What's A Fish In Poker
One of the worst nicknames a poker player can get is Fish. The fish is the worst player at the table, and the best find a shark can hope for. If you play ring games and tournaments, you need to know what turn a player into a fish, and how you can avoid being one. Once you’ve got that part covered, you can move to phase two: how to spot a fish and what’s in it for you 😉
How to Spot a Fish
In poker, a fish is the sucker at the table. Also known as a “donkey,” or “live one.”. It’s a derogatory term for someone who is not very good at poker. While there is no official definition of a poker “fish” in the.
- To maintain a stake in the pot in order to complete a hand despite having only a few outs or having a negative expected value. EXAMPLE: 'I was steaming and really needed a big win. When my opponent raised on the turn, I went fishing.
- The definition of a poker fish is a below average poker player, who knows how to play but has a mediocre or at best average skill level. All beginning players start as fish as poker talent cannot be gained.
- Calling all the way. If you're not quite sure what to do, the easy option is to follow someone else's.
Fish and chips go together great, until it comes to the poker table, where they part ways quite quickly. The fish is a bad player and every shark’s dream because he loses a lot of money due to poor decisions and bad play moves.
Nothing screams fish like check-call. The check-call is a dubious play strategy where the player checks whenever possible, or otherwise calls, but never raises. This is how the fish earned the nickname Calling Station. The problem with the check-call is that it makes you a predictable player, and that’s never a good tactic in poker.
The second trait of the fish is pursuing hopeless hands – they look like the start of something or a low pair, and the deluded player keeps pouring into the pot while he’ll never be the one to gulp it. The fish plays loose, calling and calling even on hands that aren’t worth the effort.
A great example is a pair of Jacks, that hole card that earned the name Fishhooks, and not only because this letter really resembles a fishing hook, but because it sends a fish spinning for low bait. Pursuing low pairs is not profitable for the long run, but the fish works his little fin off chasing down these hands nonetheless. Another example for a bad hand to chase is AK, nowadays called Anna Kournikova – looks good, but no grand slam trophy in that future. When it comes to this type of hands, the fish doesn’t know when to fold, and he calls his way thru the flop and the turn hoping to make it on the river.
How Not to Be a Fish
An excellent poker proverb says that if you can’t spot the fish at your table within 3 hands than it’s probably you. Make it a rule of thumb to check yourself: every good poker software features statistics for each game where you can see your number and percentage of wins, calls, raises, and folds. This is the best way to detect and destroy your inner-fish.
If you’re losing money it’s time to lose bad habits: If all you do is call, than you are a passive player and walking shark food. Constant calls is a tell that your hand is weak and that you’re just hanging on for the ride. If your not confident about your hand, why waist money pursuing it? If it is strong, why shy away? You need to raise to make sure there’s enough money in the pot when you sweep it!
How to keep the hook out of your mouth? You need to know when to fold. Check out Texas Hold’em Tournaments Tips for more on that.
What’s In It for You?
The fish bleeds his chips awfully fast, and wherever you can sniff blood, you’ll find a shark. If you’re lucky enough to sit with a fish (or smart enough to spot him as one) you can use his habits against him.
You know that the fish will be checking as much as he can to get a free ride to the turn, so if you’ve got the hand, always raise, to make him call instead of check. Keep raising (moderately, you don’t want to scare him off), because he’s likely to call your raises.
If your fish suddenly raises, you better fold, because only a hand made of solid gold will inspire him to take such a daring step.
If you’re making your first steps in poker, don’t be discouraged but make sure you know your poker hand rankings. They may say that in the abyss of poker it’s eat or be eaten – you’re either an aggressive cut-throat shark or a passive little sardine. But the truth is that most players (after a short initiation period) are somewhere in the middle (a dolphin, if you’d like to push this metaphor beyond the limits of taste…) Just friendly, playful, intelligent people, who are looking for a good time and a chance to kick a little ass when the cards are right. Keep playing, be aware of your mistakes, work on your strategy, and you’ll be swimming in chips soon enough.
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Poker Shark
The poker world loves using animals as a way of categorizing players. I’ve written articles in the past on donkeys and nits, and now I’m concentrating on sharks. A shark is the one creature you should aspire to be. They are predators, attacking their prey and top of the food chain. If a fish is a weak player, a beta, then a poker shark is surely the alpha. In this article, we will look at what a shark is, how to become one and more importantly, how to remain one.
Beginner Texas Hold’em Question
What is a Poker Shark?
A shark is a term used to describe an excellent poker player. A shark is a winning poker player that dominate the opposition. They will strategize, plan, hand read, bluff well, use math and play aggressively to win money and tournament chips. Like a shark in the sea, they will exercise patience, circle their prey and know the exact time to strike. At the poker table, this might mean waiting patiently for 2 hours to bust their opponent. A shark is to be feared and respected.
How to Become a Shark
It’s impossible to become a shark poker player upon starting the game. Like the world we live in, one must evolve to become a shark. You need to acquire lots of different skills to become a shark.
It’s worth noting that being a winner doesn’t necessarily make you a shark. You’ve heard the expression “big fish in a small pond”. This true in the poker world. After all, a table with 9 fishes will have someone winning. That doesn’t mean they are the shark. They are simply the best fish of the lot. Put that fish in with larger, dangerous predators and they will be eaten up and spat out with little effort.
To become a shark, one must become proficient in the skills below:
- Poker Math
- Hand Reading
- Bluffing
- Bet Sizing
- Emotional Control
Fish Poker Term
- Value Betting
- Hand Selection
- Table Awareness
- Patience
- Bankroll Management
- Game Selection
As you can see, there are at least 12 skills required to becoming a shark. In certain games, you can skirt by and win by having just a few of the skills above. But how far will that take you? If you are keen to become a shark and to develop the skills, it’s not over. One must maintain that level…
Staying a Shark
As previously stated, poker is like evolution. The only difference is, once you reach a level, it’s entirely possible to go back. It’s logical that if you stand still and others evolve and improve, you are essentially going back. If you’re going back and others are going forward, sooner or later you will get overtaken.
What's A Fish In Poker Online
Complacency is a challenge that all poker sharks must deal with. It doesn’t take much for it to set in, hand selection to widen too much, bluffing attempts to be too frequent or an arrogant approach to game selection.
What's A Fish In Poker Room
To avoid this happening to you, I recommend something that most professional fields advise – continued professional development (CPD). This is something professions such as accountancy insist upon in order to maintain current level of knowledge. You can do likewise by dedicating time to self-improvement. You could try reading poker books, using poker training services, investing in new poker software or following the best poker blogs. Whatever method you try is up to you, but if it keeps you a shark, then surely, it’s worth it?