10-21-2005, 01:03 PM
OK, I don’t necessarily think that, but I was trying to get you to open the post. But I do want to talk about reads.
So here’s the thing. For the last week since the Empire/Party split, I’ve been playing on UB. I’ve never had an account on UB, so I’m brand new there and obviously had zero notes on any of the players. I’ve been playing two full ring 50NL tables while getting used to the software (I normally play 100NL and 200NL). On Empire/Party, I almost always had notes on at least 2-3 people at the table when I sat down. I was always adding notes and refining them, etc. When in a marginal/tough situation I would often rely on my notes/reads to make the difficult decision.
At UB, I haven’t been using or making any notes (except for the rare cases of something completely obscene). Any time I had to make a difficult decision I simply took the betting, action, and cards on board for their face value. And by simply taking their bets at face value my results have been incredible and quite consistent. I’ve played 7 sessions and haven’t had a down session yet. In 18 hours of playing two 50NL, I’m up 8 buy-ins (not counting my bonus money). I know this is a small sample, variance, blah, blah, blah. I’ve been running pretty well, of course, but I’ve also taken a handful of terrible beats. This includes the worst two beats I’ve ever taken: getting it all-in on the flop with the nut flush to lose to a runner runner straight flush; and getting all in on the flop with a boat, only to lose to runner runner quads (along with others). My point is simply that not everything has been a bed of roses. But I think that I’ve folded a lot of hands that were probably behind just by taking the betting patterns at face value. If I had been on Empire/Party with all kinds of notes, I could easily see myself calling because of my “read.” In other words, maybe my reads have been talking me into to calling with the worst hand. I called with the best hand plenty of times but maybe I talked myself into calling with the worst hand enough to cancel them out or even be –EV (which is my hunch).
So here’s my question: How important do you think reads really are? Would we just be better off taking things at face value (with the exception of total maniacs)? Do we overrate our “reads”? I’m starting to think that maybe reads are overvalued. Or at least playing without reads the last week has worked very well for me so far. (I think it also keeps me from trying to get too tricky, which is normally -EV.)
So here’s the thing. For the last week since the Empire/Party split, I’ve been playing on UB. I’ve never had an account on UB, so I’m brand new there and obviously had zero notes on any of the players. I’ve been playing two full ring 50NL tables while getting used to the software (I normally play 100NL and 200NL). On Empire/Party, I almost always had notes on at least 2-3 people at the table when I sat down. I was always adding notes and refining them, etc. When in a marginal/tough situation I would often rely on my notes/reads to make the difficult decision.
At UB, I haven’t been using or making any notes (except for the rare cases of something completely obscene). Any time I had to make a difficult decision I simply took the betting, action, and cards on board for their face value. And by simply taking their bets at face value my results have been incredible and quite consistent. I’ve played 7 sessions and haven’t had a down session yet. In 18 hours of playing two 50NL, I’m up 8 buy-ins (not counting my bonus money). I know this is a small sample, variance, blah, blah, blah. I’ve been running pretty well, of course, but I’ve also taken a handful of terrible beats. This includes the worst two beats I’ve ever taken: getting it all-in on the flop with the nut flush to lose to a runner runner straight flush; and getting all in on the flop with a boat, only to lose to runner runner quads (along with others). My point is simply that not everything has been a bed of roses. But I think that I’ve folded a lot of hands that were probably behind just by taking the betting patterns at face value. If I had been on Empire/Party with all kinds of notes, I could easily see myself calling because of my “read.” In other words, maybe my reads have been talking me into to calling with the worst hand. I called with the best hand plenty of times but maybe I talked myself into calling with the worst hand enough to cancel them out or even be –EV (which is my hunch).
So here’s my question: How important do you think reads really are? Would we just be better off taking things at face value (with the exception of total maniacs)? Do we overrate our “reads”? I’m starting to think that maybe reads are overvalued. Or at least playing without reads the last week has worked very well for me so far. (I think it also keeps me from trying to get too tricky, which is normally -EV.)