the mind of a fish

they are the guys who keep the whole online poker running, be glad

Believe me i am. Thats not the question in mind.. Im asking why do they play like that ? What are they thinking ? why do they keep going ?

as i said its not a rant, im doing really great at the stakes im playing. never better so it has nothing to do with me "losing to them" and freaking out. Im just curious why. so if you know please answer my questions.

seeing you didn't answer my questions.

I don't think you are in position to tell who is sucker in life or poker. What if high stakes pro would ask you. Why are you playing nl10? why you suck at poker so much? why thinking is such standard?

I don't think that fishes are failure in life. Lets say you are NL100 reg. You win 3 stacks in a day you are somewhat happy. Now drunk fish comes and dumps 500-1k$ in 3 hours just for fun. Does that mean that he is sucker at life? Doubt it.

Why they play bad? Because they don't want to learn a game. They come back from job or whatever they do and just want to have fun

Usually they think the plays they make are good. They're not trying to lose their money as fast as possible (rare exceptions here, yes).

For example your guy who limp/calldowns with AA.

His limp preflop could be for many reasons. 1) He might try to limp/3bet trap the guys next to him (because they're annoying him by raising a lot when he just wants to see the flop by limping!). So it's also for balance as he limps lots of other hands. 2) He's limping because he does not want to put more money in until he has seen if the board comes good for him. He does not know or like the principle that you should play aggressively. Better be cautious and wait for the flop.

Better be careful than risk too much. That's why people like to limp. That's also why he's just calling down his AA. Somebody could have two pairs etc and he does not want to lose too much in case he's beat. Many people don't like to risk big. Losing hurts. Losing big hurts more.

Let's say you're new to poker. You don't know the good strategy. Do you just raise a lot or rather stay passive and see what's going on, hoping to get lucky? Lot's of "fishes" are just hoping to get lucky. And they try to lose less and be more cautious when they don't have the nuts.

Also, many people consider poker to be a game of luck, or overestimate the luck element. They're sitting at the casino for gambling fun, not for winning. They like the thrill of gambling! They like the risk. Some people like bigger risks (the guy who coldcalled the cap with 42s).

Do you think that people who go to casino think they have the edge? No. Some do, but most are just enjoying the gambling fun.

And they're not retarded (rare exceptions again as always :--D). They could be even geniouses just relaxing at a poker table. Maybe they don't take the game so seriously as you do. Winning money in poker is not as important for them as it is for you. Do you always have to win? Many people just play because they enjoy it and don't care too much about winning.

I hope this helps a bit

They play like this because they think that it's the best possible way to play the hand.

It's as simple as that.

They think very basically which makes it easy to understand how they play.

We've pretty much all thought like that when we started playing but we (I hope) learned and became better.

That's also why we beat them really hard.

Originally posted by cubinis
I don't think you are in position to tell who is sucker in life or poker. What if high stakes pro would ask you. Why are you playing nl10? why you suck at poker so much? why thinking is such standard?

I don't think that fishes are failure in life. Lets say you are NL100 reg. You win 3 stacks in a day you are somewhat happy. Now drunk fish comes and dumps 500-1k$ in 3 hours just for fun. Does that mean that he is sucker at life? Doubt it.

Why they play bad? Because they don't want to learn a game. They come back from job or whatever they do and just want to have fun

This is FL and im asking not telling they are. and I really do want to ask why they play like that. I have concluded from seeing people all my life , that if they wont improve and just play to lose (they must know they are since they keep depositing) that they are not a winning player. and they may be okay with that I don't know

and i would tell the high stakes pro. that i am trying to improve and get up to the highest stakes I suck because ive only been playing for 2 - 3 years. so i have a lot to learn yet.

you guys taavi and willy make a very good point i can understand that. It seems possible or the most likely reason .. awesome. Its just ive always wondered, but i guess i haven't thought of the possibility that people dont take it as seriously as i do. or have the "I want to be the best" regarding poker gene. As I have.

taavi please write over skype ♦ ?

I think you might enjoy this. Observe how the buttons play turned out to be absolutely totally perfect.

