Quote:
Originally Posted by mcintoac2442
I've recently read Johnathan Little's book on winning small stakes poker tournaments. The main topic of the book is catering your playing style to take advantage of certain player types, the four being a combination of loose/tight and passive/aggressive.
I understand how each style plays and then theoretically I should be able to watch a player and get a handle on which block they most accurately fall under, however when playing tournaments and cash games, especially online, I find it hard to get a good read on opponents and often make bad decisions against them. I believe I am making the right decision according to how I believe they are playing, yet I think my problem may fall in how I am classifying each player.
Johnathan Little's book talks at length about how to play against each player type, but there aren't many tips or information on the best ways to begin to classify your opponents when you sit down at a table, especially in online games. Does anyone have a good resource for this?
The problem is sample size. Absent using a HUD, or playing live poker, I might be able to observe a guy for 20 or 30 hands, and then decide from there if his 40% vpip is the result of getting a higher number of playable hands, or if he is truly a LAG.
What I do, and mind you I mostly play live MTT's, is I really just track very pronounced behavior, and from there classify them. If a player shows down after calling three streets of action with middle pair, or if a player open raises over 50% of th e time, or iof he calls draws with bad prices, or if he he uses odd bet sizing, or if he always c-bets, etc., etc. I use these data points to classify the type of player. Often it goes beyond just the loose\tight. passive\aggressive matrix, though that is a good place to start
