making huge spew plays. the 21/14 guy who stacks off too easy is still probably doing a lot of things good postflop and actually being aggressive postflop.

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

probably the 80/5 guy because from what you describe he is really exploitable post flop too. the other guy should be easy to make money off too but playing 80/5 and then folding when he doesnt having anything is just going to be exploited almost every hand.

edit: also the 80/5 isnt playing good postflop hes just not making huge spew plays. the 21/14 guy who stacks off too easy is still probably doing a lot of things good postflop and actually being aggressive postflop.

I think the 80/5 player is low yield low variance, and the 21/14 is high yield high variance. We can profit from both. In the short run, we like the 80/5 mistakes. Over the long run, we need plenty of 21/14 poor play.

80/5's range is so wide and the fact that they only like strong hands can make it tough to play large pots with them. Of course, we can rob a lot of smaller pots by betting and sometimes getting paid semibluffing,

I take 21/14 because:
1) you can value bet them and they won't realize they dropped half their stack or sometimes more on TPTK
2) their range is pretty obvious and if we play a little tighter we are getting paid. The problem usually with playing premium cards is people notice you are tight and are wary of you. But mr. 21/14 in this spot probably doesn't notice our range is tighter and pays us off anyway
3) handling this guy takes less of our time. 80/5 guy is time consuming to maximize profit. If we play one table, I'd prefer 80/5, but playing many tables we make more money with 21/14 guys than 80/5. 80/5 extracting the max would take too long MTTing


side note, 21/14 players overplaying hands are so common that if you can just beat this type of player up to like 100nl you will be profitable

you get to exploit the 80/5 player all the time its not that time consuming.
and if the 80/5 guy hits top pair and your beating that... ur probably gonna make a lot off him too.

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

you get to exploit the 80/5 player all the time its not that time consuming.
and if the 80/5 guy hits top pair and your beating that... ur probably gonna make a lot off him too.

I would agree, the 80/5 is also super low stress, he'll tell you post flop when you're beat. The 20/14 may stack off semi light but he is also playing much tighter and is likely to be in less marginal situations.

Originally Posted by Ash256

Player 2 is a 21/14 who thinks he's a TAG reg but is actually not very good. He thinks top pair is the nuts and talks himself into calling when deep down he knows he's beat.

talks himself into calling when deep down he knows he's beat <-- me with an overpair, usually queens when I know the person has aces or kings but for some reason cannot give them up.

Depending on the stakes player 2 will be quite profitable because of the ridiculous amount of idiots pushing with middle pair, gutshots or draws in general.

Basically I think player 2 is an up in coming with lots of leaks that everyone has when they first start.

I've seen both plays work profitably at low stakes but then again all i play is 25NL so my views might be off compared to everyone else.

I'll take either at my table, because like Rondavu said, poker's biggest mistakes are after the flop. As long as you know what errors these guys are making post flop it's money in the bank. We really need to stop thinking preflop numbers. I know most bad players play 80/10 or worse, but I think any decent player could play 80VP$P and make money. All those numbers do is give you a range to start with when the flop betting happens.

Originally Posted by EzDuzIt

probably the 80/5 guy because from what you describe he is really exploitable post flop too. the other guy should be easy to make money off too but playing 80/5 and then folding when he doesnt having anything is just going to be exploited almost every hand.

edit: also the 80/5 isnt playing good postflop hes just not making huge spew plays. the 21/14 guy who stacks off too easy is still probably doing a lot of things good postflop and actually being aggressive postflop.

I guess if you change how op's 80/5 plays my answer changes. but if hes solid/passive post flop as op says, then he is definitely more time consuming because you have to steal a lot of smaller pots, playing more total pots with him.

trainer wrote:

I know most bad players play 80/10 or worse, but I think any decent player could play 80VP$P and make money. All those numbers do is give you a range to start with when the flop betting happens.

I disagree, most players would fail at 80vpip, the rest of the table you are constantly playing against has a significantly stronger range

also theres bad players at all vpip, i don't even see too many 80/X players at all.. lot of 30s, 40s though

Both are ATM's but in a different way. Weaktight is bigger ATM, actually only calling station is more profitable than weaktight.

In HE it's tough to flop a hand worth playing for stacks.

That's why I will choose "weaktight guy" as my opponent, because he's way more profitable to play against. And definitely lower variance to deal with.

Against this guy I'd just build a big pot preflop with big percantage of my range, then steal it postflop with big bet. If my standard opener was 5x against him, I only need to make it about 20 times to "destack" him without a showdown. It's not that many and I can hit a hand too.

Tagfish may stackoff light, but he can still be pain in the ass, when he's type who plays back, and uses implied threat with less than stellar hands. The big mistake he makes by taking one pair hands too far will be compensated (at least partially) by all the small pots he'll steal from us and punish our draws with potsized bets. Weaktight guy doesn't have that compensation unless people are too unobservand/stupid/stubborn to pay him off when he wakes up with "I outflopped your Aces" bet.

