subject: How Bad Players Play Less Bad [print this page] In poker, when players are not good enough, are weak or loose, they tend to pool up in their actions, all of them making the same kind of bad call and thus making the bad call not so bad in the end! These kinds of combined actions are referred to as schooling in poker, quite similar to the way defenceless fish school together as a natural defence mechanism. While there are ample complaints about these actions by the seasoned players who genuinely wanted to play a good hand when everybody else on the table are going to the river, a genuinely smart poker player will work the school to his/her advantage.
Let us see an example that can explain schooling better. Consider a $10/20 Holdem. Lets say you have an A9 on the big blind with six other bad players on the table. The fold is AT5 and though its not so great, you bet, just to see what happens. All six people call, obviously giving you an edge towards the fold. But of course, the school has no idea about this and everybody takes well when another Ace happens to be the turn. So you bet $20 into the pot of $140. Lets say now that our six opponents, for the sake of making a good schooling example, have KQ, KJ, QJ, 43, 42, and 32. If you do the math, out of the thirty two cards left in the deck there are only 2 cards that make a winner out of each opponent. The odds are 16-1. Now when you bet, KQ calling you with his pitiful 8-1 odds on a 16-1 draw is obviously a bad call. But if, everyone else is calling too, by the time 32 is reached he is putting in $20 on a handsome $260 and getting 13-1 on a 16-1 draw which makes 32s call, a not-so-bad call, especially when compared to KQs call. Whats more? Now KQs call also becomes a good-enough call. This is exactly what schooling is.
Ideally, if everybody folds when you place a bet the turn with your A9, you win $140, 100% of the time. But with everyone else calling too, your chances of winning have dwindled to 65%. In this case, 65 times out of hundred, you make another $120 and 35 times you lose $20. Now, considering there is some action on the river, we will be losing $30 on an average all the 35 times. So 35 times out of 100, the school draws $50 out of us. So 65 times, you are making $260 i.e. $16,900 and 35 times you are losing $50, i.e. $1750. That means you are still profiting a lot from the actions of the school with a profit of $15,150. Whats more, this is $1,150 more than what you would have made if everybody folded when you made the bet for hundred times ($14,000).
So a good player would work a school to his or her benefit rather than wishing that everybody had folded when indeed there is a handsome rise of profits!
