Categorizing your opponents

[jt1]

I think the most useful categorizations are follows. 1) Who defends their blinds. This applies to the two players on your left. If they defend their blinds then making moves when it's folded to you on the button is foolish. 2) Who bluff raises. You have to know if you should fold TPTK when the third of a suit comes on the turn and someone raises. 3) Who calls underpairs on the river. This is so you know if you should check the river or bet it when you are semi-bluffing.

Please let us know if you have any other critical categorizations that you use.

[Gildersneeze]

Holy crap, there's WELL over a mere three categories I use when taking notes on a regular opponent. If I'm going to be playing against someone frequently (such as the guys in my Saturday Night game whom I play almost every single Saturday rather than Joe Q. Public on Party or TGC), then I want to think of as many possible categories to narrow his or her playing style down as far as I can.

Ones I use include (but are not limited to, as I'm tired, and don't have my notebook right here in front of me):

Buy-Ins/Re-buys <ul type="square">

Highest Buy-In? Lowest Buy-In? Average Buy-In? Usual Buy-In? Will he/she Buy-In at a shortstack disadvantage, even with the top, or make sure they have the most chips? Do they Re-buy? How Much (highest/lowest/average/usual)? More than once in a game? If they become shortstacked will they immediately re-buy, or wait until they go completely out of chips to decide?[/list]Player style<ul type="square"> Which of the four major archetypes? (TA/LA/TP/LP) Does the player shift gears to keep people on their toes or is he one specific style all the time? Will he bluff if he misses his draw? Likelihood? Can he be bluffed? How easily, and how much does it take? Is he a maniac? Is he a calling station? Is he solid? Does he go on tilt? How easily? Under what situations? Can he be pushed to tilt by making a celebration of your winnings, especially if he was a loser in the pot? (i.e., will he start gunning for me?) What other things besides bad beats, goading, and losing streaks can send this player on tilt? How well do they work? How long does it take this player to realize they're on tilt and snap back in to decent playing?[/list]Physical Attributes<ul type="square"> Male? Female? (Particularly if Female)Does the player use their attractiveness to "pull the wool over the eyes" of the opposite sex? Endurance: How long will this player sit at a table? When winning? When losing? Having an average night (small up and down swings/hovering around the buy in)? Having big swings at the table? Is the player old? Young? Middle aged?[/list]Personality<ul type="square"> Does this person drink alcohol? Heavily? Lightly? Average? At the table? Will he get completely drunk while playing? Does this person use illicit drugs? Heavily? Lightly? Average? At the table? (well, it IS a home game) Does this person use legal drugs for any kind of mental disorder or dysfunction (I do, I have ADD, so I take Adderall)? What kind? For what reasons? Known effects on memory/stamina/etc? Is the person a snappy dresser? A slob? Jeans and a T-shirt kinda guy/gal?[/list]

That's a good 1/3 of it or so, but by now, you get the point. I'm very methodical in my notes on a player (thank you Adderall), and they do indeed take up several pages per. I like to know EVERYTHING I CAN about someone I play frequently, no matter how seemingly inconsequential. Sure, some of it may be (probably is) extraneous, but you never know when it might come in handy in a game against them.

For people that I'll be playing every now and again, I'll go into a lot less detail and focus more on their playing style.

For people that I'm playing just this once, well, I use them as "quick read" practice. I'll sit out for the first few hands (wait for my BB, or even rail ride a bit) and watch people (usually the money holder, second place and third place in chips), trying to get a read on their style in one or two hands that they play. Then I watch them in-game, especially when involved with them in a pot, and a: see if I was right on the quick read and adjust for any incorrectness, and b: look for a few more details that will help me play them for the next little while.

[Gahnia radula]

A question and a comment

Question: does Adderall have any negative affects on your poker game?

Comment: Is the person a snappy dresser? A slob? Jeans and a T-shirt kinda guy/gal?

I wouldnt put too much emphasis on the way a player dresses. The best players at my local B&amp;M are a combination of 'snappy' dressers and complete slobs, i actually fear the slobs more.

[Gildersneeze]

Exactly why I want to know if they're snappy dressers (who lean towards conservative) or slobs (who tend to be more loose).

As for the Adderall, if you do have Attention Defecit Disorder, then it will most likely help you in ways you can't imagine. If not, I couldn't really tell you, as I've got a case severe enough to take around 50 to 60 milligrams per day to keep my head clear.

The things you have to remember about Adderall are as follows.

First and foremost, it's a powerful stimulant. Adderall is (in a nutshell, here, I'm not going to go into the exact chemical compound) a combination of, IIRC, four amphetamine salts. While it was designed to have smoother ups and downs in relation to other ADD/ADHD medicines, such as Dexadrine (which I was on before Adderall. It has bring ups and come downs about as strong as cocaine, from what I've been told [I've never tried cocaine, so I wouldn't know]), there is still a definite physical effect.

You will feel more alert, and sometimes, physically "charged," much like the effects of ephedrine or large doses of caffeine.

Probably the most helpful aspect (at least for me) is a heightened sense of what's going on. It's not that you focus more specifically on one thing, but that you're able to focus on everything going on much more sharply.

It's also improved my memory. I can remember hands that I won as well as hands that I lost in order to analyze them later, or post them here for others to analyze, where before, I'd have forgotten them almost as soon as the blinds for the next hand were posted.

If you're going to take it without having ADD, be wary of a few things:

One (and this is very important), it's a controlled substance, which means taking it without being prescribed it by a physician is illegal. If a cop catches you with it and you don't have a prescription, it can be as bad as being caught with some type of illegal drug. I beleive it depends on your state's laws whether they'd treat it like something small, like marijuana, or, since it's amphetamine based, something more serious, like opiates, or methamphetamines.

Two, it will kill your appetite. This isn't too much of a concern, as there's no effect buildup. It lasts for about eight hours and then goes out of your system, but for those eight hours, you may have to remind yourself to eat if you regularly eat sometime in those eight hours.

Three, it will artificially increase your endurance at the table, or more simply, it'll juice you up, making you feel wide awake for a long period of time. However, when it begins to wear off, you will be very noticeably tired. We're talking yawns that will change the air pressure of the room, and the onset is not slow (unless you took it when you first woke up after a good night's sleep, then your body won't be that bad off). For example, say you wake up at about 11:00 AM, and pop the Adderall. For the next eight hours, you'll feel REALLY awake, especially if you consume caffeine or food when you take it. You'll notice some slowdown when it wears off. However, say you've been up since six A.M. and took the pill at around 9 P.M. As soon as the medicine wears off, you are going to crash, and hard. Your body and mind were fooled by the stimulant into an artificial state of awareness.

Here's a bit of a crossposting, but it's a bit of a metaphorical description of what my brain is like with ADD when not taking my medicine. If you think you have ADD, please, go get yourself checked by a psychologist. It can help you out quite a bit.

Here's the post I made. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=gossip&amp;Number=437541&amp;Forum =All_Forums&amp;Words=5315&amp;Match=Username&amp;Searchpage=0 &amp;Limit=25&amp;Old=allposts&amp;Main=433304&amp;Search=true#Pos t437541)

Well, I've chewed your ear off enough with my long posts. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

[Mike]

When joining a new game I would add to a very thorough list: Who can be pushed around, who is solid, who does the table respect and why(?).