Fool's gold at a poker table..........

I held my monthly poker game this past Saturday. No real excitement for our family, as Mrs. Lime, her dad, and I managed to be the first three players out of the tournament. I was actually the first one out. I happened to lose in a situation where I was an 80% favorite when I put my chips in the middle. That was unfortunate. Only thing that was more unfortunate was that I often put my chips at risk with the worst hand that evening.

I honestly made a fundamental play mistake. I had three players at my table that I had never played against before. Not only that, but one was in high school and the other two were in college. Early on, it was relatively apparent that all three of them were aggressive and relatively inexperienced. They knew how to play the game, but were very beatable.

When you see players like this at your table, you want to get their chips before someone else does. At the same time, there's a cardinal rule that must be acknowledged. You cannot and should not bluff a player who doesn't know when it's a good time to fold. It's much more likely that you can bluff a player who respects your play than a player who doesn't know when to consider the possibility that the other player has a better hand. I made several very good bluff moves on the new players that would have worked against more experienced players. The problem is that the newer players didn't have enough experience to know that I might be representing a good hand. My hand and my chips went down hand after hand. Nothing seemed to work.

So, let this be a lesson to anyone else bothering to listen. If you are playing against an aggressive, inexperienced player, you're better off waiting for a good hand to take their chips than thinking you can bluff them out of a pot. They'll likely call and you'll be the one looking like an inexperienced player.