100K Fish Frying System

Lesson 1
Most of our winnings come from fish, so we want to focus on improving our game against them, so
we can exploit them even more. Against regulars we can increase our winrate marginally, but against
fish we have a lot of room.

Exploiting Fish 101
Step 1: Identify Them
Random stack size (40-to-90bbs)
Limp
High VPIP
Postflop:
a) a, way too passive: huge gap between VPIP & PFR, low aggression frequencies (10-20-as
krli aggression %)
b) b, way too aggressive: 65/45 preflop, high aggression frequencies (50%+)
Showdown early = goldmine of information
Not positionally aware
Defend their blinds too widely (usually calling)

Step 2: Play pots with them
We want to play many many pots with them. Against fish more hands are going to become
profitable, because your skill advantage is so higher than the fish's. He's going to make many
mistakes and you arent making that much. For example Q6s on BTN might not be all that profitable
against regs, but if a fish limps before you, or he is in the blinds, then all of a sudden it becomes
profitable.
Get them heads-up
a) a, isolate their limps (and when they are in blinds)
b) b, 3bet their opens (99+, AJ+, KQ)
c) c, re-isolate
Keep them involved (If a fish limps and a reg isolates him, we mostly want to just call there,
so to not discourage the fish to enter the pot)

Step 3: Extract
Reasons for betting:
1. Value
2. Bluff (It's mostly a bad strategy against most types of fish, so we mainly want to value bet)
o We developed the habit of always trying to fight for pots, but it mainly is not a good
strategy against fish.


Lesson 2
Do not play on Level 3 or 4. Stay on level 2 or 2 1/2.
We want to play a level above our opponent.
Balance doesnt matter!
With strong hands you can bet large (like pot, pot, pot), with mediocre less, and with
crap even less. you dont have to balance.
Flex, flex, flex
Mostly you will bet size your hand. The better your hand is, the bigger you bet. A fish
doesnt recognize it.
Range target
a) a, Go big or go home
b) b, Thin is in (if his rang eis mostly weaker hands you can have the nuts but you should bet
only a small amount so he calls with his weaker hands)

Dont give credit that villain can fold trips on the river. He almost never folds a hand that strong. So if
it looks like he has trips, then maximize value by targeting that in his range by jamming for example.
Board: AcQc9s7dAh
Hero: 99 (or AK)
Villain's range: [many Ax(target this to maximize value), some medium pairs, some busted draws]

Board: A93r
Hero J8s
Villain's range: [many Ax combos, many air combos (target this with your cbet)]
He never folds Ax combos to any bet size, but the air combos he almost always folds to any bet size.
So flex your cbet, you can get away betting 1/2 or 1/3 ps bet.

Build image, but beware your image.
We want to isolate him and his limps a lot, 3betting him and so on. The more likely we build image at
the beginning of our session the more likely he will snap and get furious and make mistakes.
They will respond emotionally instead of logically.

When we built the image and played aggressively against him and we start to feel that he begins to
play back at us, thats when we have to take off our foot from the pedal and slow down, and wait for
a value hand, when we can value bet aggressively even thinly and we can stack him off lighter than
we would normally be able to.


Lesson 3
On two tone flops(or wet flops) if fish min.raises us, it often indicates weakness.
In general, most fish are very aware of the presence of flushes and flush draws, but not
aware of straight draws.
On dry flops min.raises are most often strong, top pair or better.

Fish minraises on flop:
a) a, on two-tone flop = usually Weak
b) b, on rainbow flop = usually Strong

At river jamming, many fish may think you wouldnt bet this big if you want him to call, so it gets out
his "calling reflex" because of curiosity.

Weird action (typing in the chatbox; overbet shoving..) -> Curiosity -> Mike Caro's "calling reflex"

"If you rely on a Passive to bet for you, usually you will end up disappointed"
Eliminate "Standard" from your vocabulary!!



Lesson 4
Crushing Calling Station
4 categories of recreational players:
1. Passive / Station:
He will be limping and calling a lot preflop (50-60 VPIPs), they will be calling down a lot.
2. Passive / Fit-or-Fold
Most common line is limp/call preflop and then ck/fold... They will be waiting for big hands.
You beat passive players by taking the betting lead by being aggressive.
3. Aggressive / Spewy
They will be aggressive both preflop and postflop. They will be raising often and so on.
4. Aggressive / Overplays hand
They dont realize they overplay their hands. Maybe betting 2nd pair for value or top pair no
kicker for value.

