Thinking from your opponents point of view rather than your own

luckylucky

I've been posting regularly on boards for over a month now, I've been playing online poker for several years but have not got to chat about it so much before - I think it has been really useful process for me - the one thing that strikes me is there is such a different array of opinions even between knowledgable players and this brings to mind a leak I think many of us maybe even the vast majority of us have in our game :eek: ....

When I look back through pokertracker there are extreme rocks to extreme maniacs with everything in between... the one thing that really springs to mind is when we are trying to figure out the logic of a players play we often transpose our way of doing things to make sense of their actions, not saying we do this blindly and aren't factoring in the way we have seen this guy play but our own biases I think often cloud our judgment...

I remember in a reply I made a short while ago to another post I was ruling out a guy having a medium pair in the small blind at late stage of tourney because it made no sense for a guy to have just flat called with a pair in the small blind at this late stage of tourney, though I still think was true it was still me imposing my reasoning to the situation.. certain weak tight players will indeed just flat call in the small blind with a medium pair though they're M or the BB's M is low. So in this point I was wrong to rule out the player having a medium pair.

While I am criticising myself here I think this error is something many of us do, I have seen it in many posts where statements from people saying something like 'Well your opponent couldn't have this or that because I wouldn't play it like that or it doesn't make sense to play it like that if he had that' but what seems clear from these posts is that this transposing of one's own thinking on to others play is very prevalent though in terms of being relevant to the actual stituation it often is not when there is such a broad spectrum of opponents all with their own logic or total lack of it in many cases.

You can also flip this around and I think can assume other players maybe only semi-consciously but nevertheless are often transposing there way of thinking to the way you are playing a hand

Examples

When an extreme maniac sees you betting wildly... what may he be thinking - if indeed thinking is the right word even? Well when he is betting wildy there is a high chance he is out of line, so reverse this and what runs through his head when he sees you betting wildly I reckon quite often his thinking runs very much along the lines of when I bet like this I'm trying it on so I think this guy is trying it on - in fact from practice I think this is so often the truth.

The latter point I believe applies to all aggressive type of players but to a lesser degree than the example of the extreme maniac...
to an intelligent aggressive player he will also recognise that Yeah often this kind of confident betting is indeed no cherade.

When you are checking your hand against an extreme maniac of course - it'll often just be another reason for him to try to steal the pot - if anything at all is going to scare these guys it is the check raise I believe.

When an extreme rock sees this same aggressive action as in the earlier example what is he likely to be thinking, i this time it's highly likely that he is very frightened of your bets and believes them for what they are simply because there is no way he would bet so strongly unless he had a great hand and he is far more likely to fold moderate hands, if he is calling your bets it is safer to asume than normal that he has a big hand.

For me I'm tightish pre-flop but aggressive post flop(I am toning it down ) - I'm betting a lot of marginal hands (I do the same with the nuts) so I'm more out of line more often than most - an error i think I have been making is transposing at least to a certain extent my way of playing on to what an opponent has done, hence I probably am not folding quite enough as I'm assuming the opponent is out of line more often than they actually are simply because if I was them I would be. Also if you are tighter than the norm you need to bear in mind that just because you would not bet with middle pair crap kicker on river, it does not mean your loose opponent wouldn't!

So when deciding on what play to make, try to figure it from your opponent type rather than from your own way of doing things.

I'll leave it at that for now as I think I could go on about this for a while, anybody else have thoughts on this?

careca

Nice post. Maybe not on the same lines but I was just discussing variance/luck with a seasoned poker player here this morning. We were discussing players making ridiculous calls and getting lucky. Most players on this site would say, stick him in your buddy list and follow him. Or "you want him to call in these situations all the time".

Now when you put notes on a player and you try to put him on hands because of your notes, there are a hundred other things that should come into play.

• Was the player on tilt when ye clashed
• Was he/she drunk
• Were you drunk
• Was he/she just after winning a fortune and couldnt give a **** about your low stakes
• Is it even the same player
• etc

I think Oscar hit on it before that he rarely uses notes because situations vary every time you log on and Fatboydim did a good article about "whens a tell really a tell" but are we taking too much notice of past play in our present play.

/end random thoughts

luckylucky

careca wrote:

Nice post. Maybe not on the same lines but I was just discussing variance/luck with a seasoned poker player here this morning. We were discussing players making ridiculous calls and getting lucky. Most players on this site would say, stick him in your buddy list and follow him. Or "you want him to call in these situations all the time".

Now when you put notes on a player and you try to put him on hands because of your notes, there are a hundred other things that should come into play.

• Was the player on tilt when ye clashed
• Was he/she drunk
• Were you drunk
• Was he/she just after winning a fortune and couldnt give a **** about your low stakes
• Is it even the same player
• etc

I think Oscar hit on it before that he rarely uses notes because situations vary every time you log on and Fatboydim did a good article about "whens a tell really a tell" but are we taking too much notice of past play in our present play.

/end random thoughts

I hear what your saying, on the other hand though I don't think you can ignore past play of an opponent, yeah sure if you have only played 1 or 2 sessions with him/her they may have been off form that day - god knows if a player had just seen me on just my worse days there notes would not make pretty reading Still the more past play you have with somebody it's information - and to ignore this has to be wrong surely - though I do agree to be weary for the reasons you mention of basing your play too much on past play. Anyways must have a look at those post you mentioned.

careca

In fairness, you're right, I was just blabbering on a bit and I do use notes quite a lot myself. No doubt you can categorise players and they will conform to that category most of the time.