/Johan =

Im not sure why you named this thread "the mind of a fish" are u talking about other peoples mind or just yours?

this is a typical bad attitude in poker,

1) you make money out of these people
2) no reason to think you are a superior being because there s always someone better than you...
3) so if someone is playing bad its automatically because he likes to loose, and if he wakes up the next day thinking "oh id like to try winning today" he can just switch over

quote:
"I get more satisfaction and joy beating other people than being beaten. im a true sadist literally. I love to step on people and say im better than you. you failure of life.. I dont understand their way of thinking. can anyone tell me what or why they do what they do ? "

if your so great work it out for yourself

Originally posted by BeN78
Im not sure why you named this thread "the mind of a fish" are u talking about other peoples mind or just yours?

this is a typical bad attitude in poker,

1) you make money out of these people
2) no reason to think you are a superior being because there s always someone better than you...
3) so if someone is playing bad its automatically because he likes to loose, and if he wakes up the next day thinking "oh id like to try winning today" he can just switch over

quote:
"I get more satisfaction and joy beating other people than being beaten. im a true sadist literally. I love to step on people and say im better than you. you failure of life.. I dont understand their way of thinking. can anyone tell me what or why they do what they do ? "

if your so great work it out for yourself

take it easy big guy. Im not thinking im superior to anyone in poker. and yes "the mind of a fish" the fish we make our money from , those who dont care or dont know their strategy isn't the best. that is a fish a bad player. I wanted to know why a guy just wants to have fun and dont mind losing money. that was all .

about the quote. that was more to real life than in poker. and it doesn't mean i cant feel the less good person because when i see all of my friends who play higher and are better than me, i know im not better than them. I hate that feeling though, hence why i try to improve.

I am trying to work it out for myself. Im asking for help to figure it out. hence the thread in the first place. Im being good and honest to myself to say and know that i couldn't possible get a good enough answer just asking myself. thats why i was asking for help to figure it out.

and i dont think its a bad attitude to ask why people do when you dont understand what they do. It's human curiosity.

to your number 3) .. I dont believe i stated that playing bad equals they like losing. as i was proven wrong by the ones who was kind enough to actually answer my questions and not go attacking me as a person . If you don't like my questions why do you bother writing me a reply and go attack me as a person ? telling me i have a bad attitude and that i have a mind of a fish. come on you know. dont waste time on berating a person who is asking for help.

same would be if you got a flat tire. I would come and stop and you would ask me to help you and i would just go and say "oh you are so fat and ugly , your car is even more ugly" and then just drive away.

useless and not a proper answer making it a unneccessary response.

I think the answer is simple: the just treat poker as another Roulette. Any 2 cards can win. They can bluff too. If they have one hot streak, that's enough to give them a high. And they'll come back to lose more and more blaming the losses on bad luck.

because they win many times, poker is an aleatory game the best starting hand loose at showdown 2 out of 5 times, winning in a wrong way keeps them in play. Than the idea poker is all about bluff and slowplay makes them limp AA or move all in in NL when in the pot there are just 10bb.

I think rr2200 got it closest. They gamble.

I think Darwinian selection affects the type of fish that are common. Loose passive fish rarely win and loose interest. Loose aggressive fishes are harder to take down, so less negative EV, and also their higher variance masks their negative EV. Suppose a gambler goes to a casino and he's going to gamble $1000 in total action. If he bets it $5 at a time, he has got a higher chance of losing than if he puts $1000 on the don't pass line in craps, which is almost a coin flip. Loose aggressive limit Hold'em fish are like the plungers that bet it all on one roll of the dice. Variance is their friend, because it increases the chance they will win on any given night.

From playing face-to-face, I can say there's also an element of evil in most big fish (and that goes for most pros too, including myself.) For example, in a live limit game, not small stakes, a fish 5-bet me preflop out of the big blind with 72. He got a huge evil smirk on his face when the flop came 772. (I couldn't get off my hand, KK, because I didn't know if he was acting or simply couldn't keep a poker face.) The fish like to make plays they know are not "by the book" and suck out on you or bluff you out. They play for style points. They play for the thrill of winning big pots. They don't play for expected value - they play for humor value - they play for thrill kill value.

I still would like to have greater insight into the minds of fish. I can get inside the minds of weak pros, and tear them to pieces. I usually don't understand what a fish is thinking, and so it's harder for me to nail him. When a fish bets a pair of deuces on the river and pays off a raise, what was he thinking? Was he bluffing or value betting? Does he even know himself? (I suspect the answer is that he was bluffing, but now thinks you are bluffing, so he calls.) I believe a lot of loose-aggressive fish are not thinking much at all. They are playing a style, adjusted by feel based on your betting actions. Many fish, even those with years of experience at high limits, understand only their cards and the board; they are incapable of reading your hand. They are incapable of fathoming that they don't have the nuts when the board is KQ2J and they have T9. Deliberately or by Darwinian selection, I think loose-aggressive fish also just like to go bonkers with second nuts, because their opponents will often play back at them with less, since they seem so loony tunes.

There is some method to their madness.