Not Afraid to Look the Fool, Another Difference Live/Online
Poker is a game of incomplete information, and the more information you can accumulate and process, the better you will do. One thing that actually hurts a lot of players in this regard is ego. I have a pretty big ego internally, but externally I will very rarely talk about my accomplishments or show my big laydowns, bluffs, etc. at the table unless I am doing it to set someone up for a play later on or get information.
One thing that I really like to do, which I think has given me a really big edge in the games I play, is make myself look really stupid. If I think a guy is bluffing me, I will occasionally muck face-up a hand that I can’t call with anyway and say something stupid like “Only a world-class player could lay this down.” This almost always provides too tempting to deal with and a player who is bluffing will show the bluff and retort with some sort of needle.
I’ll do this a lot and sometimes I’ll brag about my hand-reading ability, then purposely try to guess hands wrong so my opponents will start showing and telling me how stupid I am. All of this is free information that players with big egos or the need to prove something give off unnecessarily, and it is a huge mistake. It also has the added benefit of making me look like a poor player and getting me paid off more frequently on my big bets.
Too many players, especially at the medium/low limits, are concerned with the way others think of them. Back when I was reporting for the WSOP, I would see this problem all the time, especially with amateurs playing with the pros in the tourneys. I once observed a table at the Main Event with Daniel Negreanu where every time he was in a pot with someone, people at the table would show their hands if he mucked and ask for reassurance that they played it okay or show him that they were playing straight-up and didn’t want to bluff him. This is beyond stupid for so many reasons – giving a player who is better than you free information, especially a great hand reader like Daniel, is straight up suicidal.
I personally think one of the biggest differences between live and online poker is the ability to accrue this incomplete information. In online poker, there are programs, hand histories of cards mucked, etc., and most of the legwork is already done for you. You have a really good idea of the types of hands your opponents play, access to betting patterns, starting hand selections, % folded to continuation bets, etc. and the information is already all available for you nice and neat with things like HUDs. Of course, it still takes an excellent player to be able to process this information and use it, but the point is collecting information is much easier.
Live, this information is much more difficult to come by; Even if a hand goes to showdown, it is usually not seen unless it is the winner. Determining things like VPIP/PFR are much more inexact sciences and dependent on memory. Different sources of information are available, such as tells, physical appearance, whether a guy’s wife is standing behind him begging him to leave, etc. Hand histories are much more scarce and therefore exponentially more valuable. The ability to gather information is at a premium in live games, especially since you generally play with the same opponents for a longer period of time rather than the hit and run environment that is so prevalent online. My contention, therefore, is that processing information live is less important than online since there is less information available that is not as complex to process, but gathering information is much more vital. What do you guys think?
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Comments
No, processing that information would mean formulating a strategy of optimum play based on the information you’ve gathered. For instance, in example above, if you know person A is playing real nitty, then a way to process that information might be to float every hand and take it away on later streets. A different way to process might be to never play a hand pre unless you have AA/KK. A 3rd option might be to move to the person’s left, since they are so predictable and not going to pay you off or ever 3bet you without a huge hand. There are different ways to process information – two people can come up with completely different strategies, one which may work way better than another, based on the same information about a player.
I think that taking in the information about a player physically and live is a much more useful tool than analyzing the %’s and hand histories, etc that online offers… for some people.. like me. This goes back to the 2 different types of players.. those who are great at reading tells and those who are better at math. The math players are more successful online.
I like the plays you mentioned. I like to, in certain situations, play up the way people will assume I will play, being a female- for example, and manipulate that..
I like this article, too. It gave me reinvigoration and zeal. 
Actually, this is a nice post, Azn_cutie. Wanted to respond to that point you made that “Too many players, especially at the medium/low limits, are concerned with the way others think of them.” I think yr dead on there. And I’m not above being guilty, too.
Had a PLO hand yesterday (online) where this issue came up. Was in the big blind and had a crap hand — Q-J-x-x — but got to see the flop for free. Flop was A-10-4 rainbow & all 5 or 6 of us checked. Turn was a King, putting two diamonds on board (I had no diamond). I bet either near-pot or pot. Folded to button who raised pot and I just called. Knew my opponent had Broadway as well, and since he could also have diamonds I didn’t want to get crazy here.
The river was another ace, pairing the board. I felt very sure that barring some weird combination of cards in his hand that my opponent did not fill up. I put out a 2/3 pot bet, and when my opponent didn’t immediately respond I knew I’d made a correct read. He waited a long time, typing “sick river,” then finally made the call. Indeed, he had the straight, too, and we chopped the pot.
I quickly typed “nh” and he said thanks, then typed “dunno why u bet though.” Then, “only get raised by boat.”
I should have left it there, but felt compelled (b/c of ego, I guess) to respond. The very fact that he nearly folded the hand should have shown him that my bet was a good one. So it typed “or have the str8 fold.” He said I hadn’t bet enough for that, I said “perhaps,” and the conversation ended amicably.
(Interestingly enough, within a couple of hands he kind of blew up, losing his entire stack on a misguided flush chase. I’m certain our hand & exchange had rattled him a bit.)
Anyhow, afterwards I did think I probably shouldn’t have bothered to explain my thinking like that.
Processing information is no less important live than it is on-line… it is just a totally different type of information that is processed. Online has tons of statistical data that can be processed to help your decision. That same data is not so readily availiable live… and therefore not as statistically significant when you get it. In otherwords, the sample size that you get with this type of data live makes the conclusions that you can draw from said data less accutate than it would be if you had a much larger database that you can acquire online.
However, live play gives you many other types of information that you can process. For example, I was just playing at the Mirage with a girl that every single time she was going to fold she held her cards, if she was going to call she picked up chips in her hand, and if she was going to raise she would use both her hands to pick up her chips. I could tell what she was going to do with 100% accuracy. No matter how much statistical data I could have on her online… I could still never approach that type of accuracy. This is just an example that the information is there… you just have to know what to look for.
What is the difference between gathering and processing? If you have an information “plays about 1/10th of his hands, they are premium!” is that already processed info?