Ashton Cartwright Poker

Recreational Players

Recreational players (also known “Recreational gamblers”, Weak Players, or less charitably as Muppets, Donkeys, Bananas, or simply “Bad Players”) are the main reason professional poker players make money. They are by far the most lucrative opponents for you to play against, and you should do your utmost to seek them out whenever possible. These are the players who aren’t really playing to make money, they just enjoy the game, or they love to gamble. They like the excitement of seeing what each flop will bring, they like being able to surprise someone with a hand that their opponents never expected, and they like the adrenaline rush they get when they see the big pots come towards them (or even go away from them).

While there are often differences between one recreational gambler and the next, they all tend to have similar weaknesses in their game.

They play too many hands:

By far the most common error that recreational players make is playing too many hands. A typical tight player might play no more than 15% of the hands that they are dealt. They will usually play pairs, big AK/AQ/KQ type hands, and sometimes suited connectors or cards with a gap. Most recreational players will play 30% of their hands or more. It’s not uncommon to see a player playing over 60% of the hands that they are dealt. These players are playing any Ace, any King, any 2 big cards, any 2 suited cards, any 2 cards that are remotely connected, and any hand where they “just feel lucky”. Folding is boring, so they rarely do it.

They put too much money in with weak hands:

Once a recreational player hits any piece of the flop, they are usually reluctant to fold. They hate the thought of being bluffed out of a pot, so they will tend to call right to the river with hands like top pair no kicker, middle pair, or sometimes even bottom pair or ace high. They watch poker on TV, and they see people making big bluffs all day long, and they decide that they aren’t going to let anyone push them around. Their thinking goes like this:

“I called a raise with Q8s, and now the flop has come A 8 4 and that guy is betting into me. If he doesn’t have an Ace I’m probably ahead, and even if he does have an Ace I might hit a Q or an 8. . . So I will call.”

On the turn a 7 comes, and the aggressor bets again, and the recreational player thinks: “Hmm, I know that 7 didn’t help him, and I’ve already called once, so I should probably call this bet too. I might be ahead, or if I’m behind I can still hit a Q or an 8 and win a big pot.”

The river is a K and the aggressor bets again “Well there is already so much money in the pot that I can’t fold now. If he has me beat then I was just unlucky”.

So he calls the river bet and his Q8 loses to the raisers AK.

The recreational player sees this and congratulates himself on his good read: “Yeah I thought he probably had the Ace, but he could easily have been bluffing, so I made the right call. That’s just the way poker goes sometimes. . .”

It sounds silly, but this is the way many recreational players think a hand through.

They pay too much to draw:

Recreational players don’t usually know odds, and if they do know them they don’t act upon that knowledge. If they have a flush draw they will happily call a pot sized bet on the flop and then another one on the turn. Why? Because they might hit a flush! That’s all the reason they need. The fact that they are getting incorrect odds doesn’t bother them at all. We have all seen players who will call pot sized bets with draws as weak as a gutshot, and then display their hand proudly when their card comes in. Against players like this, just making large bets with strong hands is the way to succeed. If they don’t mind paying too much to draw, they you should be charging them the maximum every step of the way. Sure they may make their draw and win the pot, but don’t let that worry you. As long as you make sure that they are getting bad odds on their draw, then you’ve done your job properly.

They don’t choose bet sizes relevant to the pot size:

Recreational players are often quite passive, but when they do bet they choose bet sizes based on some logic that makes sense in their head, but is rarely related to the pot size. They might make a 1BB bet into a 20BB pot. They might shove all in for 70BB into a 6BB pot. They will often bet too little to charge draws, or too much to get callers. If they have called pot sized bets on the flop and turn to try and hit a flush draw, they may lead out with a tiny bet on the river when the flush actually hits. They would rather bet 2BB and get called every time than bet 40BB and only get called half the time, even though the 40BB bet will make 10 times more on average.

They have no regard for position:

A9o is a reasonable hand on the button if nobody has entered the pot. It’s almost certainly too weak to play profitably from UTG however. That usually applies for Q9s, JTo, or K8s as well.

A recreational player doesn’t make such differentiations however. If K8s is good on the button, it’s also good in middle position or UTG. If they get dealt a hand they like, they will play it no matter where they are.

