Reading And Exploiting Your Opponents’ Emotions Part Two

Part one said there are two distinct types of emotions: long-term ones such as loving action and fearing risks, and short-term ones such as anger. Both types often provide extremely valuable information that you should acquire and exploit. Part one described several serious reading problems while playing poker, especially no-limit hold’em. This column will tell you how to read both types.

Because your opponents try to deceive you about their cards and feelings, it take hard work to learn how they feel and the effects of their feelings on their play. Here are a few general recommendations. Future columns will add some specifics.

Take Notes

Unless you have great “feel” or an extraordinary memory, you can’t accurately read many opponents’ emotions without good notes. It’s easy to identify maniacs and other action-lovers because they’re so obvious. It takes longer to identify rocks and other fearful players because folding is much less visible than raising, and apparently tight play can be caused by bad cards. Less extreme players are even harder to spot.

Short-term emotions are harder to read because they are less consistent. It’s much easier to identify someone who is always loose-aggressive or tight-passive than to be confident that a specific raise, bet, or check was an emotional reaction. That’s especially true if you haven’t seen many showdowns. You need notes to detect patterns and deviations from them.

You may think you’re so smart that you don’t need notes, but you’d be mimicking the pattern of immature students who brag, “I passed that class without cracking a book.” They usually accomplish less after graduating than the harder workers.

You may also think, “Real players don’t take notes.” That’s just silly. Most doctors and lawyers routinely take notes. Are we smarter or better trained? Is our information so simple that we can mentally record and instantly retrieve it?

In fact, our information is much more complicated because doctors and lawyers generally relate to only one person at a time, while we have many opponents, and they constantly change. In addition, doctors’ and lawyers’ clients want to be understood, while our opponents deliberately deceive us.

“Unless you have an extraordinary memory, you can’t remember how every opponent plays. In addition, their play changes when they get tired, are winning or losing, have had too much to drink, and so on. Pretending you can remember all that information is just a fantasy.” (Alan Schoonmaker, “Taking Notes, Part One,” Card Player, March 22, 2005)
Focus On Only A Few Players

You can’t effectively study more than a few people at a time. If you try to study too many, you’ll get confused and frustrated. It’s immensely better to understand a few players well than to have vague ideas about many of them.

Of course, don’t ignore anyone. If you see something important or revealing, make a note. But reserve your intensive study for just a few players.

Start with the most readable players, the ones who don’t conceal their feelings.
Starting with easy tasks is a basic and important skill-development principle. That’s how you learned math and many other skills.

After developing some skill and confidence, focus on the most important players. Several factors determine importance:

Position

You have the largest position edge against the opponent to your right and the largest disadvantage against the one to your left. Mike Caro often said you’ll be a lifetime winner and loser against those two.

Players Who Give You Trouble

Since you have problems, you obviously aren’t reading them well. Study them carefully.

Players You Beat Easily

Since you’re beating them, you may think there’s no reason to study them. But studying them can greatly increase your profits.

It’s a standard business principle: Focus on your best customers. In addition to increasing your profits, recognizing and adjusting to their emotions may prevent them from deciding not to play with you. For example, if you realize that you’ve irritated a good customer, relieve his tension by socializing or even apologizing.

Aggressive players, especially loose-aggressive ones

Aggressive players build bigger pots, and the looser and more aggressive they are, the bigger the pots become, and the more often you’ll be against them. In addition, because their range is so wide, they’re hard to read. Understanding their emotions will help you to read their cards and adjust your play.

Players With Large Stacks

Stack sizes don’t matter much in limit games, but in no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha they can be extremely important. Only one or two good decisions can change going broke to doubling up.

Stay Focused On The Ones You’ve Chosen

You can easily get distracted and shift your focus. If a huge pot or confusing play suggests that you should study someone else, do it. But stay within your limit: If you add a player to your list, subtract one you were studying.

Which Notes Should You Take?

First and most important, focus on their general styles. Most people choose their styles for emotional reasons. Then they rationalize that they did it to maximize their profits. Maniacs take foolish chances because they love action. Rocks fold too much because they’re afraid of risks. Both often state apparently rational reasons for their styles.

“Aggression pays, and it’s hard to read my cards because my range is so broad.”
“Not losing chips is the same as winning them.”

You need to understand their real motives because the same action by two different players means quite dissimilar things. Obviously, your best reaction depends upon what they mean, and you can’t know that unless you understand their desires and fears.

Everybody has a distinctive style, and it expresses and reveals the underlying drives. If you know how someone plays, you know a lot about why he plays that way, and vice versa.

By going beneath the surface and looking at these drives, you’ll make sense out of things that now confuse you. Why does an intelligent man like Joe make so many stupid plays? Why does Bob go on tilt over little things, but Mary never gets upset? Why does Barbara take excessive risks, while Bob is much too cautious?

Second, take careful notes about when they change their styles. When do Maniacs become more conservative? When do Rocks loosen up? When do Calling Stations become more aggressive? Stylistic changes are almost always emotional reactions.

Third, relate stylistic changes to their context to understand their causes. Some people tighten up when they’re winning to preserve their profits. Others gamble more because they feel lucky. Short stacks make some people because extremely tight because they’re afraid of going broke. Others take foolish risks to double up or go home.

The more clearly you understand why opponents are playing a certain way, the more accurately you will read their cards and predict their moves. My next two columns will answer these questions for four types of players: loose-aggressive, loose-passive, tight-passive, and tight-aggressive. ♠

After publishing five expensive poker books, Dr. Al, [email protected], now writes inexpensive eBooks. How to Beat Small Poker Games, Stay Young; Play Poker, How to Beat Killed Hold’em Games, and Business is a Poker Game cost only $2.99 at Amazon.com. Please visit my website, Dr-Al-Schoonmaker.net, and get a free book.