A month ago, I read an excellent comment by Olivier Busquet on Twitter. He said that people often talk about the differences between theory and exploitable play, but that they rarely discuss the distinction between exploiting unknown players and exploiting known players. In fact, many players turn to game theory when facing an unknown opponent. Busquet seems to imply that this is a mistake, since you might have even better opportunities by “deciphering and exploiting general population trends using reads.” I agree.
Exploring unknown players
Even when you don’t know a player, you can know enough about him to be able to deviate profitably enough from game theory. We do this primarily through the readings we have. For example, when playing a small stakes tournament, we can make a Bayesian inference and safely assume that a random unknown player at our table doesn’t have a super-extensive knowledge of game theory. Even if we’ve never met him before, we know he has flaws. In the small stakes games I play, it’s safe to assume that he’s likely to be very loose in the early levels and very tight as we get closer to the bubble.
Since then, I have been coaching them on the specific strategies I use to beat “unknown” players in these games. They are starting to see improvements compared to the theoretical approach they had previously tried to implement. Now they must take the next step. Busquet describes this as beating players by “developing specific game strategies based on a certain amount of information.” In other words, we use our readings to gain an advantage over unknown opponents.
Exploring known players
No unknown player should stay that way forever. By paying attention to all the hands at the table, including the ones you're not in the game with, you can gather information that:
- Confirm or deny the general reads you assign to a random player. For example, if you had classified him as I did before, being loose at the start and tight at the bubble, you can adjust this according to the new information you have acquired.
- It gives you the opportunity to develop a more nuanced, more individualized game strategy, making your game more profitable.
Gathering information and readings is perhaps the most important job of a poker player, and most have difficulty doing it consistently.
This dilemma reminds me of one I encountered when I was teaching high school math. I would end class by begging my students to “study for tomorrow’s test!” This advice never seemed to work, until one day I realized that they had no idea how to study. I only began to see results when I dedicated a portion of class time to teaching study skills, rather than just math itself. Recently, this realization came to me again when I told my students to “pay attention and gather information.” When I realized that they had no idea how to get information or how to use the information they had gathered, I decided to write this article.
How to categorize players using readings
On a macro level, I can quickly determine whether or not a player is likely to play the way I expect. In small stakes games, I expect most players to be loose and passive. You can quickly pick up on this information by looking at the number of multiway pots filled with limpers. If this is as common in your game as it is in mine, just assume that everyone is loose and passive until proven otherwise.
These overall readings can be confirmed on an individual basis by looking at the number and quality of hands that go to showdown. If they play hands that you know they theoretically should have folded, then they are loose. If they play them mostly by checking or calling, then they are loose and passive. If they play them mostly by betting and raising, then they are loose aggressive.
For now, you can ignore other players, as these two groups will be your biggest sources of information, and therefore your biggest sources of profit. They will be the people who are either losing the most chips or winning the most chips. Your job is to determine what works and what doesn’t work for them and use that information to your advantage in the future. To do this, you must study them closely, both in and out of the game. This is where many players fail, so here are some tips to help you develop your poker reads.
Fragmenting and extrapolating information
By definition, if a table has a lot of loose passive players, there will be a lot of showdowns. This is a goldmine on poker sites where you can see the cards that are folded as “muck.” Even when you can’t see the cards, you can sometimes determine that a mucked hand was weak because it didn’t even beat the potentially weak winning hand.
If you can see the exact cards, you can start to break down and extrapolate that information. For example, if you noticed that a player limped with a hand like KQ from early position, it’s safe to assume that he or she will also limped with similar hands. Hands like KJ, QJ, QT, JT, etc. all fall into the same group of hands as KQ. Be sure to note whether he or she plays suited and offsuited cards in the same way, but pay particular attention to the offsuit cards, as they make up the majority of the range.
If you notice a player limping with a lot of Ax hands, what can you extrapolate from the hands he will use to raise? He has fewer Ax hands in his raising range, which means he is more likely to bluff with c-bets on Ace-high flops than a player who raises all his Ax hands.
Betting Patterns
Some good players use big bets with strong hands or big bets with weak hands. You can easily confirm these bet sizing tells in players who go to showdown a lot. Again, if we learn what their big bets mean, we can extrapolate from that to learn what their small bets probably mean, even before we see one.
Most players c-bet frequently when they are the preflop aggressor, but many don’t double or triple barrel enough. In the early stages of tournaments, when many hands go to showdown, you can determine which streets a player likes to value bet or bluff on and which streets he likes to check or fold on. This powerful information can be used against him or her in the future.
Conclusion
When you’re playing small stakes games, you should treat an unknown player the same way you treat most known small stakes players. You shouldn’t treat him the way you would treat a random unknown who is potentially playing in the most theoretical way possible. Trying to play purely theoretically is like fighting over pennies. Gathering specific details about your leaks is like catching $100 bills that keep falling out of your opponent’s pockets.
Once you have observed enough of his game that he is no longer an unknown, you should be able to exploit him much more profitably than if you had played by theory alone. Sometimes you may find that he is actually a good player compared to the average low stakes player. Other times you will find that you do not yet have enough information about how to exploit your opponent. In this case, your best response is to go back to your safe haven and play by the books, but always looking for an opportunity to once again unravel the mysteries of your opponent's game so that you can exploit him and profit from it.
Article translated and adapted from the original: How to Develop and Use Reads
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Great read.
We appreciate the compliment!
This is one of the articles I needed to read. I always try to play according to theory, and it works. But it could work out much better if I knew how to use my opponent's characteristics to my advantage.
Theory is the basis of everything, but for an intermediate/advanced game we really need to go much further!
Abs.