In this final installment of the Fit or Fold series, we will discuss the various pitfalls that the average FoF player will encounter, and how to avoid being a FoF player yourself. If you've not read the previous two installments, you can find the first and second one on this blog.
The average FoF player would always run into scenarios where he has to make tough decisions, simply based on the fact that the wide range of hands he plays have the possibility of being second best, e.g. out-kicked, second best to an over-pair etc. Since FoF players are also generally very passive, they will generally not know where they are in the hand, and will call down to the river with a top pair and a bad kicker, losing huge pots to mediocre hands.
A very good example of this would be a hand I played in a live game recently. As most of you would know by now from the previous few articles that I wrote, I play very regularly in a poker room where there are a lot of loose passive fit or fold players. In this particular hand, I was holding Td4d on the cut-off. After all the usual limping from the early position players, a somewhat tight but passive player in early position raised 5xBB from middle position. Action folds to me, and I decide to isolate raise with a 3-bet to 16xBB. As expected, all the other players behind folds, and the initial raiser flat calls. The flop comes Ks7c3h, and the initial raiser checks to me. I bet 2/3rds of the pot, and he calls, telling me without doubt that he has the King, but possibly without a strong kicker. The flop was an extremely bad one for me, and I was almost drawing dead, so when the turn came a 5c, and action was checked to me, I checked behind, hoping to make my gut-shot on the river. River came the miracle 6h, and suddenly I had the best hand. The initial raiser bets slightly less than half the pot, and seeing that he had about his raise amount left in his stack, I shoved him all-in, he calls, and I show the straight to take down the pot.
What mistakes did the FoF player make here? First of all, he played a potentially mediocre hand out of position to a 3-bet. What he was basically hoping for was to hit either one of his hole cards and call down to the river. Second, after he made his hand with top-pair, he was still playing too passively, flat calling the flop instead of making a raise to find out where he stood. As he did not know my hand, it was entirely possible that he was still behind to a K with top kicker, since I 3-bet him on the flop (which illustrates the pitfalls of passive playing perfectly). Third, by checking the turn, he allowed the last free card to hit the board, which further puts him in the dark with regards to how strong his hand relatively is. Finally, he bet the river when he is utterly ignorant of where he stands, and calls a raise all-in directly after.
From this example, it is also all too clear how best to avoid being a typical FoF player. Three words, play in position. Playing in position gives you better reads on your opponents since you get to act after obtaining information from their actions. Placing myself in the position of the FoF player in the example, I would have 4-bet light to avoid playing out of position or folded pre-flop. On the flop, I would have check-raised and second-barrelled the turn to push a worse hand off the board. On the river, I would have bet, but folded to a raise if I only had top pair. Would you readers, have played this differently? Let me know in the comments section.
Picking your spots is crucial to playing poker in the long term. Of course, it is also possible to play poker as a loose player, but just to be loose isn't enough. There is only one type of profitable loose player, and that is those of the aggressive genre, typically known as LAGs. Good LAGs play loosely, but in position, and with controlled and calculated aggression. This is how they differ from the average FoF player.
This concludes the series. Till next time, good luck picking on Fit or Fold players, and avoid being one yourself!
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