Bum Hunting Guide

Bum Hunting Strategy and Tips

Poker is different to other casino games. Instead of playing the house, which always has a small edge, you play against other players. In casino games, the houses edge is how the casino’s make money. But with poker variants like no-limit hold’em the casino or online poker operator makes it’s money by charging rake from all the real money players. The bottom line is if you can beat the other players and the rake you have the ability to be a consistent long-term winning poker player. The bigger your edge in the games you play, the more you can realistically win.

What is Bum Hunting

Bum hunting is a strategy that is utilized by some online poker players as a way to earn more money. It involves the process of seeking out weaker players in poker games to gain an edge. The bigger your edge in the game you play, the more money you can realistically expect to win, because weaker players will be making more mistakes.

Due to the profit potential of bum hunting online poker cash games or tournaments, adopting this strategy is something, which has become fairly commonplace in the modern era of online poker to build up a bankroll from scratch. Bum hunting is not to be confused with good game selection.

Table Selection Tips

Table selecting 6-Max or full ring games is something any winning poker player will do. This can be easily achieved by checking the table stats in the games lobby, if a table has loosish stats, it’s highly likely a fish is at the table. But at short handed or full ring tables it’s impossible to isolate yourself against one weaker player, typically there will always be semi competent regs that you would have to play against. If you find yourself at a table with a couple of fish you’d be lucky, but you would have to be extremely lucky to be playing in a game that was full of fish and no decent players.

Generally, bum hunting is associated with heads up cash games. Unlike good table selection, it’s frowned upon by some players because some are of the opinion that it’s ruining the games and something which has gotten out of control.

There are some heads up poker players who will sit down and wait for weaker players to join them. This act is especially prominent in mid stakes and higher games, where it’s not uncommon for certain players to have joined multiple heads up poker tables, just waiting for a sucker to donate money to them.

Why Bum Hunting Works

The term bum hunting tends to have negative connotations because the bum hunter will only play against weaker players when they know they have an edge in the game. In 6-max or FR games, fair enough, you’re gaining a small edge, it’s always good to know you are better then at least one player at the table, but in heads up games, it starts crossing the line of being good game selection, but rather completely against the ethics of playing poker.

Bum hunting heads-up online games is mostly synonymous with high stakes players and something that has gained in popularity over recent years, since it’s widely accepted the online games have become tougher. Whether you agree with bum hunting or not, it’s something which is certainly part of the game, as much as the online poker rooms would like to put a stop to it, because they certainly aren’t benefiting from the poker fish losing their money at a faster rate, it’s pretty much impossible to weed out the process of bum hunting altogether.

As a player, if you want to avoid the bum hunters it’s not that difficult. As said above, it’s pretty much only commonly place in heads up games. If you see a player sitting out at a handful of tables, you can be pretty sure they’re a bum hunter..

You really shouldn’t fear these players, because when you really think about it, if they’re going to such measures to play against weaker players, they are probably doing so because they don’t expect to have an edge against better players, so how good can they really be? Focus on your own game, instead of becoming preoccupied with your opponent, your win rate will thank you for it. The bottom line is, if your main goal is to increase your win rate, then you need to learn Bum Hunting.