subject: Play Free Poker Free Lesson On What A Rock Player Is And How To Beat Them [print this page] Play Free Poker Free Lesson On What A Rock Player Is And How To Beat Them
To be a successful winning poker player, even just in fun free poker online, it's critical that you know about the different types of players and habits you will find in the poker world online and offline. That's just common sense.
If you play poker online for free, low stakes cash games and freerolls, you'll come across 4 types of player personality 95% of the time. The quicker you are able to establish which player type you are up against, the quicker you can adopt your tactics for that particular type.
Nearly all players you encounter are going to belong in one of the 4 following tribes. 1) Rocks, 2) Maniacs, 3) Calling stations or ATMs as I like to call them as they give you money so easy, and 4) The Pro. In this article we'll focus on the Rock player type.
Rocks, like their geological name suggests are steady, reliable, dependable and unmoving.
They play very tight, exceptionally so if out of position and will only play a tiny card range, typically a Rock will only play upto 12% of hands.
These hands must be AA, KK, QQ, JJ and as well include just about any mixture of face/Broadway cards, low pocket pairs and sometimes suited connectors in position with a limp.
Rocks are simple level players, they are honest and nearly never bluff. If a rock places a big bet then you cna be 99% sure that it means they have a big hand, the sort of hand they will shove with if pushed to. A rock will also seldom fight back against a three bet.
Once you're identified a Rock which, when you get used to it won't take long, you now need to play them in the best way to beat them (obviously!). One thing to know is that you don't have to take too long to decide what to do, rocks to tend to telegraph their hands to you!
Let's look at a rock away from the poker table.
If you needed to remove a big rock from the garden for instance what would be the best way? You wouldn't attempt to pick the whole thing up all at once as you may hurt yourself, what you're more likely to do is break it up into small pieces and shovel it into a skip, and this is how we will remove the rock from the poker table, bit by bit. We will chip away at them with small raises, especially in position.
We'll constantly be stealing their blinds with a massive range, nearly every two cards. This works well in the later stages of a tournament once the blinds are bigger and you approach the bubble.
A rock is not a great post flop player, they either hit or miss in their own mind set. We should also be looking to take pot control lines, and flat calling in position with suited connectors provides us with great implied odds.
There are a few things you shouldn't be doing against rocks and these clearly include playing big pots with weak hands, like one pair. Playing hands that are easily dominated against a rock's range can also be a big problem.
If you remember back to the type of hands I described that are in a rock's range, then you'll realise hands like AJ, A9, KJ, and Q10 are all in bad shape. One more thing to consider is, firing double barrel bluffs don't work, these guys don't play cabbage.
So lets summarize our rock strategy.
Firstly, don't immediately assume a player is a rock based on early actions, a few folds doesn't mean a player is a rock, observe them over several hands and see how they act on their own blinds and when they're in different positions. Keep in mind that you're playing free poker online or micro cash stakes poker. A raise means a decent hand, a check means I have something I will fold. Avoid big pots with rocks, use your shovel and chip away.
When you are new to poker then I suggest you play poker online for free first to get a no risk feel for the game and learn to learn and play against the various player types (you will find many rocks in free poker games).
And what better place to play poker online free than at http://www.NoPayPOKER.com where you don't have the fear of losing money like you do at on money sites or live tables yet you can still win real cash.
