Too Much Credit...

[liladypokerpro]

I see a lot of hand discussion topics and tournament questions regarding the play of certain hands, and the play of the opponents involved.

My question to everyone is, when you are answering these topics, do you take into consideration that many online players may have no clue about odds calculation, playing according to reads, or even the most basic information like the proper starting hands and raise amounts?

I ask this because I see a lot of great information being posted by people who clearly know the game and the aspects of it.

However, it seems many of the better players may likely give other players too much credit for a hand they are simply not that likely to have. I have made the same mistake in the past, but have learned from giving other players "too much credit" because I cannot judge another player simply by what I know to be correct. There are just too many players who, for lack of a better phrase, are completely clueless.

I can usually pick up on a good player over the course of a game, because eventually you will see cards and be able to compare his actions with his cards and find that his plays were correct for the situations. But I find far fewer of those players, which makes me wonder how we can assume so easily that everyone understands the many aspects of making proper plays, and thus how can we dictate what they may or may not be holding?

Just curious....What are your thoughts?

[gamer4life27]

Over the course of a long period of time playing a certain player online or live, you always get a little idea of how they play. If they know what there doing, if they know pot odds, if they know starting hands, ect. Online is much different that live though. But your question is just about online, so lets go into further detail on that.

Many players online are just either little kids wanting to play poker for the first time, or to practice. Or, there young players between 18-24 who are trying to play for the fun of it, tyring to see if they can play just as good online as they do live. And then the older group, there pretty much un-predictable. They could either be just getting into the game, they could be trying to watch some famous pro's play online and decide to play at that site as well, or there hard core veterans who are really trying to make a bankroll or living off of online poker.

In the first two groups (the underage and the barley of age), some of them might know what there doing and they might even be trying to have a lot of cash from it. But that description I find describes most of them best.

When playing with people online, you never know who you are playing with (unless it's a pro). Even some pro's arn't famous enough to be recognized by major poker sites and play regularly there. So basically, there is a wide range of players you could always be up against.

When I personally give information, I always assume that the person knows some basic starting hands (like high cards, pocket pairs, and suited connectors). I don't assume more than that. I don't think they go off of pot odds that often, but I sometimes do. I will always give the person posting the question there pot odds, and sometimes I'll give them what they gave the other person.

When playing, unless it's a pro, I never assume they have the nuts right away. I want to watch them play for a little bit, see some cards, and want to see what they would do in certain situations. If they make good moves, then you could assume they know a little bit more than the most of the online players. If they make some pretty stupid plays, such as always calling with gut shots, or calling all the way to the river to fold most of the time, then there in the catagorie of 'the average online poker player'.

You always have to remember, unless your playing REALLY high limits (such as $500+) then most likely, there are going to be some clueless people in your game. The lower limits you go, the more people who don't know what there doing are playing.

And online, there are very few reads you can go off of. The only 'read' you have is betting patterns. And if a person who knows what there doing is playing, they can easily hide this and make you totally clueless about them.

Remember, there is a fine line between making a donkey move, and mixing up your play. Make sure to walk the fine line.

[Wyte22]

I see a lot of hand discussion topics and tournament questions regarding the play of certain hands, and the play of the opponents involved.

My question to everyone is, when you are answering these topics, do you take into consideration that many online players may have no clue about odds calculation, playing according to reads, or even the most basic information like the proper starting hands and raise amounts?

I ask this because I see a lot of great information being posted by people who clearly know the game and the aspects of it.

However, it seems many of the better players may likely give other players too much credit for a hand they are simply not that likely to have. I have made the same mistake in the past, but have learned from giving other players "too much credit" because I cannot judge another player simply by what I know to be correct. There are just too many players who, for lack of a better phrase, are completely clueless.

I can usually pick up on a good player over the course of a game, because eventually you will see cards and be able to compare his actions with his cards and find that his plays were correct for the situations. But I find far fewer of those players, which makes me wonder how we can assume so easily that everyone understands the many aspects of making proper plays, and thus how can we dictate what they may or may not be holding?

Just curious....What are your thoughts?

Great point. I can say this from a HU point of view. When it comes to online, the only real tells are betting patterns and styles. Usually if I don't have notes on someone, I'll play slow,fast, slow with them for a few hands to get a feel for their style and take a few small showdowns (even if I have the worst hand) just to compare their betting style/pattern to their holding. Most of the time (ESPICALLY in the lower levels, less so at $100+9 and over for tourneys and $10/$20 for cash game) the patterns and style are VERY consistent. For example, While I started writting this, my $5+.50 multi multi table heads up shoot out started. Never seen the villian EVER, but quickly picked up the fact he was ultra loose and aggressive and I played back at him, shown down a few hands where he was betting hard and didn't have squat. Soo we battle around 1.5K for awhile, I get QQ, limp, he re-raises me, I moved in, just cuz I know he didn't have anything and the fact he would call me with 62o if he felt he could win, he called. Showed me 77. Proceeded to call me a donkey and a few other choice words

Some of the posted hands we can only speculate about the holding, we could only speculate about the villian's possible range of cards, we don't know their VP$IP, aggression levels, % of flops seen over course of 10,20, and 100 hands. How many hands has the villian raised PF? Does he show down good solid hands or trash? Does the villian fold easily to a re-raise or does he challenge consistently? For tourneys, What is the M and Q of hero and villian? Are the blinds and antes going up soon and cut you from orange to yellow or yellow to red? Soooo many factors not given to us, is part of what a good poker player needs to consider before justifying a move.


Soo in short, yes we can't say for certain what the RIGHT move is with alot of the hands posted because of information that is incomplete or lacking. All we can do is take the information given to us by the poster and generate what we think is our best educated poker opinion. That's really all poker comes down to, one educated poker opinion .v. another.

[irishpkr]

Interesting thread for sure I feel like I prefer to side with caution when it comes to close calls, and then I'll alter my attitudes to people as I get some history with them. After even 100hands you'll have a pretty fair idea of who is good, preflop at least. If you use pokertracker or similar, and you should, then if you see someone 15/12 up to about 28/24 say, you're gonna have to assume they know their stuff preflop.

Postflop is a whole 'nother matter I've seen pretty tight guys go broke with TT for 200BB in a 4bet 3way pot, I've seen nits go mad with TPNK. Really it is tough to know what they're at, and its best to get reads quickly (duh!) Ofcourse you can use stats such as cbet/fold cbet/3bet/fold 3bet/steal/fold to steal and whatnot to get a picture of how they operate, but these probably wont be accurate until you have many hundreds, or even thousands of hands on the guy/gal.

[gamer4life27]

Interesting thread for sure I feel like I prefer to side with caution when it comes to close calls, and then I'll alter my attitudes to people as I get some history with them. After even 100hands you'll have a pretty fair idea of who is good, preflop at least. If you use pokertracker or similar, and you should, then if you see someone 15/12 up to about 28/24 say, you're gonna have to assume they know their stuff preflop.

Postflop is a whole 'nother matter I've seen pretty tight guys go broke with TT for 200BB in a 4bet 3way pot, I've seen nits go mad with TPNK. Really it is tough to know what they're at, and its best to get reads quickly (duh!) Ofcourse you can use stats such as cbet/fold cbet/3bet/fold 3bet/steal/fold to steal and whatnot to get a picture of how they operate, but these probably wont be accurate until you have many hundreds, or even thousands of hands on the guy/gal.

In online poker, within 100 hands, you already have the second break approximately. By that time, you should have a real good idea of your opponents pre flop, post flop, on the turn, river, ect. When playing online it's really key to pick up on patterns really quick.