1. Passive / Station
Identifying:
Psychology:
o They are there to have fun and play
o Want to see as many flops as possible
o optimists: want to chase every draw, KJ overcards, etc. to see if they can hit sth by the
river
o like a slot machine

Skeptics/paranoid:
have heard poker is all about bluffing ("I put you on AK"; "I sensed you were bluffing")

huge gap between VPIP & PFR
low aggression frequencies postflop / low raise cbet stats / etc.
low fold vs. cbet & other "fold vs." stats
they repeatedly limp/call pre, check/call flop

Showdown:
weak pair after calling 2 or 3 streets
A high / K high overcards after calling 1 or 2 streets

Our strategy:
1, Value bet them to death
2, Dont make big calls
= bet/fold, bet/fold, bet/fold
- when he plays back mostly you can fold, unless you have nuts
Extreme plays vs. Extreme player types
Extreme laydowns vs. Extreme passives
3, Fight the temptation to bluff
We really want to take off our foot from the pedal against these players if we have air.
Remember: A passive's calling range can still include some strong hands (a slowplayed set,
or a scared TPTK, etc.)

Range targeting
We want to overbet shove often the river when we have the nuts and he probably has top pair
hand (like Ax).
If we sense he has a medium strength hand, like 2nd or 3rd pair on the river, we should bet
60% or 40% of the pot to get value from them.
Flex our bet size to the maximum
including preflop
If you have a good card, you can get away isolating bigger after his limp (6-7-8 bb). Find his
breaking pont, where he will still be limping and calling.

If they have a flush or straight draw, they will chase anyway, even vs. huge flop and turn
bets!! He wants to see the turn and river cards.

We should extract maximum value against these hands. Extract maximum value while your
equity is > 50% and their equity is <50%
So he will call 1.2 times or 1.5 times the pot to chase his draws.

Hand reading vs. Passive/Station
Postflop
His calling range
It becomes very difficult to estimate actually how wide their range is. Most of the times it is
far far wider than you think.

Not this: (TP, 2nd Pair, OESDs)
This!! (TP, 2nd Pair, Bottom Pair, A high, KJ+ overards, OESDs, Gutshots to nuts, low Gutshots)

So we should definiately go for 3 streets of value when we are top pair or better, cause he
will still call with 2nd pair type hands on the river.

His raising range
It is much narrower than you think. We should be making extreme folds against him.


Lesson 5
You beat passive players by betting, not by checking & waiting for them to bet.

So for example you are SB and folds to you, BB is 44/10 passive/calling station fish. you open K9o, he
calls. Flop 9hAd2d, you bet little more than half pot, because you are ahead of his range. Any Ax, PPs,
9x, 2x, FD, KQ, KJ, maybe QJ. Turn As. You bet 1/3 pot. River Tc. You bet out 1/4 pot. Because he can
still call with 9x, 2x, PP hands, and he will be skeptical that we have an Ace. Dont worry about being
explotable against fish.

His river calling range is elastic to our bet size. Also with the small bet we block his action, so if he
raises we can fold easily because he is strong then. But if we ck, and he bets we would face a tough
decision.

In situations where our bet is likely to get less credit or respect (like flop Axxs, turn A), we should:
a, value bet more often and more thinly, and
b, bluff less often

Multiway pots:
example: 37Js (3 villains+Hero)
vs. typical flatting ranges, the probability of at least one villain flopping a made hand of top pair or
better on a board like this equals:
a, only ~20% HU vs. 1 villain, but
b, ~50% multiway vs 3 villains
This does not include hands like 7x, FDs, combo draws, gutshots, etc. that will also continue.

In general, fish are highly aware of flush draws and flushes, but not straight draws and straights. That
makes many many fish inclined to protect their made hand.

Recreational player psychology:
fear of having the best hand now and losing the pot later
desire to win the pot right now to avoid uncomfortable situations later

Most regs will play straightforwardly in multiway pots against a calling station.

