How good is this guy?

[clutch]

[ QUOTE ]
In general in a B&M, you should use racial, gender, and other forms of offensive stereotyping. With some experience, you'll become familiar with figures such as the Gambling Asian, Tight Old Guy, Drunk Frat Boy, WPT Wannabe, etc. Certain mannerisms and other non-playing characteristics frequently correlate with style and skill of play.

Of course, you should be quick to revise these preliminary assessments, and be aware that one of the many flaws of stereotypes is that they're frequently incorrect. However, they're usually better than nothing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't forget the tattooed losers, Mr. Warren. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[senjitsu]

In low limit BM games, its easy to identify the expert players. They will be the ones wearing sunglasses and hooded sweatshirts and relentlessly quoting rounders and tilt.

Seriously, though, look for the number of pots played and number of calls vs cold calls vs raises to seperate the bad players from everyone else.

To seperate the experts:

1. Do they watch the other players or the flop.
2. Do they frequently bet/raise marginal-but-best hands (like tpnk) on the turn and river.
3. Successful checkraises at the correct times.

other than that, its hard to identify really good players in small limit games, just because most of the competition is so bad. That is to say, a B- player and an A+ player are going to make basically the same moves on a table full of mental deficients.




[ QUOTE ]

When you play a game against a table full of strangers, how long does it take you to pick out the good players? And what do you look for, short of observing someone for hours and hours?

In a low-stakes game, where you don't assume the opposition are all experts, a few players will quickly identify themselves as bad by making terrible plays. You can rate few others as at least fair if they go a while without doing anything obviously dumb. But that doesn't mean they're experts.

Can anyone think of a single play or series of events that would make you watch out for a guy right from the start?

[/ QUOTE ]

[Circle5823]

I look to see if a player will make a raise with a marginally winning or drawing hand, and if he will call in a tough spot for a win.

Also, I take note of his betting style, if he is a pot size bet guy or a nickle and dimer. Better players know how much is appropriate for a given situation.

Lastly, I focus on his ability to fold a hand. Can he let it go if he correctly reads his big hand is beat? This is the hardest part of the game.

[Mike]

I watch the other players. By the respect they give each other you will be able to seperate out the players by skill level fairly quickly.

[xxxxx]

And Women are calling stations.

[autobet]

I always watch to see how many hands people are playing in early position.

Also, what kind of hands and how often they are calling raises cold with.

A lot of small limit players never make the obvious adjustments, and you can usually pick them out fairly quickly.

[Raydain]

If you can't spot the sucker in the first 30 minutes at a table then you are the sucker.

If you can't spot the winners in the first 30 minutes at a table then you are a sucker.

[Bad Lobster]

> Is the player playing a lot of pots?

This will separate the bad from the medium, but not the medium from the best.

> When he plays a pot, does he always or nearly always raise or is he limping in a lot? Good players generally take control of the hand.

Sounds good, but it's necessary to separate them from the overaggressive raisers. There are a few guys who never just call before the blinds.

> Is the player playing more hands from later positions?

Good, but it could take a long time to build up a statistically significant database. Say, four times around the table to even begin to form an opinion.

> If the player was the aggressor PF, does he continue to bet on the flop to an uncoordinated board?

I'll keep an eye out for this. How reliable an indicator do you think it is?

> How often does the player win in a showdown?
> What hands is the player showing down?

Winning showdowns is a good indicator, in the long run. But the catches that I've noticed are:

- it can take a while to see enough showdowns to overcome statistical variance. On average, any given player wins once per time around the table, and many of those hands end without a showdown.

- Seeing terrible starting hands in a showdown alerts you to a bad player, but happens rarely. Seeing good hands in a showdown means little (unless the player played it too passively, another indicator of a fish). Everybody plays the good hands.

---

Everybody keep in mind where I'm coming from: I play small stakes and I don't ever play for more than a few hours at a time, because I'm not a fanatic and I'm not a pro. I'm sure many of the people I'm playing against are better than I am, but at this level and without spending many, many hours getting to know them, I find it hard to pick out the really good ones.

[Bad Lobster]

If he folded, how do you know whether it was a good hand or not? Or, for that matter, whether or not he was beat?

[glen]

"If you can't spot the winners in the first 30 minutes at a table then you are a sucker. "

too many exceptions to this. . . .