Interesting question, but the answer is pretty obviously the 80/5 guy. A lot of you guys are not understanding the sheer magnitude of money that a whale dumps into the game by playing every hand and folding the flop unless he hits something good. A bad post-flop mistake may be worse than one pre-flop mistake, but it's not worse than 25 pre-flop mistakes. I mean this guy is probably gonna be losing multiple BB's every orbit, there's no way a tagfish loses money as fast as that.

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

I know most bad players play 80/10 or worse, but I think any decent player could play 80VP$P and make money.

I think some very good players might be able to play 80/30 and make money but I doubt anyone could play 80/5 and make money. That being said, I don't think many people could do this and if someone wants to try, I'd be happy to prop bet you enough money to make it worth your while to try (people who already play MSNL or higher not eligible, also it would have to be at like 50NL, no fair playing at 2NL).

sauce said he was going to chime in...im' interested in what his thoughts are here....what if the 80/5 guy is actually say 50/5...this is still super loose - does that change opinions at all?

Originally Posted by Trainer_jyms

I'll take either at my table, because like Rondavu said, poker's biggest mistakes are after the flop. As long as you know what errors these guys are making post flop it's money in the bank. We really need to stop thinking preflop numbers. I know most bad players play 80/10 or worse, but I think any decent player could play 80VP$P and make money. All those numbers do is give you a range to start with when the flop betting happens.

most bad players are 80/10 or worse? i hardly ever see those kinds of players.

i dont think you realize how much money you would lose playing that style. you think a decent player could making money pretty much having to limp almost every hand?? they do more than give you a range to start with when the flop betting happens... basically if you play like that you are going to be in a ton of multiway pots with trash hands and not be the aggressor or be isolating to take down the pots. i would def prop bet that you couldnt win playing 100nl at 80/10 even 80/whatever preflop raise you want for that matter.

I would definitely take the 80/5 player any day & push my edge on him as much as I can, without him adjusting.

I would increase my pre-flop raise size to 6bb's then if he
a)Continues calling with a range behind mine and folding missed flops I am making big profit.
b)If he starts limp folding most of his hands I make a fortune there as well.


There is no way this player could play this 80% style for any period of time if you adjust your pre-flop raise size he has to adjust or go el busto
el fasto.

(But I wouldn't raise every hand that is +ev in this scenario because I dont want him to adjust his 80% pre flop limp style so that I can take advantage of it for longer and bleed his stack.)

(Player 2 has a big weakness but its fairly common & in general he's not dropping bb/100 nearly as fast I think & + you have to wait for the right situations to occur.)

good question..i don't have much to add, but my opinion is the tagfish is more fun to play, but the 80/5 weak player gives away a lot more $$ if you play optimally vs him (first thoughts are to make loose and large pfr's, smaller cbets, fire scare cards..)

I don't think anyone could play above $5NL and make money long term playing 80/5. But where are you going to find this 80/5 player anyway, other than $5NL or lower. We aren't debating $100NL+ or we wouldn't be discussing such an absurd extreme that is few and far between on any table. I can find you tons or 50/10's or even 60/5's if you want at $50NL and even a decent amount at $100NL if you want, right in the good ol' USA sites.

I get where Ash is trying to go with this, but maybe we need to be a little less expansive between our two examples and try to find some more debatable player types.

I am astonished people think they will hit enough monsters vs the tagfish to make it even close to the amount they'll make when the 80/5 misplays his 2nd pairs or low 2 pairs, or crappy kickers.

Addendum: it would take so long to discover that the tagfish is a fish and not a decent player that you would have to have great reads, lots of stats and a great deal of time to make this judgement. No way are you going to sit down, see a dude who you've played 100 hands with who has 21/14 stats, and think "oh goodie".

Is it mischievous to imagine that there are egos involved in all these "yeah, bring on the tagg" answers?

Originally Posted by biondino

Is it mischievous to imagine that there are egos involved in all these "yeah, bring on the tagg" answers?

The question was about exploitable errors. As a good player, we can exploit the 80/5 more by isolating and cbetting, whereas the tagfish will just donate to the table in general.

this is sillier the more i think about it, there are tons of different behaviors and everyone is picturing a specific scenario in which yes they are correct

Pretty interesting thread, i dont think what anyone should consider is what the answer is but rather what would make you come to that answer. Yes he could change the 80/5 to somewhat aggressive or make him tighter preflop or w/e and make things closer, but this thread isn't a contest of how close we can get to break even.

I'm pretty sure the answer is 80/5 because playing weak holdings OOP and playing passively and loose is one of the worst leaks you can have.

I think many people are going to find taking advantage of the 21/14 easier because it'll be easier to predict his hand as well as his corresponding play.

The 80/5 is more exploitible. There has to be a ridiculous value in raising his limps and c-betting flops... but you're probably gonna find that taking his money will come a slowly and he could become unpredictable. He will definitely be harder to play against than the 21/14.

Speaking as a 21/14 who spews terribly postflop, I pick the 21/14. Ive seen his winrate, and it aint pretty.