Bet bigger:
a, to maximize value now (this player type will still chase with his gutshots and bottom pairs)
b, to more easily set up stacks by the river

If turn card is:
a, bad for 2 barrelling as a bluff, then
b, it's good for value betting BIG with your strong hands, in general (and especially vs. stations)

Example: Board: 3TAr
Fish has 2 ranges here mostly:
continuing range: Ax, Tx, Gutshots (will CALL vs. any bet size [big or small])
folding range: no pair/no draw (will FOLD vs. any bet size [big or small])
His continuing range on this flop is largely inelastic to our bet size, so we can bet big here to target
his continuing range.
The only portion of his range that is elastic to our bet size are hands like PPs 44-99.


Setting up stacks by the river:
Turn:
(Effective stack - Pot)/3

Flop:
(Effective stack - Pot)/10


Lesson 6
Maximum Exploition vs. The Passive/Station
Board: 9h9dTd 4h
Inelastic portion of his range:
any Tx, any 9x, any FD, QJ, 87, J8 -> Lead us toward value-betting bigger

Elastic portion of his range:
Ax, 33-88, gutshots -> Lead us toward value-betting smaller

Zeebo's Theorem:
"Nobody ever folded a full house." -> fish thinks to himself

Recreational players get more and more attached to the pot the more money they put in.

Lesson 7
Abusing Fit or Fold
We should be manipulating the pot/bet size more against these type of players than against Calling
Stations.

Identifying:
huge gap between VPIP & PFR and/or low aggression frequencies postflop
high fold vs. cbet, or folds on later streets
they repeatedly limp/call pre, check/fold flop

Their psychology:
risk aversion
timid, "monsters under the bed" syndrome
o they play passively with their strong or medium strong hands and only play
aggressively with the nut type hands
wants to play a "safe" strategy

Their sytle:
limp/call, check/fold
straightforward with his calls & raises (tells you what he has)
o mostly if they see them ck/calling on the turn they have a medium strong hand like
TPNK or sth, and when they raise you they do that with the nut portion of their range.

Our strategy:
1, Iso & Cbet very wide range, especially IP
We still want to play many pots with them, but our profit comes from a different way than against
calling stations.
Against calling stations our red line is going down, and our blue ling is going up. Against fit-or-fold,
our red line is going up.
can get away with:
a, small cbets as a bluff on dry boards vs. inelastic ranges
b, huge cbets for value on dry boards vs. inelastic ranges

2, Multiple barrels on scare cards vs. villains capable of folding later streets
pl. 4c7h4h Kh; 8d6d7d 3c Ad; 8s4h2c Qc
If their flop fold to cbet is high (pl. 59%), and Turn is like 36%, River 22%, of course against this
player it's not profitable to barrell off.
Against a player who folds flop around 50%, turn 50-60% and river like 60-70%, when we get some
great barrelling cards on the turn and river, we want to fire multiple barrells.
Doesnt matter whether you can credibly represent the scare card, only thing that matters is
whether it actually scares him and weakens his absolute hand strength

3, Value bluff some rivers vs. draw-heavy ranges (busted)

4, Range targeting
both for value and as bluffs
still value bet very thinly, but we need to manipulate pot size & manipulate villain's
continuing range much more so than vs. stations

5, Make big laydowns vs. aggression

Hand-reading vs. Passive/Fit-or-Fold
Postflop: straightforward
His calling range = decent made hands (any TP, 2nd Pair, pair+gutter) & draws
His raising range = nut type hands (2 pair+, sometimes TPTK)

vs. many:
We only ask "What is his range?"
Not "What is our perceived range?"


Lesson 8
Against fit-or-fold you can isolate much much wider than usual. For example fish limps in MP and
other fish limps in CO, you are BTN you can iso with Q5o, T6o, T7s... any hand that has some kind of
playability. Because they will limp/c, ck/f a lot.

Against fit-or-fold, with our strong hands we want to at least pot it, because if he has a top pair type
hand he just doesnt fold it for one bet. We want to maximize our value when he has some kind of
strong hand in his range. It is true when his range is inelastic to our bet size. pl. K92r board.

When your bluffing EV is showing a BE or profit, then your overall EV is gonna be really profitable.
Because your red line is already profitable, and to that comes the hands that you make postflop,
because you will have some kind of equity postflop.

EV calc

Profitable cbet spots -> Flopzilla drills against certain wide ranges (35%, 50%, 60%..)


