Bum Hunting – Poker Strategy

Bum hunting is a skill that many modern poker players utilize daily. Bum hunting is when a player looks to only play the weakest of weak players. Bum hunters are frowned upon by some poker players, but others feel it is just a way to maximize profits. The reason that some people don’t agree with bum hunting is because it tends to kill the games. Some poker sites have implemented rules over the past few years in an attempt to thwart some of the bum hunting that has become rampant. Bum hunting is not exactly the same thing as table or game selection, though they do share some similarities.

Table selecting is most popular amongst grinders who play 6-Max or full ring games, but bum hunting is typically associated with heads up games. There are players who will do their best to bum hunt the ring games, but you will rarely be able to fill up an entire table with fish. This is the true definition of bum hunting, only playing against extremely weak players.

Heads up poker allows players the opportunity to have a weak player all to themselves. Bum hunting is almost exclusive to not only heads up games, but heads up cash games. When someone goes to play a heads up Sit and Go they won’t usually have the option to play against a certain player, once you sit you will face a random person. You could look to only play heads up Sit and Go’s after the other person already joined the lobby, but this would be a very time consuming process. This leads to the next aspect of bum hunting, the process.

Solid Bum Hunting

Many players know what bum hunting is, but there are just as many players who don’t really know how to do it. Bum hunting is not as easy as it might seem. For example, you might know someone from a previous encounter, but how do you know they are a poor player? In most cases you will need to have extensive history with a wide variety of players before you can properly identify weak players.

If your sample size on a player is insignificant you will not be able to accurately determine who is and who isn’t someone who is going to be lining your pockets. A sample of close to 1,000 hands in a cash is going to be a solid number to work with. The problem with gauging a player’s skill level on a few hundred hands is that it could always be variance.

Players will inevitably go on runs where they will absolutely crush a game for a few hundred hands, but they might actually be the worst player you will ever face. It can happen the other way around too, if you think someone is awful they might actually be a very solid player. There are a handful of different tools available to players that help gain information on opponents. Poker tracking software is the most popular way to gain some hand histories, but there are various websites online that share some data as well. Personally gained information is always the most reliable, however, as some websites gather incomplete or inaccurate data.

Summary – Bum Hunting in Poker

Bum hunting is a skill that poker players use to help maximize their profits. As the games have gotten tougher it has become more of a challenge to find weak players, but bum hunting has allowed some players to maintain the weak opposition they are accustomed to.