They ignore the relevance of raises:

If a recreational player decides a hand is good enough to play, he will play it whether the pot is limped, or raised, or often even if the pot is re-raised. If he believes K9s is a good hand, he will limp UTG with it and then call any raises as long as the raise is “reasonable” in his mind. This might be 4BB or it might be 10BB. If you can find out the upper limit that the recreational player will call, always raise to that amount when you have a strong hand and the recreational player has already entered the pot. If you are dealt AA and the recreational player has limped, just go ahead and raise to whatever amount you have seen that player call before, even if it’s 10 or 12BB. Don’t worry about scaring the player off; if he has a hand he wants to play, he will play regardless of the price.

They disregard stack sizes:

Recreational players are more likely to buy in for stack sizes somewhere between the minimum and the maximum; most of the time they have no practical reason for this. They might buy in for 20BB because that’s the buy in at their home games, or 55bb because their street number is number 55, or 75BB because they “don’t want to risk any more than that”, or 48BB because they were born on the 4th of August. The size of their buy in won’t have any affect on the types of hands they play. They might call for 25% of their stack with pocket 2’s hoping to flop a set, or they might call with T7s for a 20% of their stack, just because that’s their favourite hand. The fact that their stack is too small to get a relevant payout on their long-shot hands doesn’t concern them.

Playing against recreational players:

The optimal strategy against such players is this:

“Play good hands, bet them strongly when you hit, and don’t bother bluffing”

Pretty simple.

If you have a big pair or an AK/AQ/KQ type hand, just go ahead and raise a large amount. No need to diversify you plays by occasionally limping behind or min-raising these players. They aren’t paying enough attention to notice that you only raise with strong hands, so you don’t need to bother trying to trap them.

If you hit top pair/good kicker, or any other reasonably strong hand, go ahead and bet bet bet! Sometimes they will hit 2 pair and you will be unhappy, but more often than not you to will win money from a player who has A4o, hit their Ace on the flop, and called to the river with top pair no kicker.

Go ahead and play your usual mix of small pairs and suited connectors in position, but generally don’t loosen your starting requirements too much. While its true that a recreational player is playing a wide mix of hands, don’t use that as justification for playing rubbish yourself. Calling raises with hands like A6o and K9s, just because “Well he could be playing hands even worse that that, and I can just outplay him later on anyway” is not optimal strategy. The Recreational player gets dealt just as many AK’s and big pairs as you do, and you don’t want to be the one stuck in a dominated position. To outplay this type of weak player you simply play solid hands and bet them strongly when you hit. That’s it. Don’t outplay yourself by getting too tricky.

There are very few situations where bluffing a Recreational player works. They like to call, even with weak hands, and they won’t understand what hand you are representing with your bet. If you raise and the flop comes A K 9, a recreational player will quite happily call your C-bet with 89. One of the cards in their hand matches one of the cards on the board, so how can they fold? If you bet again on the turn and river, make sure you have something solid to show down. Don’t help the recreational player to make “really great calls” with their bottom pair. If you miss the flop, and your C-bet gets called, just check and fold unless you improve. Bluffing just plays into the recreational players only strength: “Nobody can bluff me!”.

The only situation where a bluff may be profitable, is in a hand where you have C-bet into a drawy board, and then the draws miss on the turn and river. It may be worth making a tiny bet in this situation, even if you only have air. Because recreational players like to draw, and also don’t care much about pot odds, you can sometimes take the pot away on the river with a bet of as little as 10% of the pot, or even a single BB. If they were on a draw that missed, they will fold, even for an itsy bitsy bet like that. If they hit any piece of the board they will call, but you don’t have to win many of these to show a profit. If you have a reasonable hand like Ace high however, you may be better off just checking it down or even calling a small river bet.

One last note on betting the river: You are in position. You hit Top Top on the flop. You have bet the flop and turn on a board with straight and flush draws. If the river fills either a flush or straight and the Recreational player checks to you, checking behind is usually better than continuing to value bet. Recreational players LOVE to slow play, even on the river. If you have bet every street, and the Rec. player makes his flush or straight, he will almost certainly check to you on the river, hoping for a check-raise.

Even the recreational players who play better than described above will almost certainly make some of the errors listed. Maybe they don’t call raises with K4s, but they will call with K9s. Perhaps they won’t call pot sized bets with gutshot draws, but they will call with open-ended straight draws. Maybe they won’t call 3 bets with middle pair, but they will call one bet on the flop and another one on the river. The sooner you find out how much these players are willing to pay, the faster you will win money from them.

These players are found at every level, and in every type of game. Unsurprisingly however, they are more common at the lower buy-in levels than at the higher ones. You will also encounter more recreational players at a casino than you will at the small-medium stakes online games. Keep an eye out for them wherever you play; they will be the easiest money at the table, and your overall results will be heavily skewed by how effectively you maximize against these players.