Lesson 9
Against calling stations we can get away with more bombing pot size pots and big bets, but against
fit-or-fold we should decide more dcarefully about our bet sizes, and flexing it more to keep the
portions of his range involved, against we want to get value from.

Baluga theorem applies best against passive and fit-or-fold players. If he ck/m.raises the turn he has
almost always 2pair or better.

Key steps:
1, Find the button with the letters F-O-L-D
2, Move your mouse to it
3, Click it
4, Move on to the next hand

Against extreme players you need to make sometimes extreme plays. Someone who is very passive
postflop you should make extreme folds postflop.

With our semibluffs, we want to be the one putting the last bet in (we shove, not the villain). Why?
In order to:
a, maximize our fold equity
b, trap the most dead money in the middle (i.e. steal the largest possible amount when we get a
fold)

Recreational players are aware of flush draws, and if they see the flop has FD they are more inclined
to protect their hands.

With bluffs, it's a great line to bet really small, and if he doesnt raise he has probably a weak range,
and you can bomb the next street with a big bet and he will probably fold.

In general, vs. weak/marginal ranges (that cant take heat):
a, bluff huge
b, value bet small

If we get to the river and we would want to give up and the river is a complete brick, dont feel
intended to bet a standard amount to take down the pot. Bet very small, because lots of the time
villain has already put you on a better hand than his, and his plan was to improve you down to the
river and if doesnt happen he just kind of insta folds to almost any bet size. When he has lots of
draws on the river, and it doesnt complete it, FDs, SDs.. then instead of giving up your 76s type hand
and be beaten at showdown, bet a small amount like 30% of the pot, so he folds out his busted draw
hands.
Villain limps SB, you raise BB 7d6d, flop KsQsKd you bet half pot, he calls, turn 4d you ck back
because he only folds 36% on turn, river 8h, he cks, and you can bet a small amount to fold out his air
hands. His Qx hands will call almost any amount, so you dont really have FE against those.

Many times villain already decided that if he doesnt improve to the river he will fold, because he has
already put you on some stronger hand. So it happens a lot that you bet out a small amount on the
river, even min. bet and he just insta folds. So with this you can target the portion of his range that
you expect to fold (busted draws).


Lesson 10
Live from the office
If a fish is on your left, then you may want to open less because if he calls behind you with lots of
hands that creates some really good squeezing opportunities for the players behind him (regs). Also
you will be out of position with weaker holdings postflop. So what you may want to do is to min.
open or maybe limp some times just to get in pot with them, because you have so much value
postflop.

If a fish plays kind of passively on a drawy board, for example min. donks flop and calls raise, and ck/c
turn.. we should just barrell off, because he is very likely to fold by the river, otherwise he would
have shown some strength.


Lesson 11
Taming aggressive villains

Aggressive/Spewy
Identifying:
Very high VPIP & PFR, and/or very high postflop aggression frequencies (50+)
Showdown bluffs in bad spots
Aggro postflop (auto barrell-barrell-barrell, frequently raise or b/3b flops or turns), including
total air

Their psychology:
Risk seeking
Sunk cost fallacy (Sunk costs are costs which have already been incurred and cannot be
recovered)
o It is a mistake in reasoning in which you consider the sunk costs of an activity (instead of
the future costs) when you decide whether you should continue the activity or not.
o i.e. throwing good money after bad
o "I cant quit now. I have already invested so much, and i will lose all of that."
Obsessed with making the big bluff
Make decisions by feel/emotion, not logic ("I sensed weakness." "Ivey would do this.")

Their strategy:
Fight for every pot
Chasing dead money (attachment to the current pot)
Dishonest (they often slow down with strong hands, though it's very player/read dependent)

Our strategy:
Still value bet them to death
Sometimes make lighter calldowns
Find ways to induce
o give rope (calling their bets so that they keep spewing on later streets)
o or give room (dont give them the opportunity to fold their air hand by raising to 80% of
their stacks or shoving, because than he can fold his bad hands. Give him room to play
back at you. Dont shut them out. Make them think they still have a way to win the pot by
coming back to the top. Spewing is what they do best, give them a chance for that)

We can divide the aggressive villain into two types when we decideing to raise. When you show
aggression, is villain type to:

a) back down (if we bet the flop and they raise us, are they the type to fold to a 3bet almost
100% of the time?)
For this type of villain you may consider giving rope rather than room, so instead of
raising/reraising, you just call so they keep spewing on later streets.

b) keep spewing

Good HUD stat for this is fold vs. raise (flop, turn, river).


