Playing
Poker Against Rocks
Poker players who play
extremely tight and refuse to put money in the
pot with anything less than the nuts are called
“rocks.” If you get stuck at a table full of
rocks, it’s preferable to find a new table
rather than continue sitting with them. If
that’s not possible, not all hope is lost. There
are several things you can do to either take
advantage of their behavior or get them to
loosen up.
Play like a Maniac to
Generate Action
Many rocks think that maniacs
are idiots who don’t play poker “the right way.”
Maniacal play is just the recipe to annoy those
rocks and get them to open up their games. When
you find yourself at a table full of rocks, you
can turn into a maniac to generate action. Start
raising lots of hands, making lots of
continuation bets and placing all kinds of
random bluffs after the flop.
At first, you’ll win a lot of
pots without having to show anything down. That
in itself is a decent source of money.
Eventually, though, the rocks will become
irritated with your behavior and attempt to play
back at you. When they do that, you can then
switch back to a normal tight-aggressive mode
and wait for a strong hand.
You won’t always get a strong
hand before the rocks forget about your maniacal
days. They’ll then return to rock status and
forget you ever existed. That then, is the
perfect moment for you to return to maniac
status. They’ll remember you now and this time
it won’t take long at all for them to become
irritated and change their play against you.
Do you see the pattern here?
Keep this up for a while and you’ll have the
rocks falling to pieces right at the table.
Eventually, you’ll catch a real hand and take
one of the rocks to the cleaners with it. All
the other rocks will see this and they will then
fear you. With their fear in your favor, you’ll
be the dominant force at the table. You’ll be
able to steal at will and nobody will stand up
to you. If someone does decide to take a stand,
you can switch back to normal tight-aggressive
mode for a while.
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Reading the Rocks’ Hands
Rocks are the most predictable
poker players of them all. Take note of how many
hands the rock plays and watch the types of
hands the rock shows down with. You’ll quickly
be able to tell what types of hand the rocks
plays and how he plays them.
After the flop, the rocks
continue that same predictable pattern. Almost
every bet a rock makes after the flop is a sign
of a real hand. Even rocks know how to bluff but
they don’t do it often. If a rock bets and you
have no other information to go on, consider it
to be a sign the rock has an unusually strong
hand.
Settle for Smaller Pots
As much fun as it is
manipulating rocks into giving up big pots, it
doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you won’t be
able to catch hands at the right time and other
times your opponents refuse to budge. In that
case, you have to learn to settle for smaller
pots.
Take stabs at small pots every
chance you get. There are a lot of small pots
that go unclaimed in rocky games. Just place a
small bet whenever you see a lonely looking pot.
Sometimes you’ll be called but other times,
you’ll pad your stack with a little pot.
Don’t try to steal big pots in
rocky games. Those pots are big because at least
one tightwad found it worth it to put a lot of
money in the pot. It’s generally a bad idea to
steal big pots in tight games. It’s just too
likely that someone has a strong hand.
Keep Your Eyes Open for a New
Table
Even though it’s possible to
win at rocky tables, there’s no point in playing
at them if you can avoid it. In general, you
make less money by playing at tight tables. It’s
much better to find tables that have loose
players than it is to try to extract money from
tightwads.
