Race and Gender profiling

[sicvic]

Not to sound racist nor sexist but does anyone use a person's race or gender sometimes during a game to determine strategies on playing them? For example, Asians usually raising with not much or women playing very tight etc. All responses are welcome.

[Illininate]

With your examples, where does an Asian woman fall in???

/images/graemlins/grin.gif

But to answer your question, I don't. Too many exceptions to the rule to make this useful, IMO. It's much easier to just watch them play and figure out what type of player they are.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

With a tip of the hat to Dr. Al, I think it's quite useful to the player in question that you may be profiling. My wife often finds callers when she plays, because people assume she is an idiot at cards. I've watched her fold for 45 minutes straight, then get paid off handsomely when her hand hits, because everyone just assumed she didn't know what she was doing.

That having been said, I do look at such issues when making initial hypotheses, but quickly temper (or discard altogether) these initial reactions with observational data.

[daryn]

asian women are either crazy and horrible or the best at the table /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[Ilovephysics]

Or, I always love the attitude that 'Since age < 30 and wearing a baseball cap, then loose-aggressive who likes to bluff''. Perfect for a rock who plays about 5% of their hands, especially when their set hits.

[Sundevils21]

I think that asian women usually fall into one of these four categories: bad, not so bad, good, very good.
draw your own conclusions /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[TiK]

I love profilers, and I definitely reinforce that image for maybe the first bit at the table...make a couple of loose (usually borderline) raises, some loose calls, and everyone thinks I'm an asian maniac...which I definitely use to my advantage and get paid off well. The one asian woman I play with on a regular basis consistently beats the 10-20 as well as 15-30 games that she plays in...perhaps partly because of the profiling...perhaps partly because she is distractingly beautiful...but she's definitely a good cardplayer...

-Tik

[RollaJ]

Here's what I have seen:

Older women (40+) are usually good at Mid-limits and up, they're in a mans world and they have fought extra hard to succeed, ore at least try to break even

Younger woman, usually very timid most are just trying to play poker because their boyfriends convinced them to..... usually weak loose

Asians: loose, some aggressive some not but tend to be on the loose side (especially the young guys)

Blacks, the older the better, it goes contrary to what Ive seen from whites but it is what I have seen

Whites younger are better, perhaps because they read a lot more books. Many of the older players may have read the books, but old habbits die hard I suppose. Younge are more aggressive too.


NOTE: Before flaming realize this is only what I have seen, and I have seen many exceptions, but even if one of these is true just 51% of the time it is still at least a guide till you have a better read

[Lucky]

If you don't profile, you're an idiot. The fact is, most everyone does. The extent to which you're honest with yourself about this will certainly affect your winrate.

[sdplayerb]

I had this at the end of my tourney report for an Oceans 11 tourney.
Here is what I wrote:

My theory on the different types of asian players. FYI, In no ways do I think they are bad players!!! I live in San Diego. I would guess we have the highest concentration of asian players, in particular based on the being from different countries.
I’ve been at final tables where I was the only white boy.

I break them into three types, and include my theory on country of origin (again all in good fun)

1. Crazy/loose/action player (Vietnamese/Filipino)- Many of the best players in the world are Vietnamese. In general, they play a lot more hands preflop and are very dangerous. The good ones will play very well postflop. The bad ones play too loose then play top pair no kicker for all their chips.

2. Tight/overly Tight (Chinese)- Usually very bright. Went to UCSD, UCLA, or Berkeley (I live in socal) Will only play best hands. Unless they flop big you can take them off their hand very easily. If they bluff, they under bluff. If they are playing the hand, just stay away. You aren’t getting paid off unless you flop a set..and then they better have AA.

3. Loose, bad (I’m guessing rich Japanese)- You know them. They call everything. You can’t bluff them ever. They drive you insane with their luck against you, but then eventually lose all their chips, but usually not to you. Call an allin with Q5. Just wait for a big hand, they will call, no matter what they have..probably A high. They just don’t want to be bluffed out. Don’t consider bluffing them.
The player in the BB in my full house hand was clearly #3.

#1 is the most dangerous in the earlier stages of the tourney. # 2 is during the middle stages. I can now usually figure out who I am playing against very quickly, and it helped today as the asian player gave me over 1,500 in chips…and I never held a real hand preflop against him and he was to my left (which is good)

[lefty rosen]

You can't really stereotype any ethnic group..... But when I find bad players of certain ethnic/racial groups they tend to play in that bad stereotype for that ethnic group ie Soutwest Asians calling down any draw and losing rack after rack after rack........ Or they crazy cowboy young guy, the East Asian chaser and bluffer, the female calling station who only raises the nuts and freezes up with bullets.

[mak_662]

The only people that stereotype at the table are the ones who are not good enough to read players at their table...otherwise there would be no need to stereotype.

[LetsRock]

This type of profiling is useful only as an initial "first impression" book on a player. YOu should be making efforts to get a real read on anyone before you start "making moves" on them.

[mjohnson406]

I thought most of the loose young women could be rented outside of the poker room

[jedi]

[ QUOTE ]
If you don't profile, you're an idiot. The fact is, most everyone does. The extent to which you're honest with yourself about this will certainly affect your winrate.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if you simply profile, and don't try to narrow it down at all, then you're probably not going to do as well either.

If someone wants to profile me as a loose agressive Asian player, then so be it. If they decide to keep with that profile after 2 orbits where I'm folding most hands, then all the better for me.

If I'm profiling a table, I'll make a note of any discrepancies from a normal cultural stereotype (note: NOT an ethnic stereotype, but a cultural one. I can spot the difference between a gambling Vietnam or Arab from a tighter Vietnamese/American or Arab/American player).

[lefty rosen]

That is so true. American/Canadian born ethnic Asians don't play like the ethnic stereotypes as much as people think. Many solid winning players are tight Sklansky clones of ethnic Chinese ancestry at the casinos near me........

[RydenStoompala]

Nope. In fact poker has taught me the danger of race/gender profiling. You can get your butt kicked clean across town by labelling someone too quickly. I do see it often in other players and I am astounded how much money they will spend trying to prove to themselves that an Asian person is playing too many hands or a woman will never re-raise. It's just dumb.

[Shaun]

Obviously you have to pay attention to specific individuals and how they play, but of course we all use steretypes as a starting point. The fact that there is so much denial regarding this proves just how politically correct we have gotten.

People stereotype each other, it's like collecting data and referring to the data bank later on, and there is nothing racist or evil about it. I feel like the thought police are going to show up any minute- I'd better go and hide...