Assuming that you win at poker by avoiding mistakes of your own and exploiting the ones of your opponents, I'd like to know if there are any particular mistakes that you profit more from and how you tend to exploit them.

Not necessarliy in this order

1) Villain cant lay down an overpair and I double up with my set
2) Villian bets $2 into a $10 pot with a set or with top pair and allows me to draw to my flush
3) Villian calls pot sized bets with draws
4) Villian chases a flush on a paired board.

1. Calling stations - Anyone who cant fold a good starting hand or a good draw, someone who is willing to call off all there chips with an overpair, even better the flush chasers, people calling off all their money on a flush draw, and if I'm playing well I dont pay them off when they hit. There is no better feeling that giving someone no odds to call, then when they hit their draw folding.

2. Maniacs, the players that raise every hand and love the action, its just a waiting game, usualy the pots are big in these games so all I have to do is wait until I make a monster and its double up time.

3. Passive players- As Ice said I love it when I have a gutshot and a backdoor flush and someone bets $2 into a $20 pot, than you for giving me odds to call and the 1 in 20 I catch my backdoor flush you whine and complain about everyone drawing out on you. The othe r great way to exploit these players is to push them around, push in a big raise when all you have is a flush draw, PT helps a lot with online, but I have made a lot of money lately stealing pots with the worst hand but a decent draw.

Short answer: Lack of discipline

I'll just append a few critical reads:

1) Huge bets with the nuts

2) Huge bets as pure bluffs

3) Frivolous raises

Actually, I think one can get by pretty well on those 3 alone. If you want to fine-tune a little more, I think another two that are nice are:

4) Proportional bettor (my term): the bigger the bet, the bigger their hand

5) Reverse bettor (also my term): Small bets, sometimes even checks, mean monsters.

Well, there are also of course a bunch more, but I'd say 1-3 (particularly 1 and 2) are extremely important. Unless you're at an extremely strong table, I think you can play ABC poker and win sizeably and consistently if you just identify the players in groups 1 and 2.

I agree w/ rdale: universally, bad players cannot fold a second best hand under pressure to save their life; they can't think objectively and end up give away their stacks in clearly losing situations. Beyond AA and KK, this is how you make money at low buy-in tables Often you see a guy playing decent, maybe ABC poker, but then all of a sudden he gets crazy w/ his QQ or bottom two pair in heavy action and goes bust.

I think we all would agree, it takes a long long time looking at a lot of boards (and a few memorable losses) to fix this.

For me it is (I think this is in somewhat correct order of profitability):

1. Refusing to lay down an obvious second best hand such as two pair on a flush board.

2. Calling pot size bets to draw to their straights or flushes.

3. Bad starting hand selection. I'm amazed how happy some people are to call raises with trap hands like KQ; KJ, AQ, AJ. Obviously this is easily exploited by just raising the good starting hands properly and going/calling preflop all-ins with the right hands (ie:not AJ).

4. Betting too little. This is a favorite, I love those minibets when I have a gutshot and a backdoor flushdraw.