How to spot the fish...

[POB666]

It has been said that if you dont spot the fish in the first half an hour at the table the you are the fish, this is a little easier in live games, see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGn4Y8UxaW8&eurl=

But what methods do you lot use online?

[Dice Man]

Visually I can't really spot the fish. I now realise that this is because THEY ARE ALL FISH! There's nothing to really distinguish them and they will call down with ace high and go all in on bottom pair.

Online I look for things like limping under the gun, min-raising a big pot, max raising in PL every hand, calling pot-sized bets all the way down with middle pair etc. These are just indicators of a person's likelihood of being a fish, I do some of them myself sometimes. It helps if you can see what hands people are making these strange moves with. There are a very few hands and situations I think it's acceptable, but you'll see these sorts of things happening so much that 90% of the time it's the action of a fish.

[POB666]

min-raising a big pot

Lol yeah, this reminds me of a hand i played last night. It was a MTT $10 re-buy. I was pretty short stacked comapred to the blinds then i was in a pot and tried to buy it, i fired out on the flop with bottom pair and got called i put him on a draw, the turn came and this meant he may have hit a straight and i then stupidly checked but i didnt want to commit myself to pot if there was a chance i could be drawing dead, he bet something pitiful like $1500 into a 9k pot, i had to call, the river came down and give me trips, i checked he bet something around $2K i called ( could of possibly raised ), i took down the pot, it turns out he hit top pair on the flop just called and bet just over the minimum on the turn, by making it so cheap i was able to stay in the pot i take it down with a bit of a suck out. This helped me go on and get to the final table, if id have folded id have been fucked.

max raising in PL every hand

I used to do this all the time, lol

[Dice Man]

That exact same thing happened to me in a live game last night. A player min-raises my big blind. Because of antes there's 14000 in the pot to begin with, so I only have to call 6000 to see a pot of 32000. Some people were actually folding their BBs to these raises, but I'd call with 72o, 32o, any hand whatsoever. I had 5To and the flop comes K54 two spades. I check and he checks. The turn is the Ts. I check, he raises min again, 6000 into a 32k pot. I raise it to 35k total and he calls with K6 lol. I would've busted him that hand but the river was the As so we both check the 4 spade board and I win with two pair.

And this is one of the better players so that's why I said that it's safe to assume that everybody is a fish.

[Matty H]

I know what you mean. I was at a live game once, flop on show - A99, 3 players in, one player bets 3x bb, next guy folds, the next guy reraises, the guy who bet first goes allin for loads and get's insta called. The guy who went allin had fuck all but KJo and the guy who had reraised him(and always plays a solid game) had a 9. Fucking allin fish

[Dice Man]

That is sick. I hope the fish with KJ sucked out in the end though because that is a praiseworthy push which will work 9 times out of 10.

[Matty H]

That is sick. I hope the fish with KJ sucked out in the end though because that is a praiseworthy push which will work 9 times out of 10.

No he was allin and well covered by the caller so he was out............

[POB666]

Going all in on a bluff is something ive tried to cut out of my game and has worked considerably well in tournies, i figured thats how i go out most often and in the last two days have made two final tables with fields around 200, so its going ok

[Raiser]

Going all in on a bluff is something ive tried to cut out of my game and has worked considerably well in tournies, i figured thats how i go out most often and in the last two days have made two final tables with fields around 200, so its going ok

Sounds like someone we all know!!! HAHA - you know who you are! lol

[PokerWoody]

Chat box tells that people are bad players…

- Berating fish, in fact berating anyone in the game
- Having any view at all on if online poker is rigged or not
- Offering poker advice to anyone in the game
- Speaking in the chat box at all

These are all sure way to identify a fish. If you do any of these then you to are a fish. Personally, I do all of them when drunk or tilting badly.