Sometimes I forget how much of an impact one really bad player can have on my win rate, until I'm lucky enough to have someone remind me. I recently played at a low buy-in NLHE table with a calling station that was almost bad enough to be on the Dennis Rodman/Colin Quinn level. He was not only way too loose (especially postflop) but also passive, which is even better.
The first big pot I played against him, I flop the nut straight with QT. He calls me all the way down to the river and doubles me up with only Ace high. The board had paired on the turn.
On another hand he min raises with AQ and I call. He misses the flop, I hit middle pair. He checks and then calls my bet. An Ace comes on the turn, and he checks to me. I check behind him. River is a blank. He checks again and I check, then he turns over AQ. Huh???
So he calls my flop bet with two overcards, and then when he hits top pair he checks it? I guess it's possible that he was trying to trap me, but checking the river there is pretty risky. You would like to be fairly confident that the other player is going to bet it for you, and I can't see why he'd think that when I checked the turn. Either he was scared (there was a possible straight on board) or he was trying to trap me. Either way, the result was that he called me with the worst hand, and then failed to bet when he had the best one.
Meanwhile he was bleeding off chips to other players. He called an all in with a possible flush on board, and then continued to call bets from another player in the side pot. That player had the nut flush.
So finally after getting busted for about the third time he leaves the table. I play for a while longer but the table breaks up. As I'm scanning the list to find a new game, I notice his name at another table. I'd assumed he had logged off, but he just left that table and bought in somewhere else. I got in line and then took a seat.
It was a while until we played another pot, and in the meantime most of his chips bled off. By the time I got in a hand with him he was down to less than 20 times the big blind.
We both limp preflop and then I flop a straight again, but this time it's the low end of the straight, the sucker straight. He checks and I bet about half the pot, he calls. The board pairs on the turn and he moves in. At this point I'm a little bit worried. I have 78 with 9TJ on the flop, and another 9 now on the turn. Certainly KQ is a possible hand, as well as JJ or TT. What's more, this guy has played pretty passive, and here he is moving in instead of calling me down. He doesn't have much left, though, and he's shown such bad judgement over and over that I feel I have to call him with as big of a hand as a straight.
The river comes a Jack. Now the board has paired twice and I'm sure I'm doomed. If he has either a Jack or a nine he has filled up. He turns over Txo. He flopped middle pair with a bad kicker, called, and then moved in when the board paired.
After I busted him he left for another table, yet again. I was tempted to follow him, but I didn't want to make him too paranoid. Hopefully I'll see him again, he's on my list.
During the hour or so I played with this guy I profited about 120 times the size of the big blind from him (120xBB). Since my win rate at that particular game is about 20xBB, that means that playing one hour with this guy equalled about six hours of my normal play. When you see numbers like that you start to understand why it's important to keep notes on the other players, and to keep a list of the real big fishes so you can hopefully reel them in again.
Ted