Levels of thinking both micro and macro (lc)

[amoeba]

This will be an extended post in which I will try to add more to.

At first it might not seem coherent but I think some of the ideas presented are worthwhile.

I have gathered enough from this board and thus I would like to contribute something back.

So most of us know about the levels of thinking in poker. level 1 : I play my own hand. level 2 : I think about what the opponent holds. level 3 : I think about what my opponent thinks I have.

at first it seems that level 3 thinking doesn't happen that often at small stakes but really it does. Everytime you are representing a hand in a bluff or slowplaying you are really using level 3 thinking.

now occasionally we venture in to level 4 thinking which is I think about what my opponent wants me to think he has, which translates roughly to "my opponent is trying to represent hand A but really has hand B". this blends in to level 2 thinking as the way you pick out whether an opponent has hand A or hand B is likely based on frequency, previous hands, logical progression of his line.

any levels above is pointless as it gets cyclical.

Now I think we all do these type of things but perhaps subconciously.

My real aim of this post is to talk about what I call macro levels of thinking.

Every opponent is broken down at any 1 time in to a combination of weak or aggressive + tight or loose. Next you can further break them down in to this combination both preflop and postflop as there are players that are lag preflop but tight passive postflop for example. really you can even break it down further in to player type by street.

John Juanda once said "don't play a big pot without a big hand". Along the loose ----> tight spectrum by street, what it really boils down to is how much is a specific player willing to commit with a specific hand on a specific type of board. once you know the range of hands and the amount that a player is willing to commit with that range at any point in the hand, you can create an exploitive strategy to take advantage.

I'll give an example.

I am playing ABC style. a good opponent feels that I overcommit with TP type hands and thus moves to exploit with a set/twopair miner type of strategy. When I realize his shift, I should exploit his strategy by tightening up my postflop play and loosening up my preflop play. I have exploited because I have realized that he won't commit without a hand that beats TP and thus the vast amount of time I'm either winning his blinds or winning with a continuation bet. Also, the times he has a set or 2 pair, my hand range is so wide that often I just get away from my 7 high.

As my exploitive strategy continues, my opponent if he is smart, while undergo another shift and likely either become much more aggressive preflop because the vast amount of time I'm preflop raising with not much and/or he exploits by being much looser postflop and say calling down or raising even when his pocket pair doesn't hit a set.

Regardless, my exploitive strategy has caused a shift in his play once it has been running long enough and of course I have to shift my play again.

Thus it becomes a long paper rock sissors game and I honestly believe at higher levels of poker, it is really about who realizes his opponent has changed styles first.