Poker News

Dr. Scott Aigner

(This article is the last in a series on common mistakes that I see in no limit hold em by inexperienced and weak players).

A third mistake I see is betting the wrong amount in no limit. It is rare that a calling station will bet. He usually just callsbut how many times have you seen a calling station hit a draw and then when he makes it he either moves all in or he check raises all in? The inexperienced player does this too. They over bet their strong hands when the better play is to make a value bet that will get called. The tight passive player also shares this flaw. How many times have you seen this player type move all in preflop when he holds aces or kings? A player makes a standard raise and this guy moves in no matter how many chips he has or his position. He doesn’t want anyone to outdraw him. They’ll often even say that they didn’t want anyone to call them had they made a smaller raise and then have their hand get outdrawn post flop. Be very happy they think this way as it makes it very easy to read them and to get away from a hand that you would have gone broke with had they played their hand correctly.

Another mistake is not knowing the pot odds and/or implied odds as well as overestimating their outs. They will often draw to straights and flushes when the board is paired and they are drawing dead or have a lot less outs than they realize. They not only do not read boards very well but don’t read opponents either. They don’t think about what you might be holding, just what they have. They don’t recognize what the bet size in relationship to the pot could mean. It is whether they think the bet is reasonable to call just based on the size rather than the size in relationship to the pot that matters. This is why value bets work very well against these opponents. They just do not see betting patterns that the better players see. It is also why _ pot bets work well in no limit and pot limit structures. By always giving an opponent 3 to 1 on his call you are minimizing giving away information about your hand to the better players and you are going to receive a lot of calls from the weaker players who see the bet as a reasonable amount to call. Of course I like to vary my bets based on my opponent’s style of play and their stack size but that is another subject for an article in the future.

Another common mistake is the old “but it was suited” flaw. They will often call a raise with their hand only because the hand is suited. Overvaluing suited hands is a huge leak in these player’s games. They just do not realize how often they will actually make a flush or that they are not going to have the right odds to catch a flush against a good player who does understand them. They are also not aggressive and they will just call rather than push their chips into the pot which would give them the right odds if their all in raise gives them ~2 to 1 pot odds.

Although these are not all of the mistakes that weak players and inexperienced players share it is a good overview of the most common ones that one will see in no limit tournaments. The main difference between these two groups of players is that the inexperienced player will learn to avoid these common mistakes with experience. The weak players will continue to make these common mistakes over and over again.

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