psychology of party poker

[iplaypoker]

Hello everyone I'm a long time reader first time poster here at 2+2. I haven't played poker in 2 years (due to my house burning down last Oct.) and can't wait to sharpen and polish my skills.

I've been playing poker on PP the last 3 months. When I first started playing I noticed that some players take longer than others to call, bet, check, and raise, so I decided try an experiment. My hypothesis was - usually when a person catches a nut hand they would be quick to bet, and usually when a person has a second best hand they would often take a few seconds to think if they should call or not. I found that with an average of 4 people in the pot. people folded more when I bet and raised quickly, and players raised me more when I took a few seconds to call. I don't know if they thought I had a weaker hand because I was more reluctant to call.
I'm not sure what to make out of all of this. Does this little theory hold water? how many of you will wait for the 20sec warning before betting your nut straight? I know I usually bet immediatly because I'm excited about a win.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Usually, when people take long to act all the time it means one of two things.

1) they have a crappy internet connection.
2) they're playing on multiple tables.

I'd be more likely to notice when somebody does it, who doesn't usually do it.

Of course he could just be taking out the garbage. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[mosch]

While it has some usefulness, it's certainly not a guaranteed read. The problem is that you can't tell if that person is (playing multiple tables, browsing the web, reading email, grabbing a beer) or if they're thinking. Additionally, there's a fairly sizable group of people who seem to think that slowplaying actually means waiting a long time before they bet.

[baggins]

[ QUOTE ]
Additionally, there's a fairly sizable group of people who seem to think that slowplaying actually means waiting a long time before they bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

too funny.

[ArchAngel71857]

Additionally, there's a fairly sizable group of people who seem to think that slowplaying actually means waiting a long time before they bet.

No, No, No, that's SLOWROLLING!

-AA

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I think you must cautiously interpret this information, but it does have limited usefulness. I would say that a long pause tends more to mean weakness than strength. However, some people who play multiple games may have tendencies that appear more random after study than would appear at first. For instance, if I am in one game making a tough decision, and another game pops up, I immediately switch back to the more critical decision and make the second game wait.

There is a hand I played recently where I used a pause by my opponent to change the obvious play. I raised with KK, got reraised, heads up by SB. Flop ace high. He waited a long time to bet. I figured this to mean he did not have the ace, and didn't like it any more than I did. Based on this I called him down, because he kept betting to the river. In this case I was right, but overall I would rate this "tell" as having a fairly low accuracy rate. It was a decent player as well, not a total idiot, if it had been I would have probably just folded.

BTW I purposely take extra time on about 5% of all decisions, whether it's obvious or not, just to camoflage my tendencies against observant opponents. Since I do play as a prop online, I often see the same opponents over and over, and certain ones ARE observant enough to notice (tho not many). Also, I will purposely take extra time about 20% of the time I have the nuts, or a reasonably sure winner, just to randomize my tendencies and leave them guessing.

Also, I think the average player on party is absolutely terrible. If party's software was better they might actually have a real site there, but I have basically given up on them from all the crashes.

al

[Al_Capone_Junior]

[ QUOTE ]
there's a fairly sizable group of people who seem to think that slowplaying actually means waiting a long time before they bet.

[/ QUOTE ]

lol, this cracks me up, because it's so true.

I forgot to add to my post earlier that when someone instantaneously bets or raises this is far more likely to mean they have a good hand than taking time is likely to mean they don't.

al

[goofball]

i don't put much stock in it. i don't think it cna be generalized well. depending on the situation i might put a little stock in it

but generally, based on my own experienceseeing how my play is sooo randomized by other things i'm doing (watchign TV, getting a beer, looking at porn, etc etc)
i put a lot more stock in what they did then how quickly they did it

[Cyndie]