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!
Understanding your image
One of the most important factors in beating a weak-passive player is recognising your image and adjusting to this quickly. Weak-passive players are generally fish who will be playing just one table and will be incredibly attentive to what you are doing. Given that playing poker is just a pastime to them, they want to focus whatever understanding they have of the game on just one table. If you are a tighter player in general, you will get a lot more moves through against this player type than if you are more active.
So how should you go about exploiting whatever image you have at the table? Well, firstly, you should have a rough idea what sort of hand they have and what they are liable to call you down with. A large proportion of weak-passive players will happily peel a turn with any piece of a flop (4d-5d on Qc-6d-Kd, for instance), but often they will give up to a second barrel. If you haven’t been getting too out of line, you can definitely get away with betting scare cards and throwing out big bets on scary boards on later streets. Bet-sizing is crucial to beating these guys, as they will not be thinking on a high enough level to assume that a smaller bet is likely to be for value – they view bigger bets as stronger hands and are way less inclined to call a bet that would put their stake in jeopardy. But if you are going to make a play at one of these guys make sure your image is CLEAN!
Balancing act
If you play an active, involved style of poker, you will get noticed by this guy. If you have shown down any air, made big bets with any sort of marginal hands or, heaven forbid, made a big bluff that got to showdown, you might have to take a step back to consider your limitations when in a pot with the weak-passive player.
When you are in a hand against this player type, your mantra should be value, value, value. You should never be thinking about actually playing poker and making moves, just making strong hands and extracting value from their calls. As with virtually every single live cash game up to £2/£4 in the UK, complex thinking play will generally be a second-best strategy to just having the best hand at showdown.
Exploiting passive players
So, given what we’ve covered so far, how should you adjust your play to most effectively exploit weak-passive players? Well, a major factor in your ability to play a specific range against these fish is stack size. Let’s say a calling station limps in mid position with a 70BB stack and you are on the button. The blinds are, respectively, a winning but overly tight TAG and a LAG with a loose three-betting range. In three different hypothetical hands you are dealt 5-6 suited, T-8 offsuit and 9-7 offsuit. How should you proceed with these hands? Fold, all of them. Against this type of player this short-stacked, you want to flop a strong top pair-type hand, and the presence of a loose-aggressive player to your left means you’re going to get three-bet frequently once he realises what you’re doing. Now, if you both had 200BB it would be a different story. In that case if you didn’t isolate with those hands you would be losing money, given that you have position and would be able to extract a big chunk of chips from your opponent if you flopped any strong two-pair hand or better. The lesson? Your range for isolating a weak-passive player is highly dependent on stack size and position.
Postflop you should generally be playing a really predictable ABC game when heads-up against a calling station, only putting in big bets and raises with super-strong hands. Usually a basic continuation-betting strategy will be more than enough to beat them. Getting involved in complex multi-street plays will only get you into trouble. Attempting to represent a hand or make them fold top pair or better or going for some sort of check-raise on any street (for value or as a bluff) would be a terrible strategy. Just make a strong hand or strong draw and bet, bet, bet (assuming you get there with your draw).
Because this player type won’t be thinking about how balanced your range is or what hands you would be checking, betting and raising, you can play a very straightforward pure value game against this guy when your image is bad (i.e. you’ve been seen bluffing a lot). If somehow you make a big bluff that the calling station calls you must make a note! Do not bluff this guy again any time in the near future, as you will get snap-called so fast your arm will come off. Once a weak-passive player pegs you as a bluffer, especially if he feels he’s being abused, beware, as you will see plenty of ridiculous call-downs and generally horrible play. If you notice that the fish is wobbling/getting fed up that you have some hand strength, control the pot size well (because these guys tilt a lot and are liable to make insane plays when they do snap) and above all value-bet them mercilessly.