Lesson 13
Taming aggressive, overplaying villains

4 Categories of fish
Passive / Station
Passive / Fit-or-Fold
Aggressive / Spewy
Aggressive / Overplays hand

Aggressive / Overplaying
Identifying:
Very high VPIP & PFR, and/or very high postflop aggression frequencies (50+)
Showdown Marginal/Medium strength made hands after playing very aggressively
(they wont bluff as much as spewy type of players, but he will be overplaying his made
hands)
Fold vs. raise frequencies are lower (spewy folds his air to a raise more often, overplaying will
be betting and continuing with his medium hands).

Their strategy & psychology:
Betting & raising TPWKs, underpairs/2nd pair, etc.
Dont understand relative hand strength & dont understand the reasons for betting/raising
They think of their TPNK type hands as the nuts.
Fear of being outdrawn / overemphasize protection (for example on FD boards, they want to
take down the pot with a raise, to protect their made hands)
Want to end the hand now rather than face tough decisions later

Range shapes (betting/raising, especially with raising)
Aggressive/Spewy
Polarized range (weak / strong holdings)
Aggressive/Overplaying villain
(Medium / strong hands -> bottom pairs, second pairs, TP or better)

Our strategy:
Still value bet them to death
Sometimes make lighter calldowns (against passive players we value bet TPNK on the flop,
but fold to a ck/r. against these players we can make bigger calldowns)
But not with low pairs & A highs
Note bet-sizing & look for tells
(this type of fish they often give away bet sizing tells. We want to note the bet size, when we
see showdown from them. They often bet whole number like 50, 60, 90 with value hands,
and often bet like 52, 63, 86 when not strong). Usually the smaller they are betting the
weaker they are. But you have to get specific notes and reads on each villain because it can
differ.


Usually when fish wake up, so when they take a check/call line on the turn, and lead out big on the
river, they have a strong hand often, they possibly hit the river.

Inducing Action
If you have a good made hand, and want to get value from fish, always think about which one is
better: giving him rope (just calling, and letting him hang himslef and fire off), or giving him room
(raising his bet, so that he can come over to the top with his bluffs). If he bets big, you usually dont
want to break his rythm, and if he is aggro on later streets as well, calling maybe better option,
especially if your raise would shut him out from coming over to the top with his hand range. If your
raise would commit your stack, he wont really come over to the top, so in that case it may be better
to just call.


Lesson 14
Advanced Isolation Theory

It is very important when we join a table, we start building an image, so we have to start isolating
pretty hard the fish, raising his limps, 3betting him..
Convince them you are crazy!
1. Build Big Pots
2. Stack them first

They will make bad adjustments.
You are trained to make good adjustments.

It is very important to be aware of your image, so put up your own HUD as well, at least VPIP & PFR.
You need to be aware of when the fish changes his perception, and he thinks now he is bluffing
again, he keeps bluffing me, now i call him down.
You need to know when to slow things down and take your foot off the gas and just pure value town.
Be aware when they start to play back.

When a recreational player's limp/fold stat is low, we can iso larger with our stronger hands. So
instead of 4-5x, we can make it 6-7-8x. Find his threshold, where he no longer limp/calls.
Also if they are folding to 3bets with a very low frequency, and he calls a lot, you can 3-bet larger
against him.

Adjusting to Aggressive isolators:
1, 3bet light
- or wider for value if they are re-adjusting
2, Flat with a wider range

We want to encourage the fish to come to the pot so it means sometimes flatting your big hands or
monsters to a reg's open, so you encourage the fish, and keep them in the pot, and they can flop a
one pair hand and stack them.

Important to note if you see a fish cold calling 3bets, so you can decide to 3bet or flat to keep him
involved.


Lesson 15
Art of 3-betting
General strategy:
3-bet a depolarized range (widely for value)

Against fish:
99+, AJ+, KQ (sometimes ATs, KTs, KJs as well...)

Recreational players will call with many hands OOP that we dominate.

