Psychology of Poker

Psychology of Poker: Types of Players

Many poker resources will attest to the assertion that most poker players will fall into one of a limited number of categories. Professional poker players realize that playing a consistent style of poker can have a NEGATIVE effect. For this reason, these players are often known to "switch gears", or change up their style of play, in order to keep the competition guessing.

Luckily, most players that you play against will not be advanced enough to continually change gears. This gives you the ability to use a little observation to begin to group individual players into categories. Each of these categories has a strategy or two that you can employ best against players of this type.

These categories become more and more important when the stakes you are playing are No-Limit or Pot-Limit, where all of your chips are potentially at risk in every hand. (In Limit Hold'em, you are much more concerned with the strength of your own hand and whether the pot odds justify your calling for your draw.)

While there are more categories than the ones listed below, these will give you a good idea of the types of players you should be able to identify after sitting at a table for 20 - 30 minutes.

Calling Stations

As the name implies, a calling station is a player who will call down pots with second or even third pair. They love to go all the way to the river in hopes of catching one of their few outs. The bad news is that sometimes they will catch one of those outs. The good news is that over time, you will make more money from them from their bad calls than you will lose.

With calling stations, your top pair can be bet with confidence. The most important piece of advice regarding calling stations is that you should NOT bluff them. Bluffing a calling station is a great way to lose money...BECAUSE THEY WILL CALL YOU Instead, value bet these players at every opportunity and watch your chips accumulate.

Maniacs
These players live up to their name. They bet aggressively with starting hands that range from stellar to mediocre. Their loose style of play results in large swings of their bankroll. While they may lose a lot of chips with marginal hands, they are almost assured to get lots of action with their big hands.
When you are playing at a table with a maniac, your ideal situation is to get heads up with a maniac player pre-flop. After the flop, your best strategy is to check against these players. Often these players will bet at any sign of weakness. A call here is the correct play. On the turn, check again. This may induce a bluff which you can confidently call. If they check, you can put in a half-pot sized bet in an attempt to induce them to bluff at the pot.
Rocks
Rocks are players who play only premium starting hands. They seldom bluff. Instead, they patiently wait for solid hands are do their best to get value from them. It is very difficult to separate a rock from their chips. If you are at a table full of rocks, your best strategy is to find a new table. Bluffs at rocks may be mildly successful when a scare card hits the board. However, this type of strategy is a gamble, as they were probably in the hand with premium cards to begin with.
For a detailed analysis of player categories, The Psychology of Poker is the definitive volume on player categories and the strategies that you can employ to make the most of your observations.