Passive players are without doubt the most exploitable player type in poker, and that makes them the very best opponents to play against. They will play their hands face-up, let you control the size of the pot and rarely or never bluff. They also have the terrible habit of not seeing past their own hand. In poker terms, these guys are the fish that sustain the ecosystem, and they have little hope of winning in the long term unless they change their game. Despite this, some people continually get themselves into sticky spots against these weak-passive players, but there’s really no excuse for doing so.
Passive players are the most profitable to play because they love to call and hate to raise. It’s almost like the raise and fold buttons have been removed from their poker interface, replaced by a single massive call button. The beauty of this player type is you can get them to stack off fairly light. If a passive guy makes a top pair-type hand he usually won’t fold, so as long as you don’t burn money by getting your bet-sizing wrong, it’s not a particularly taxing task to felt them. The other brilliant thing is that it’s not difficult to see the strength of their hand, as they won’t go beyond thinking about the strength of their own cards, and once you understand what level that is, you have your man.
Problems with passivity
The problem a lot of aggressive (good) players have with this player type is that they overrate their own ability to assess what aspects of a weak-passive player’s range they’ll fold. Passive players are often called calling stations because of their tendency never to relinquish anything they find remotely interesting. Forget this at your peril.Passive players can be exceptionally annoying because they will not play intelligent poker on a higher level – they simply find a hand they like and call every street or, if they have the nuts, they raise.
What passive poker players do is call with every draw, marginal hand or even air till you hit their pain barrier or they miss. If a weak-passive player ever raises you, you should pretty much fold with everything but the nuts or near to it. And if a weak passive player check-raises on the turn, flop or river? You fold everything but the immortal nuts!
Read part II