Numeric Reads

[Monty Cantsin]

This is a small rant about player auto-rating and the new player type format, you know: "69/18/2.41".

Like everyone other sane person here, I use Poker Tracker and Playerview and I love them. Recently, however, I've noticed that our conventions for arriving at and discussing player "types" has become more and more influenced by these tools, and it's sometimes a problem.

I've already brought this up in a couple of other threads, so I apologize for the repetition, but I just wanted to collect my thoughts in one spot.

1. Numeric strings are hard to read. When I see 27/8/1.2 in your hand history I have to work to translate that into a legible player type. I want you to do that work for me. Providing the numbers parenthetically to support your read is great.

2. I Deem Your Sample Size: Insufficient! If you have less than 50 hands on someone, you shouldn't be providing numerical reads. Agression factor, especially, is highly suspect without a lot of hands. If you've been at the table for 2 orbits and you've seen the villain play 3 hands we really don't need to know that he's 15/5/1.35 - that's way too much fake precision.

3. Work on your close reading. Ok, this is the hard part, and the most important part I think. Observing how your opponent plays hands is essential. Did he check behind with tptk when the river completed a runner/runner flush? He's cautious. Did he raise UTG with 33? He's reckless. Did he wait til the river to raise flopped trips in a crowded pot? He's in love with the slow-play. These observations give you a glimpse into the rosetta stone: your opponents' logic, their algorithms, their heuristics. Compared to this the numbers are just tea leaves.

I know, I know. You multi-table and it's hard to analyze opponents when you have 72 of them at once. All I can say is, me too. I suck at analyzing my opponents, even with just 2 or 3 tables going, because I'm incredibly lazy and undisciplined and don't pay close enough attention. And having the numbers there helps to compensate for that but is also in danger of making my bad habits worse. I bet the same is true for a lot of you.

So if we try to be extra disciplined and rigorous in how we handle our reads when we bring them here for hand discussion maybe this will help improve our game-time reads likewise.

/mc