For isolation & "future value"
Sometimes we go against this, and we also 3-bet for bluff, if a fish is calling a lot of 3-bets and
ck/folding a lot on the flop. We can 3-bet a merged equity range, where it's not easy to decide
whether it's for bluff or value, for example hands like K7s, A5s... But with these hands IP we control
the pot, we make good decisions, we get the exact value we want from the hand.
preempt a squeeze
freeze play (we can 3bet about 2.5x, we will have the betting lead, and we close out other
players)
a, vs. stations
b, vs. fit-or-folders
cbets get more credit and more folds in 3-bet pots.


Lesson 16
Fish Timing Tells

Strength:
Strong Tell #1:
Wait 3-4 seconds, then bet

Strong Tell #2:
insta-to-3 seconds raise

Strong Tell #3:
OOP 6-8 seconds, then check

Weakness:
Weak Tell #1:
snapflat or quickflat pre

Weak Tell #2:
snapcheck or quickcheck (up to 1 sec.) (they just want to move on to the next hand)
(only exception is when they hit the turn or river card, they can do it after checking fast the prev.
street)

Weak Tell #3:
0-2 seconds call postflop

Manipulating Timing & Psychology
Timebank for value (they get more and more curious if we take a lot of time before betting, the
lighter they will look us up)
When you are looking to get some tin value, or get value with your hands, it's generally better to take
some extra time and use some of your time bank to make them curious.

curiousity = "calling reflex"

When you are value betting, you want to keep the timing rythm. Dont break their calling rythm. If
you bet fast on the flop and they insta call, keep it on the turn and river as well. If you snapbet the
turn and they snapcall, you want to snapbet the river as well. They get into a calldown mode. It's the
only time you get away from the basic idea that you want to use some of your time bank.


Lesson 17
Bet-Sizing Psychology

1. Adding an extra digit
Bluffs: add an extra digit
Value bets: Keep it to fewer digits

2. The last one or two digits
big & intimidating
vs.
low & inviting

Bluffs: big, intimidating digits (9,8,6)
Example: $298, $368, etc.
Value bets: low, inviting digits (1,2,4)
Ex: $241, $312, etc.

3. Make them curious!
Trigger Mike Caro's calling reflex.
do sth unordinary. for example bet more than pot.
bet sth weird for example instead of $108, make it to $108.77

4. When bluffing small, fuck up their pot odds calculations
$479 or $527 instead of $500 into $1000.

5. Random Stackers
For example if someone is sitting at the table with $150.32 then its probably that he plays with his
full stack, so he is gonna be risk-averse.
Value bets: sometimes leave them enough stack to keep playing if they call & lose
Bluffs: threaten their stack

Remember: This usually does NOT apply vs. top-pair+ heavy ranges vs. fish who could never bring
themselves to actually fold a good top pair+ hand, regardless of how much of their stack is at risk.


Lesson 18
Unconventional Stats to Take Unconventional Lines

Stat #1: Bet IP vs. Missed Cbet
A, very high (75%+) = check/raise for value
- or even check/call if he will barrel frequently
* especially if combined with high "Fold vs. Cbet IP"

B, combined with high "Fold vs. Check/raise" (60%+) = check/raise bluff

Stat Group #2
Low "4bet"
+ High "Fold vs. Cbet OOP"
+ High "Fold vs. Cbet in 3bet Pot"
= 3bet Light IP with a very high frequency (maybe 30-40% of hands: Ax, Kxs, Q7s+, Q9o, QTo... any
sort of postflop value hands)

dont adjust to them until they do it.

Stat Group #3
High "Limp-Fold" (45%+)
+ Low "Limp-reraise" (0-10%)
+ High "Fold vs. Cbet OOP"
= iso very wide (and cbet if the flop is good for it)

Stat #4: Bet OOP vs. Missed Cbet
High "Bet River OOP vs. Missed Cbet" (65%+)
+ High "Turn Check-raise" (12%+)
=checkback turn / call river

- instead of "protecting"/thin value betting turn with some of your medium strength hands

If a player is check/raising a lot, we are protecting more of our equity by checking back.
Protection of Check > Protection of Bet


Lesson 20
Against a calling station who folds to cbet with a really low % (25-30-35%), you dont want to cbet
your air, and instead check with it.

Against a player who is really passive, you most of the time rather want to bet small with your thin
value hands instead of checking and waiting for him to bet, because he is so passive that he usually
wont bluff.