How to Exploit Poker Players

11 Nov 2024

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

Do you know how to maximally exploit the players in your game for the most profit? In this article will focus on three of the most common player types you will face and how to take the lines that make the most money for you against them. 

Introduction

But before we go into how to exploit players that you'll regularly see, we need to talk about how exploiting works to begin with. First, it's really important that we profile our opponents correctly. If we misapply a label to somebody and it turns out we are wrong, our exploits can really backfire. 

Another thing is it's important to determine how big of a mistake they are making. When they're making folding mistakes, for example, what degree are we talking about? Are we talking about little folds on the margins that they're making that they shouldn't be making or are they literally folding everything that's not the nuts? This type of knowledge will determine the degree of the exploit that is profitable for you. 

It's also important to note how often you'll be playing against these players and whether they're likely to make adjustments against you. Again, the more we'll be playing with players and the more they'll be adjusting against us, it limits a little bit of the exploitative things we can do. However, if this is a one-time thing and we are playing a hand in a vacuum, we really can do as we please. Let's look at three of the most common player types and how to exploit them for the highest win rate. 

#1: Crushing Calling Stations

Let's start with the calling station, who is a fixture in many poker games, especially live poker games. Against the calling station, of course, the mistake that they are primarily making is a calling mistake. That means that when you have unpaired over cards, it is not a great idea to go triple barreling these players. 

If you are the type of player that continuation bets the flop with missed over cards and continues to bet the turn and the river and then get called down by bottom pair by these players and go on to berate them, well, you're the sucker, not them. You're the one that's not adjusting to their tendencies. We need to anticipate that they're going to play us this way and then do the opposite. 

Things like top pair medium to weak kicker. This can actually be used for two to three streets of value. Middle pair good kicker. This needs to start being used for multiple streets of value against these players because there's so many weaker hands that they're calling with.

So a calling station that we're going to see very, very often will eventually adjust to the fact that we really aren't bluffing them that much. And the worst thing that can happen is the calling station stops calling us. So we need to make a little adjustment against this type of player. If we're going to be seeing them frequently, we do need to bluff them some of the time, but we want to use hands that have high equity. 

So things like open-ended straight draws, flush draws, hands that if we're barreling and they do connect on the river, well now we're up against the calling station in an inflated pot with a massive hand. This is a great recipe for poker profit. 

Against these calling stations, we don't want to bluff that often. We probably want to bluff them less often than against the typical player. But again, if we're going to be playing against these players all the time, we do need to bluff some of the time and we'll reserve those times for times where we have the very best blockers in the hand. 

In the event that a calling station calls your bluff, it is a good idea to turn your cards over and actually show it. I'm usually not a proponent of showing bluffs just like on a whim, but if you've been called, the cat's already out of the bag. They already know you've bluffed. And because you've kind of used your marketing budget on this play, it's better that you get the full value of it, leave a lasting impression, and let that player know that you do intend to bluff them because all those other times where you're going for thin value, it's really going to pay off. 

#2: Destroying Tight Players and Nits

Let's move on to player number two — the nit. But for this case, we're going to talk about players, not tight aggressive players, but players that are just concerned with making the nuts and how do we maximally exploit them.

Of course, against them, we're going to do a whole lot of bluffing, right? We're going to steal their blinds all the time because if they're sitting around waiting to be dealt kings and aces, those hands don't come around that often and they're going to have to fold all the other things that they're being dealt. 

Let's take an example. We open from the middle position and a nit three bets us from the small blind. We know the nit is only three betting with queens, kings, aces, and ace king. If this feels extreme, there are some players in live poker who do exactly this. 

So against the nit, we're going to call some of the time, but only with implied odds that are greatly in our favor and with hands like low pocket pairs and suited connectors that have a great chance at cracking the nit's range. Note that hands like ace queen offsuit, king queen offsuit - these hands are worthless against a nit's range. We're just going to fold these. But against the nit on a board like say five, six, seven, when we're deep stacked, they are just out to see because we know they can never have better than one pair. 

Meanwhile, our calling range has all of the sets. It's going to have two pairs. It's going to have straights in it. We're really going to punish this player, especially the deeper the stacks, because they really can't get all the money in profitably against us with aces. So what's going to happen a lot of the time is we're going to make them fold when the board runs out scary. When one of the many turn cards like a four, an eight, a nine, a three, so many different turn cards can come, including flush completers where the nit is going to clam up and we're going to be able to steal this pot. 

