Hey guys, I'm mostly an online player and I was just wondering about one thing in the live world. While you guys are sitting at the tables and you sit with an unknown and it's your first time sitting with this guy and your observing, watching his style of play, looking for tells and all that kind of stuff when learning about a new opponent. In that time period of all the observing when do you think you have a good idea of what type of player he is and what kind of ranges he has to roughly put him in a certain category? Like would it take you an half an hour, an hour or a couple of hours to get some good feel out of him?

It usually depends on the player but I think you should be able to get some solid ideas of how everyone plays with an hour of sitting at the table.

I guess it would depend on both the players. Overall I was thinking 2 hours max even for beginner players if they had a good understanding of the game?

I find that most players are easily stereo-typed into a few categories which are helpful. usually by an hour I have a decent understanding of whats going on in this players head and can begin constructing ranges and strategies/counter-strategies.

This is a big generalization though.

It won't take long to sort them into nit/station/TAG categories, should be obvious in a few orbits. You won't run into too many surprises until the turn comes along, which is where things start to diverge. Action on the flop does not predict action on the turn very well, so keep this in mind. Takes a lot more time to get a turn read; hours, in the case of tight players.

Not many skilled aggro players at the lower limits, and they are all over the place. No way to classify them. Just have to pay attention, build up a profile. They tend to be active and so you will probably have exploitable info within a couple of hours.

I was just comparing online to live about this because when I'm playing online and reached the live average hands and that is around 30 I would say, it's not even close to profiling the player of what type of player he is. As to online players seem to change up their strategies pretty dramatically I find. With you guys at live poker do you find if you played against an opponent on several different occasions that they will dramatically change their style of play or do I only see this in online play?

In general, the worse the player, the quicker you'll figure them out. The playing styles of the worst players require less hands dealt as a sample size to figure them out. Preflop, they play a lot of hands, mainly for a limp. You should be able to notice this within the first few orbits. Postflop, they are just passive as a whole. I like Bart Hanson's description of weak players as "showdown monkeys", they frequently check back surprisingly strong hands on the turn and river. Watching preflop and late street passive tendencies is the easiest way to figure out if a dude is a likely donator. I can generally figure out if a dude is a donor within 2 orbits or less. Weak players are also generally passive with draws.

For tighter and better players, it takes a little more time, just because you don't see them in hands as often. Again, pay attention to turn/river tendencies, these really separate the recreational types from the better players. Tight doesn't mean good, it just means tight. There are tight players that won't relinquish their top/overpair once they hit it. There are the exact opposite "nut peddler" weak-tight types that can be continuously blasted off their one pair hands to big turn/river bets. There are tight-passive OMCs that only raise a nutted range pre (QQ-AA) but also limp in a loose range. Further categorizing a player that is tight from the outset takes more time.

In general, I would say I can ID your average rec fish or maniac in less than 30 mins. I can probably get a general feel for a recreational tight player in an hour. It comes down to a few different categories : 1) Preflop. How many pots are they playing? Are they coming in for raises at all, and if so, how frequently? ; 2) Postflop : Betting patterns. How do they play their common "medium strength" hands like top pair or an overpair? Are they missing later street value in spots that would be an easy bet for a good player? How do they play draws? If they raised preflop, are they C-betting regularly?

OP, please read this thread.http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/27...easy-1021276/. It will help you sort out online player types. As for how long, it depends.

I would pay attention to 3 things in particular: 1) how comfortable does the player look at the table? Does it look like he has a lot of experience playing live? Watch how he pushes in chips, how he cuts chips, how fast he can identify made hands (flush, straights, boats, etc.). Also (at least in the card room i play at), if an early 20's person sits down for around min buy in alot of times thats a good sign he's not that experienced in poker (It's not guaranteed or an exact science so don't misquote me).

2) watch the hands he or she plays and from what position, if you see someone in ep turn over 95s than you can pretty much be assured he's not a consistent winner even if he has a good stack at that time. And that's a point to harp on; just because someone has a big stack doesn't mean he's good! If you play live long enough you'll be amazed by some of the heaters players playing absolute garbage go on, and it won't be too uncommon to see them lose their stack eventually either.

3) for me, probably the biggest giveaway is by players bet sizing. People who constantly bet 1/3 or less of the pot and/or make weak pf raises ($8 or less on 1/2) are definetely not consistent winners. TAG, or super TAG (with a lot of emphasis on tight, i don't necessarily think you need to go crazy constantly making overbets but at least bet half the pot, probably more on most occasions, sometimes less if you're making a value bet that you want someone to call), definetely seems to be a consistent way to make decent money playing at low stakes with pretty low variance. Also look at hands that players check down where they should've bet (like trips or two pair, even flushes using both cards), but didnt because they were terrified someone else might've had them beat even though if they read the situation right, they would know betting is the right play in that instance. Most players you will probably see will be loose passive (watch out for traps and slowplaying), followed by lag. I think tag is the rarest style you'll see since most players will start to get impatient if they're constantly folding. I think the more you play live, especially if you're sticking to only a few places at most, you should be able to properly classify players within a few orbits at most. Can't really tell you how long it would take someone who doesn't have a lot of live play under his belt. Hope this helped.

Show downs give the best and most accurate info. Sometimes all it takes is for me to see one hand to peg someone as a "mark". I'll also add that Thamel18 and Aces&Kings have made some good points.