Fit or Fold: Pt I - Identify

Poker has many different types of players, ranging from the loose aggressive, to the tight passive players, but those have been discussed to death since the dawn of mankind. Fit or Fold players though (hereby referred to as FoF), are a very different species. These players don't usually worry about what their opponent holds, but focus only on making their hand. Their general tendencies are loose passive pre-flop, aggressive if they hit the flop well, and generally fold to a bet if they don't connect.

Does this sound familiar? Yep, this is a genre usually linked with amateurs and beginners. In live or online games alike, these players are always welcome to any table because they are the easiest to profit from. Have you ever seen a player sit down at a poker table, and notice that after an hour or two, their chips have diminished significantly even though they've not been involved actively in many hands, and you wonder where their chips went? Observe them closely for an orbit or two, and you'll find them playing in the exact way that I described. Bleeding chips.

FoF players have a wide range pre-flop. They play with almost any two suited cards, especially those that include a face card. 2 and even 3 gap hole cards are not out of the question either. They call with these cards from any position, regardless of stack sizes or number or players involved in the pot. They "pay to see the flop", then fold to any bet if they miss. These kind of plays are theoretically a mathematical disaster, and I'll explain why.

Statistically, the chance for any two cards to make a pair is 32%. For two suited connector cards, the chance to make a flush draw or open ended straight draw is about 11%, and after that about 30% to complete the draw if play continues to the river. This sounds good until you realize that the chance for any two hole cards to miss the flop completely is more than 60%! This means that for any unpaired hole cards that are lower than your opponent's hole cards, you need good pot odds for these bets to be profitable in the long run.

For example, if the FoF player holds cards like J9s, and calls a raise against KQo, he's about a 3 to 1 underdog pre-flop. For this to be a profitable bet, he will need at least 2.5 to 1 odds (read about odds and percentages here). Change the FoF opponent's cards to a higher pair like QQ and you're looking at a minimum of 5 to 1 odds for the bet to be profitable. So, taking all that into consideration, imagine the effect on your stack if you call most bets only to fold more than 60% of the time on the flop! That's when you will hear complaints from these players saying that they are running bad, not even hitting the flop etc, when most of the time, their losses are just due to bad play.

The next article on this topic will be on ways to take advantage of these kind of players and benefit the most from them. Stay tuned. As always, comments are welcome and appreciated.