So this is another way we're going to exploit the nit. Now we're going to do the opposite in the event that a nit does catch on to us and does catch one of our bluffs at showdown. We are not going to show the bluff. We're just going to muck the hand and move on and say nice hand and not leave a lasting impression for a nit.

We're never ever going to show our bluffs to a nit because we don't want to advertise that this is such a big part of our strategy to be stealing so many pots from this player. We just want to quietly go on with our business so that the strategy is very different against the calling station where we want to leave the lasting impression, where we want to continue to get paid off against the nit. 

Now, if it's a player that you're not playing with that often, if this is a one and done thing, it really doesn't matter that much. But if it's somebody you're going to be facing all the time, it's profitable. It's super important to keep that buttoned up when we're exploiting. 

#3: Beating Poker Maniacs

The last player type is probably the player type that causes people the most trouble, which is the maniac. Now, the maniac will lead to some of your most profitable sessions, but they will also cause you to have some of your worst sessions when they run good against you. A maniac's primary mistake they are making that we're looking to exploit is their bluffing mistakes. So a maniac will put a ton of money into pots with weak hands. 

How do we counter this strategy? Well, of course we're going to call down lighter, especially once we reach the later streets, because the worst thing we can do against a maniac is put in a whole bunch of money only to fold later. But what we need to be careful about are actually the early streets. So a lot of people get this wrong. 

Actually, all of your edge dissipates. It's much better to just play very tight pre-flop hands against them, which will have a substantial post-flop advantage and can easily cooler them the times that they actually have something and have a good chance of hitting something on the flop so you can hold on against their pressure. 

Another thing that can be helpful is to actually fold the flop with a lot of hands that don't have a good chance of improving against the maniac. So take, for example, you defending in the big blind against a maniac's early position raise. And the flop comes jack, seven, deuce. Let's say you're holding a two-out pocket pair like pocket threes: 

The maniac c-bets with some bloated range that includes a lot of bluffs. There's a very real chance that you're ahead right here. Actually against the maniac, who's going to fire turn and river quite often, where your pocket threes have very little chance of getting the showdown and probably can't stand the heat of multiple barrels. It's better against the maniac to just fold right here, save your money, continue with a tighter range that can call down later. 

Against the maniac, we want to slow play in the event we actually have a very strong hand on this board. For example, if we have pocket sevens, there is no reason to check raise the flop. 

There is no reason to check raise the turn. The maniac will charge themselves better than you ever could. It is much better to continue to let them to barrel, collect that extra money, and then on the river stick in the check raise if it still makes sense on the given board texture. 

Do not worry about being drawn out on. Some of the time this will happen for the maniac, but most of the time the maniac will pretend that he's drawn out on you with some threat on the board and just charge himself better than you ever could. Now some of the time you'll hold a hand like a decent combo draw or some other hand that can semi-bluff. 

For example, on this board, say again, let's come back to jack, seven, deuce. Let's assume there's a flush draw on the board and you've eight, nine suited here. It is a great idea to check raise semi-bluff these maniacs. Part of the reason is their barreling range is so weak that your semi-bluffs have extra fold equity. 

Another reason is if you're playing against a maniac repeatedly, it is important that you sometimes give them action so that they want to play against you and so that they continue to give you the type of barreling action you're looking for. 

It also gives a maniac a sense that like if they call, you know, your check raise and then you barrel all in on the turn and they call and they see this type of hand at showdown, they're going to not put you on just premium hands anymore, which will really open you up against them to make the maximum profit when you do have it. 

Now some of the time against the maniac, they're going to get there on you with some random hand that you could have never anticipated. Again, you're going to have some of the worst sessions of your life against these maniacs, but you're also going to have some of the best sessions on the days that you do run well. 

If something goes horribly wrong and you wind up losing a bunch of money, you consented to this and it's important to be gracious and congratulate the player just like you would any other player. And it's just knowing that up front and agreeing to it is super important and will help you prepare for all outcomes. 

Conclusion

So wrapping up against these three types of players, the calling station, who's of course making calling mistakes, the nit or the tight player who's making folding mistakes, and the maniac who's making bluffing mistakes, we're going to take certain measures to maximize our win rate against these players. And if we're only playing a game that plays these players like they're all one monolithic solver computer, we're never going to find the optimal lines against them and we're going to miss all of that low hanging profit. Thank you so much for reading and have a great week!