There’s a common “poker strategy” bit that claims you can spot fish as soon as they come into an online poker room. This bit of strategy says that you need to look at the chip counts of people as they come into No-Limit rooms because fish will enter the room with less chips than what is allowed. On the other hand, better players will always come into a cash game with the maximum amount of money.
The reason why people are fish for bringing in less than the allowed amount onto the table is because having less chips takes away from your ability to capitalize on good hands. Good players bring the maximum amount of money so that they can push others all-in if need be. So easily put, sharks have the max amount of chips at No-Limit cash tables while fish don’t.
But can you really tell if someone is a fish just from this one little thing? After all, most experienced poker players have probably already read this bit of strategy and know that the fish supposedly come into the room with less chips than what’s allowed. With this being the case, what would stop a good player from coming into a room with less chips just to look like a fish?
In my opinion, nothing is stopping the good players from doing this. Most people seem to be onto this advice and so they would use reverse psychology to fool others. Now if somebody comes into the room with barely any chips, then it’s a sure sign they are a fish. However, I wouldn’t go labeling others as fish just because they don’t have the maximum amount of chips allowed.
