Identify the Fish and the Shark

Spaceman · Dec 26, 2018

We all have our signs of recognizing the good and the bad player. My favorite dead tell of a fish is in cash games where they cant wait for the big blind to come to them and they post it out of position. Whats yours?

MemphisGrind · Dec 26, 2018

Spaceman said:
We all have our signs of recognizing the good and the bad player. My favorite dead tell of a fish is in cash games where they cant wait for the big blind to come to them and they post it out of position. Whats yours?

1. limping
2. playing too many hands
3. Weird bet sizes
4. Too passive or aggressive
5. Tilting easily
6. getting their money in bad
7. Calling station
8. Bluffs and shows it "everytime"
9. Constantly shoving all in "afraid to play post flop"
10. Doesn't understand position

Need I continue....

GameTooHard · Dec 27, 2018

Memphis has a great post, as far as HUD stats.

- A skewed VPIP/FPR i.e. 74/16. 54/21
- A wild VPIP i.e. >40% is pretty fishy especially at micros.
- Low fold to FCbet i.e. <40%
- A distributed VPIP across positions

sheltowee420 · Dec 27, 2018

When a player raises every hand pre-flop, I watch to see if they have good cards, some players are good at aggressive play, take chips, and then fold when properly challenged, while other pre-flop raisers, will call the challenge, show crappy cards, and reveal that they are a fish.

UncleConRon · Dec 27, 2018

My opinion

Thank you for the advice. I usally play right away on cash games because time is money. I didn't know I was a fish.

Alucard · Dec 27, 2018

GameTooHard said:
Memphis has a great post, as far as HUD stats.

- A skewed VPIP/FPR i.e. 74/16. 54/21
- A wild VPIP i.e. >40% is pretty fishy especially at micros.
- Low fold to FCbet i.e. <40%
- A distributed VPIP across positions

low fold to cbet is not a fishy tell. You can't determine if a player is fishy or not by that.
Neither is distributed VPIP across positions cause you should be tighter in some positions & looser in others

also the definition of a fish may change when you move up the stakes.
A good 5NL player might be a total fish at 50NL cause the level of play is more advanced.

MemphisGrind · Dec 27, 2018

Alucard said:
low fold to cbet is not a fishy tell. You can't determine if a player is fishy or not by that.
Neither is distributed VPIP across positions cause you should be tighter in some positions & looser in others

also the definition of a fish may change when you move up the stakes.
A good 5NL player might be a total fish at 50NL cause the level of play is more advanced.

Agree

hugh blair · Dec 27, 2018

Play only a small part of it

Fish = Small bankroll
Shark=Huge bankroll $100k plus.

Way to many fish think they are sharks

MemphisGrind · Dec 27, 2018

hugh blair said:
Play only a small part of it

Fish = Small bankroll
Shark=Huge bankroll $100k plus.

Way to many fish think they are sharks

Agree to a point.... there is a WHALE terminology lol

hugh blair · Dec 27, 2018

MemphisGrind said:
Agree to a point.... there is a WHALE terminology lol

Yes even $100k sharks are nothing when come up against millionaire killer whales

MemphisGrind · Dec 27, 2018

hugh blair said:
Yes even $100k sharks are nothing when come up against millionaire killer whales

lol it's not good to be a whale

PHX · Dec 27, 2018

I don't like referring to players as fish. Everyone was not good at Poker sometime. I use the term less experienced.

Your definition of fish & shark is what you you will look for to identify. It differs from player to player e.g. I find it easier to be profitable against more tighter players, they are more predictable in play and easier to read. Would rather play against the 15/9 player than the 74/16 player but that is just me it would be different for everyone.

