How to exploit fish?

As you may know, I'm playing NL2 and in every session I end up playing against some people who are 50+/0-5 and I'm a bit lost in the sense that what should I be doing against them? There are some people at the tables, who I recognize (can I say they are regs @ NL2? LOL), and it feels like it's a race with them for the money. The thing I always do is try to isolate fish, by raising bigger than other raise, also I tend to loose up my hand selection. However, I feel like this affects me more in a bad way, than in a good one - I always assume fish has crap hands. But well, they can have decent hands too, or hit super hard the flop and on that point, you are there with your TPMK and trying to extract value from the fish who just hit his 2 pairs on A93 rainbow board (9 and 3 obv).

So whats advised to do?

Let them take your money in those circumstances. Trust you win money in the other ones. I know it's soulcrushing when you spend weeks with the fish flipping up 2pair+ every time but that's how it works.

Also position magically fixes these problems.

How exactly? Would you be able to let go of TPMK in the above mentioned situation even if he leads out? Sometimes they play very passive, then shoot a big bet on a missed FD on the river, other times they bet double pot on a very dry board only to find out they rivered a set of 2's. Also I tend to think more about making hero calls, but feel like overall I lost more by making this (i just realized this though).

Lol I get owned by fish leading the river all the time.

if you are at nl2 just work on your game. once you have a solid foundation and have a better idea of how everything works then you can make minor adjustments [opening preflop raising range, defending wider vs fish, 3 betting regulars isolating fish wider] from there. trying to go ape on people when you have a lot of fundamental problems to begin with is probably going to be more trouble than its worth

--- Nuked ---

You can label most fish into loose weak (call a lot pre, fold when miss), calling station (duh) and donk agressive; I tought everyone did this. Against the first kind you raise/cbet all the time, against the caling station u bet wider and for value (A5 on 258) and vs donk agressive its kinda hard, you need reads, but an easy adjustment is to call them down with sets/2p and some flush draws cause they will bet the river to rep the flush when you hit.

But what pooruser said first

Simply put, at NL2/NL5/NL10 it's all very very basic play. If they are betting strong they are 95% of the time not bluffing. Fish usually bet weak when weak, bet strong when strong. And when they are bluffing you will know it. It's the stakes where people often times just go all-in every hand anyways...

At small stakes, the majority of your money comes from just betting large when you have a strong hand. Don't try to bluff them, they are bad and want to see if their ace is hit on the river, or if their 72o makes a crazy cool hand (i mean it would be awesome! it's so ironic, worst hand in poker beating AA!)

You'll notice that people just don't bluff as often as you think they are. (There's no way he could have 3 of a kind... it's so rare, so it can't happen this hand, especially since someone on another table just beat my KK with 57o with a straight!)

Most bad players are either way too bluffy or way too straightforward on the river (even the bad regs)

River play i where most of the money goes in.

So it is worth your time having a few reads on the loose players (who often go to the river) and see if they are bluffy or not, and play accordingly. If they have a good mix, u might want to stop calling them fish and find another table

Thanks, all these are highly appreciated! And I've already learnt a lot. Can you maybe relate to some books/video series from which I can further study the fundamentals? I have acces to DC.

The biggest tip I can give for beating up on fish, and even bad regs, is just bet and raise huge. When you flop a set and someone leads out, hit the pot button, and then raise it some more. When someone raises it 3x pre and you have AA, 3bet it like 4x or even bigger vs fish. Don't worry about making a "standard" 3bet that's 3 times the pre flop raise or whatever. Basically the logic is, why would you bet 1/2 or 3/4 pot when they will call a pot sized bet or even a shove. I've found fish especially just assume you are bluffing when you bet really big. You won't always get called, but when you do you can win a massive pot.

As for books, the best book I've ever read was "Crushing the Microstakes" by Nathan Williams. It's a book written specifically for beating 2NL and 5NL.

A really sick quote from this book. "I have won nearly 30k at these limits $2, $5 and $10 at a time. I didn't do it by slowplaying and hoping they bet. I did it by ruthlessly shoving my 2 pair and better hands down their throat! I bet pot, sometimes even double pot, or I just go all-in. And they call. That's it"

The quote has proven fairly true for me, hopefully it will for everyone else trying to beat the micro stakes.

how to beat fish 101:

buy in for 100bb if the table allows

play your good hands aggressively ie go pot pot shove with all top pair + hands << this is the line that will net you most profit in almost any game any stakes over time. none of that weird fancy check/raise shit.

generally don't punt to raises

profit?

Fish are more likely to bluff and less likely to fold...

Focus on making a good hand then extracting value.

Identify your opponents.

pay attention to if the fish is weak or loose postflop... I see a lot of regs NOT paying attention to this at much higher stakes than 2NL (i see regs c-bet air vs fish that calls c-bets close to 100% f.example)

Eh I dont feel most fish care calling river shoves without a decent hand. But they will happily call 3/4 pot with 2nd pair or even worse. Best line is either pot pot pot against the really bad one's, or 3/4 3/4 3/4 against your avg run-of-the-mill NL2 player.

Since they're playing so wide, on avg 40-50% of the deck, they're going to be hitting damn near every flop. There will always be some gutshot, some bottom pair, some backdoor flush for them to chase. So just play a range of hands thats marginally better than theirs. If you feel they are playing shit like K6o and J5s, then play K9o and JTs. It's a lot easier to see how bad their range is at HU tables. The problem with playing this loose at ring tables is that you have other people to deal with too. Suddenly K9o isnt such a good hand even if it's to isolate the fish. Therefore ultimately you're going to want to step it up a notch even further as insurance against everyone else at the table who might enter, whether they are also fish or not.

pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot/pot

fold when raised

If you are at nl2 and are just starting out exploiting the fish is the last thing that should be on your mind. You should learn basics about the game overall otherwise you ll end up setting yourselves up in spots where you dont know what you are doing and there wont be much difference between the fish and you at that point.

Stick with making marines until you get your expansion up. Can't go battlecrusiers off one base bro