Common false thought.  Lots of fish all levels.  Having more money doesn't make you smarter. Watch Skates first 4 videos.  He talks about that. PS they have to be watched on Quicktime so after you download, open your Quicktime an then open the file.

I think this is often a fallacy created by players that are learning to narrow ranges of higher skilled but less creative winning players.Combine that with a random fish that plays a lot of hands poorly and you can see why players are more comfortable sometimes against somebody who is actually better than the fish.Here's an example:Tight winner at the $55s raises preflop, you call with K9s.  The flop comes J95.  You check he cbets, you call.  Your reads say that he never triple barrels bluffs and his double barrels are polarized between strong hands and bluffs.  The turn is an ace.  You check, he bets, you call.  The river is a 2.  You check, he bets, you fold.  Now there you basically have narrowed his range down rather well and made a rather easy decision.  How profitable are you against this player?  Well it depends on your skill level.  Anywhere from marginally so to a solid edge is taking place.  If you don't raise the turn with bluffing hands when he fires two barrels you'll be missing out on edge (and that's not something a lot of players think about).Now you go down to the $22s a few weeks later due to some variance and cashouts.  You get sat by a -20% ROI player.  He's been very aggressive so far, betting and raising most streets.  15 hands in he raises his button, you call with QTo.The flop comes JT5.  He cbets, you call.  The turn is a K.  He bets again and you call.  The river is another T.  He shoves, you call.  He flips up AQ.  You lose the pot.  You get frustrated and say to nobody in particular "FFS, he bets all the time, how can he have it?"The thing is he won't have it that much, he does bet all the time, you just got coolered.It's an extreme example, but you'll feel a lot more comfortable facing somebody that you can narrow their range down quite a bit.  But don't let that confuse you too much, as being able to correctly narrow somebody's range down does not automatically mean that you can profit more from them, particularly if their narrow range is one harder to exploit (or one you fail to exploit fully).Think of a player open shoving 50% of hands 30bbs deep versus a player only open shoving AA.  You fold all but AA against the latter player and you feel very comfortable knowing that you're playing perfectly against them.  But other than losing value on his AA, you're not really gaining a whole lot of edge based on his actions.  Now the guy shoving 50% of hands shoves, you think for a bit and call with QT.  He flips up KT and you lose.  Not comforting?  Tilting?  You should technically feel better because you have a larger edge against this player, your expectation is much higher and that's the only thing you can control, your expectation.If you can start to think of situations this way you'll start to focus more on the things that matter (your decision making for one) and you'll likely improve your game at a quicker pace.

Very good point, Ryan :-)I'm also experiencing this a lot recently on the $55's - playing against a fish doesn't imply knowing how to exploit him.For instance, there are a lot of bad regs on this level who're both too tight and too fit-or-fold in their endgame - these guys make some decent money (against fish or other bad regulars), but you have such a huge edge over them once you have that read - and if they mass-multitable and don't adjust, you don't need to concentrate much to beat them.Many fish on the other hand often make some completely crazy moves which make no sense at all.  Long-term, their crazy moves have a negative expectation, but their plays often have high variance and you often end up guessing what they have.Since I moved up to the $55's, I also distinguish this in my player notes - I use green for "license to print money", blue for "I can beat this guy" and yellow for "don't know what he's up to", and blue is where I have the most detailed notes because "I can beat this guy" often means "I can beat him because I have these specific reads", not just "he's very bad".

Taking Ryan's K9s hand, let's play this first hand of the match against a reg and against a fish.Against the reg, you know that he's cbetting a board like that, so your midpair is ahead of his range and you should flat.  Against the fish, what kind of fish is he - is he more the calling station type of fish or more the maniac type of fish ?  He could only bet this flop with a good King and check back everything else ... or he could fire 3 barrels with complete air, we don't know.Same thing on the turn, we can usually flat with a good 2nd pair agains the reg and have an easy river fold if he bets again.  The fish fire 3 streets with anything, from top set to 23o no pair no draw.A reg usually has some kind of a "default strategy" early on which isn't too different from our own default strategy, so we have a better understanding of what he's doing whereas the fish could do absolutely anything and we have no clue at all until we played a few hands against him.However, that doesn't imply that the reg is easier to beat than the fish.  The important difference is that the reg is capable of adjusting to our style, the fish isn't.  So once we figured out how to beat the fish, we can continue to play him and easily win money.  The reg - even if we can easily beat him at the moment - will eventually figure out what we're doing and adapt to it.

I just "graduated" from $2.20s to $5.25s. Though I've been playing poker seriously for over 14 years (it's been well over half my income during that time), I am brand new to correct HU strategy. I decided to start from a $0 bankroll at $2.20s and gradually build up a bankroll big enough to play at each successive level.The argument that it's easier to beat "good" players than fish has been around for much longer than I've been playing...and from my experience in live play, it's always the fish or weak-tight players that make this statement. (No offense! Not calling you a fish!)While it can be very frustrating when the fishy villain keeps showing up with "impossible" hands that you cannot possibly read, thaaaaaaaaaaaat's poker, and that's what keeps the fish coming back.If everyone was "good", there would be little profit margin and the poker ocean would quickly dry up. This effect has recently appeared in PokerStars 6max games at the 50NL-200NL levels when they changed their buyin structures, a move which drove most fish out of the fullstacked games into shortstacked games where there is "less risk" and more luck involved.I switched to 6 max cash on PS 2 1/2 years ago, and mass 18-tabling the 50NL level fullstacked was EASY...and this was even after U.S. legislation made the games significantly harder. However, immediately after PS changed their buyin structure, I could not beat the games for enough profit, and I decided maybe it was time to give up poker completely. (Luckily I somehow found this site and decided to give HU sng a shot!)I started playing Internet poker in the year 2000 or so on Planet Poker. Nearly everybody back then was bad, including me! Fortunately, you only need to be a certain amount better than your opponents, so I was able to make a fair living. Nowadays, it's becoming harder and harder to make a profit, as even many of the fish could have made some good money back then.My EV went way up (so far) at $5.25s, but I attribute that to reduced rake and the fact that I have learned a LOT in my three weeks or so of membership at husng.com. I don't think the opponents are much better at $5.25s, but there are a few more varied styles to learn to adapt to, so it's really keeping me busy.During my first 22 games, I thought, "Damn, this is easy!" The opponents I had were generally either very passive and let me push them around or so aggressive that all I had to do was wait for a hand and check-call allin.During my last 40 or 50 games, it seems that every other opponent I have drawn caused me problems with their aggression or strange tendencies and I am studying those game fiercely to learn to better adapt to different opponents.

I couldn't believe how easy the Super Turbos were at the $5 level, I think I pretty much steam rollered over the opposition for the first 20/30 games. Then variance kicked in and i've been getting smacked!! Typical stuff really, JJ getting beat by K4, AK getting beat by A4 (flop 724 etc.) and so on and so on; to the point where I was sure i'd pissed the poker gods off good and proper!! It happens, best thing to do is take a walk and come back ready and prepared...not convinced your AA will get cracked by 23o.

At ry: again a very nice post!!! I'm at the 30$s now and recently figured out that I don't really know how to adjust to these kind of guys.Costed me quite some money due rematching, rematched a guy 8 times thinking he is a fish, in the end i had no clue how to adjust properly losing 5 stacks... Important lesson for everybody!!!J