I also find that looking to identify players from jump is hard and wrong mentality. Better to just focus on your own game over time at a table the fish and shark will reveal themselves. People try a lot to hide with their appearance, mannerism etc but they cannot hide their gameplay.

hugh blair · Dec 27, 2018

Humpback or grey whale not good to be lol killer whale a different superstar type of whale.:hahaha:

MemphisGrind · Dec 27, 2018

hugh blair said:
Humpback or grey whale not good to be lol killer whale a different superstar type of whale.:hahaha:

Lol I’ll give you that

unnamed72 · Dec 27, 2018

The main sign is playing too many hands, these players are very unpredictable and your QQ can be easily beaten by K-3, it’s so pity to see. That.((

SirYivx · Dec 27, 2018

Fish and Sharks are the easy ones to identify and play against, it is the ones who are hard to identify that are hard to play with!

makisaa · Dec 27, 2018

I think that every poker player, sometimes comes to the position of a shark which is increasing as he improoves his game. Like when many players have good cards and they go all in, and someone becomes the shark and the rest fishes!

ph_il · Dec 27, 2018

Any player that folds to the point where are forced to play hand with 1 BB or less is a fish in my book.

...unless they wake up with AA and double up off of me. Then I let them know how much of a smart player they are. "Never give up, right?"

Spaceman · Dec 27, 2018

UncleConRon said:
Thank you for the advice. I usally play right away on cash games because time is money. I didn't know I was a fish.

For me its a dead tell that I am against a player that have no patience and discipline. Its the same as playing a ton of hands cause they dont like waiting for good cards but a little worse actually cause you dont even get to see the hand you are about to play. Posting a blind utg just to not wait is telling me you are a rec that hope to get lucky, dont care about hand selection that much and possibly you dont understand the power of position well. Although I dont find it unbelievable for good players to do it sometimes when they have good position and a whale is in the hand.

greatgame230 · Dec 27, 2018

very aggressive players
players who do not know their position
but above all that they think that the rest of us are stupid as to not realize that they are bad poker players

AKbadboyAK · Dec 27, 2018

Spaceman said:
We all have our signs of recognizing the good and the bad player. My favorite dead tell of a fish is in cash games where they cant wait for the big blind to come to them and they post it out of position. Whats yours?

If you are at a table over 30 minutes and you do not know your weak players and certainly good are you is the fish for them.

acemenow · Dec 27, 2018

There has got to be a wide range of what makes a fish. I've been playing for over 10 year's. And the more I study the more I read both posts and articles, the more I realize I am still a fish. Not that it matters but with 10 year's of experience being a fish I would think I am at a minimum well seseasoned, a squirt of lemon and hot off the grill !

hugh blair · Dec 27, 2018

acemenow said:
There has got to be a wide range of what makes a fish. I've been playing for over 10 year's. And the more I study the more I read both posts and articles, the more I realize I am still a fish. Not that it matters but with 10 year's of experience being a fish I would think I am at a minimum well seseasoned, a squirt of lemon and hot off the grill !

That makes two of us haha:hahaha:

SatisfyMe · Dec 27, 2018

Poker is such a dangerous game bad beats can come from fish and good players.Poker would be no fun if there were no fish players to keep the action going.

There are different types of fish players.

Recreational fish players
Hardcore fish players
Bored fish players
And the GoodPlayer fish players

acemenow · Dec 27, 2018

hugh blair said:
That makes two of us haha:hahaha:

IDK if I should laugh or cry, given you usually dominate me on the tables LOL

Identify the Fish and the Shark

Spaceman

Legend

MemphisGrind

Think Bink

GameTooHard

Rock Star

sheltowee420

Rock Star

UncleConRon

Visionary

Alucard

Santoryu

MemphisGrind

Think Bink

hugh blair

Legend

MemphisGrind

Think Bink

hugh blair

Legend

MemphisGrind

Think Bink

PHX

Legend

hugh blair

Legend

MemphisGrind

Think Bink

unnamed72

Rock Star

SirYivx

Rock Star

makisaa

Legend

ph_il

...

Spaceman

Legend

greatgame230

Visionary

AKbadboyAK

Rock Star

acemenow

Legend

hugh blair

Legend

SatisfyMe

Enthusiast

acemenow

Legend

About CardsChat

Our Community

Our Site