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Shady9977 Nibs: 514 Member Since: Feb 6th 2008

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    Rick is the exact opposite of Mike. Instead of being a loose cannon… ready to buy the pot and bet aggressively any time… Rick just sits there. Like a rock. He only gets aggressive when he’s got the nuts.

Characteristics of the Rock

    The key characteristic of the rock is that they don’t get involved in many hands… and when they DO get involved, they don’t play aggressively. A rock will often limp-in with solid hands… or call a small raise… and maybe make a weak raise. They think only of how they can get BEAT… rather than jumping in and risking their chips.
Here’s what I mean:

   Let’s say you’ve got A-10 suitted at a 4-man table. Rick the Rock calls your pre-flop raise, so it’s just you and him heads-up.
Your cards: A-T suitted
Rick’s cards: Q-Q

The flop comes out:4 5 6

This flop sucks for you, but you need to represent it. You figure Rick doesn’t have the straight. So you bet. Rick calls.The turn comes out: 4.You bet again.

   Now here’s what Rick is thinking. “Damn, he could have a four… a higher pocket pair than mine… or any of those straight draws like 3-2, 7-8, 3-7. He’s probably got me beat…but I have to call this bet.”
Now the river hits: 7

  You know Rick is a wuss. So you fire out another bet… this time a BIG bet… HOPING he folds. And sure enough, terrified of losing, Rick folds at the river! You take a deep breath… and gratefully rake the pot. What was Rick thinking?! Well, he was only thinking of LOSING… not thinking LOGICALLY enough. The fact is, if he had paid attention he would have known that seven probably didn’t help you. You wouldn’t have waited around with an eight on a gutshot straight draw. And you probably wouldn’t have made a pre-flop raise holding a three or four. See what I mean? Rick the Rock is a WIMP. A tight-passive wimp.

Spotting a Rock

  The easiest way to spot a Rock is to look for the guy who folds on the river… or folds to a small raise… or gets out of a hand even though pot odds are in his favor for a call. That’s typical tight-passive behavior. “Check-calling” is also classic Rick the Rock behavior.

Beating Rocks

  As you probably already figured out, the key to beating Rocks is to bet… bet… and bet. When you’re aggressive you’ll scare out Rocks—even when they have better cards. If you ever get RAISED by a Rock, run away… FAST! The tricky thing about Rocks is that they can easily blend in with the rest of the table if you’re not paying attention. Especially online. At a 10-man Sit and Go, for example, it’s amazing how you can get away with ONLY playing premium hands like Queens, Kings, and Aces… and STILL get callers.
The reason is because online players don’t pay attention to the other players enough. Don’t make this mistake. Spot the Rocks as soon as you can, and stay out of their way if they bet. Also note that Rocks seem to be more common in MEDIUM stakes games online…rather than LOW stakes. At the low stakes, this style of play rarely works because there are usually more players to each flop. That prevents the Rock from getting to the end of a hand much.

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