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Every local poker room has its so-called “regulars,” familiar faces who think they run the table. But with the right reads and counters, you can turn their routines into your advantage.
They Never Get Caught Bluffing
Let’s make this clear right away: Most local “crushers” have deep pockets and just keep re-entering until they get their picture on the wall. They haven’t studied the game thoroughly.
You can identify gaps in their logic based on how often they get caught with bluffs. No one pitches a perfect game. Someone who takes many good profitable bluffs is going to get caught at some point. It’s simple mathematics.
If you’re running a bluff on the river that needs to work 56% of the time but you can prove it’s actually going to work 75% of the time, then you have a profitable bet. However, that still means one time out of four you’re going to turn over a bluff and lose a huge pot.
Most people rationally don’t want to experience this feeling. Who wants to lose all their chips while everyone stares at you, wondering what you were thinking? However, if you’re going to take the most profitable bluffs afforded to you and maximize your winnings, you’re going to have to accept being caught on occasion.
If you see a local “legend” or “crusher” or “solid regular” who never gets caught bluffing, then you know for a fact they’re missing a tool in their toolbox. They’re either only doing bluffs with a potential 100% success rate or they’re not bluffing at all. Either way, you don’t ever have to pay them off because their bluffing frequencies are too low, and that is a huge edge to have over a player.
They Try To Irritate You Into Calls
Most “aggressive” players are actually just annoying people who have learned how to nut peddle. Think about it. If you were bluffing regularly, would you seek to piss off everyone at the table?
You can find one of these nits with window dressing in any cardroom around the nation. They know they don’t bluff enough, so they trash talk or irritate you into calling them more than you should.
It works most of the time. The Stoics pointed out that most people are protective of their body, and they’d be understandably irked if someone spilled a drink on them or pushed them. However, these people seek to rattle your mind, another part of your body, and we take it as business as usual.
Put some headphones on. Ignore them. There should be a table change coming soon if the structure is fast enough.
They Are Willing To Re-Enter Constantly
You will constantly be told that this guy or that guy is so good at poker. Look at all their final tables! Then, when you sit with them, you learn quickly how they got those final tables. They just re-enter over and over!
These players push any mediocre draw and hope for the best. They call off all of their chips versus any triple barrel and run any thin bluff.
Any single one of us could get a chip stack together if we didn’t care about profiting from the tournament. That doesn’t make the guy a great player.
To counter their constant re-entries, be willing to stack off wider versus their draws that they are playing fast.
They See Lots Of Flops, But Only Play Big Pots When…
Something you’ll see a lot of so-called great players do is just flat call every single raise preflop. They’ll call on the flop, but only spring to life later in the hand to play a big pot once they hit two pair or better. They’re applying the same strategy that a lot of bad players employ. The only difference is they have the money to re-enter again and again.
Of course, some regs are better at this than others. Some of them restrict themselves to flatting with good suited connectors, suited gappers, and pocket pairs. They don’t just wing chips in with mediocre offsuit big cards that can easily be denominated.
Most regulars are somewhere on the continuum. They see a few too many flops, or way too many flops, but then they only play a big pot when they hit something large. People see them splashing around preflop and assume they’re doing so later in the hand, but preflop spew does not equal river aggression.
The way you can counter all of them is by not paying them off later in the hand. They might try to irritate you by a quick shove and then a stare down, but they’re not firing themselves up into a bluff. They’re nut peddlers through and through. If they triple barrel you or raise you on the turn or river, you can just fold.
They Raise Constantly Preflop
Many of these players have learned that they need to be somewhat aggressive to get anything done. If they do come into a pot, they are generally raising. They three-bet slightly more than the average player.
Again, if the pot gets large later, they usually just have the hand they are representing. They might be aggressive early, but many of them are not aggressive late. That’s just smoke and mirrors.
The way you can counter them is by realizing they usually get away with constantly raising preflop because no one counters them. No one three-bets them and puts them in their place. You can be the person that delivers that knockout blow by forcing them to play a big pot before they have something large, which is what all of their bluster was hoping to avoid all along.
Conclusion
Beating local regulars isn’t about playing fancy, it’s about breaking their patterns and staying unpredictable. Spot their habits early, exploit them often, and you’ll be the one they start fearing.
Learn how to play A-K when it misses the flop!
Alexander Fitzgerald is a professional poker player and bestselling author who currently lives in Denver, Colorado. He is a WPT and EPT final tablist, and has WCOOP and SCOOP wins online. His most recent win was the $250,000 Guaranteed on ACR Poker. He currently enjoys blasting bums away in Ignition tournaments while he listens to death metal. Free training packages of his are provided to new newsletter subscribers who sign up at PokerHeadRush.com
