Assigning types to Opponents
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 126
Most poker books talk about opponent types and there is a lot of discussion on the internet. They use names like Fish, NIT, LAG, and TAG. Loose players and tight players. But I can not find any books or internet sources that actually be used to assign types. For example, what VPIP ranges determine loose, tight, or average. There are many useful statistics in Holdem Manager and in HUDs.
Are there any agreed on numbers for various player type ranges? What combination of statistics defines a player type?
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 4,822
Technically, this depends on the reliability of the prior.
If the collected experience of thousands of winning poker players records that any random unknown player at NL10 is likely to fall within a few recognizable groups of styles, then within a hundred hands, you can confidently assign a player to a type.
However, the lengths to which you bias your strategy versus those types is debated. My experience is that small adjustments have large monetary rewards at minimal risk to reverse exploitation.
All of this is up to you. Assigning the types is the process, and the process is what matters.
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 13,256
It depends a fair bit on the game format (full ring, 6-max, tourney, or cash) and the stake level (a "nit" at 2000NL could have stats that might be considered quite loose at 2NL) and there would be quite a debate about where you draw the arbitrary brackets. One person's LAGfish is another person's "tough reg".
Join Date: Jul 2016
Posts: 283
I'll do the easy ones. Nit is anyone with <18% VPIP imo but also remember they can have nitty tendencies in other ways like 21 VPIP but 1% 3b. 50+ hands should be enough to be sure of this type.
Fish would be anyone with >50% VPIP or a huge gap between VPIP and PFR such as 30/5 or 20/2, anyone limping (except maybe SB) or anyone with less than 100bb. For some of these things you only need 20 hands to assign the correct type.