I know exactly what you mean by notes about yourself. Its the one part of my game that crucifies me. I can play good (maybe even great) poker for a couple of hours and I would imagine get a few decent notes written about me. Then come back from the pub and log in again and its a total different animal, playing ****e, gambling, all the wrong moves at the wrong time, etc.

Even last night (sober) I played two hands that would baffle most. I slow played AA to perfection (imo) and stacked a guy, then approx twenty hands later, I pull of the worst bluff ever. I could just see all the notes being overwritten

staringelf

interesting topic. this is one of the main reasons i don't take notes on opponents, at all. admitedly i don't play cash games, only sng's, but they aren't that different when you're just talking about player types/tendencies. think about it - if you have notes from a player you played with 6 months ago, how likely is it that those notes are still relevant?

does anyone play the same as they did 6 months ago? i don't. people improve or try new styles all the time. i've gone through periods of being super loose and aggressive to super weak/tight and everything in between. i've made tilt plays, misclicked, messed about at lower stakes taking the piss, started multitabling which changes your style, etc etc. people change the way they play ALL the time - especially online, where you get so many more hands in and its so much easier to make progress with your game.

even some of the regulars i play with all the time and have seen nearly everyday for the last 6 months i've noticed extreme changes in their styles (not from note taking but just general observance and remembrance of hands they happened to play and show down).

just think about the next time you're considering a decision based on someones player notes - those notes could be completly off whack from the way he is actually playing and you're going to base a decision on player notes that often have a decent chance of being COMPLETLY wrong. i'm not saying player note taking is useless but in my opinion its something in online play that gets far too much of a priority put on it.

again, interesting topic lucky...finally something strategy related. all this wsop "i'm off to vegas" talk is depressing me

ArmaniJeanss

staringelf wrote:

does anyone play the same as they did 6 months ago? i don't. people improve or try new styles all the time. i've gone through periods of being super loose and aggressive to super weak/tight and everything in between. i've made tilt plays, misclicked, messed about at lower stakes taking the piss, started multitabling which changes your style, etc etc. people change the way they play ALL the time - especially online, where you get so many more hands in and its so much easier to make progress with your game.

even some of the regulars i play with all the time and have seen nearly everyday for the last 6 months i've noticed extreme changes in their styles (not from note taking but just general observance and remembrance of hands they happened to play and show down).
(

I sort of agree but wouldnt it be better to have notes on a player anyway, but Date them, and choose to disregard them if they are beyond a certain time frame.
Though personally I find that a lot of players never improve - if someone is capable of making glaringingly stupid errors, then they never seem to improve their game.
I've over 4000 notes on players from STTs and I'd say i've changed my opinions of players no more than 10 times.

luckylucky

hi staringelf, I rem your alias from some battles on partypoker - not saying what my alias is on there of course;)
I think my notes r complimentary btw - but according to u I better tear em up eh

anyway not that this note taking stuff isn't interesting but it's starting to stray off topic a bit though.

staringelf wrote:

all this wsop "i'm off to vegas" talk is depressing me

Tell me about it - I didn't try too hard this year but did manage to get to final step on party - though I found it hard to get to play it because of the times, twice I made it to final step on party last year....ah well there's always 2007 - I think I'll make a big push for it then - Poker Stars seem to have more avenues of making it - i think I might pursue it with them next year.
Anyway should have a lot more time now as I finish my day job in 9 days time - hopefully will never have to do a mind-numbing 9 to 5 job again as I'm about to pursue poker writing as a full time career and should be able to get to play much more poker too.

Anyways getting back to the main topic - when we decide on how we play a hand I think I our own ideas(right or wrong) about how a hand should be played bears little relevance to what the opponent(s) involved in hand may be thinking... this is a vital skill I believe that I for one need to work on or at least put into real practice more ... I would consider my style as tight agro pre-flop and I make up for this by being very aggressive post-flop - there are flaws in my play that I need to iron out I believe I have been too aggressive but still this type of style has proved reasonably successful for me - but I think to take my game on to another level - the only style I should have is a freestyle adaptive one - if this comes out as tight-aggressive, semi-loose agro or whatever then I want it to be an indication of the average of my play and nothing to do with 'How I Play' if that make sense :rolleyes: basically who the opponent(s) are and what logic flawed or otherwise do they base their decisions on is what I will be looking to find out and base my decisions on.

staringelf

ArmaniJeanss wrote:

I sort of agree but wouldnt it be better to have notes on a player anyway, but Date them, and choose to disregard them if they are beyond a certain time frame.
Though personally I find that a lot of players never improve - if someone is capable of making glaringingly stupid errors, then they never seem to improve their game.
I've over 4000 notes on players from STTs and I'd say i've changed my opinions of players no more than 10 times.

possibly, although it seems like an awful lot of work. i multitable heavily and its next to impossible for me to take notes anyway. once you're confident your notes are spot on then obviously its an advantage. i'm just not sure you can ever be THAT confident. people deviate all the time from their normal playing style. weak/tight players are more than capable from mixing it up for a hand, knowing that most players have them down as weak/tight. as a result, they can steal the odd pot with a well timed move.

i suppose the key is to not rely on your notes religiously. seems like too much work for me though. i'd rather just base my decisions on what i've seen at the table in that session, my gut feeling or any of the other factors like betting patterns, blinds, chip stacks, my cards, etc, rather than some preconceived notion i have as to a general style of play a particular player has.