It's great to have you back.

I agree with your thoughts on the different approaches to poker. I'm not sure how much more there is to add.

I think that these days if somebody is playing a certain strategy then most good and attentive players will be able to pick up enough bits and pieces to be able to exploit them quite a bit. Much like the examples you talk about with rocks on dry boards or calling stations where we have an overpair, or adding to this list people who call 3bets too much OOP or people who 3bet and then fold to 4bets too much.

The problem comes when you're playing against somebody thinking on a similar level who is therefore all the time changing their own strategy. I think trying to work out how to play against somebody like this is virtually impossible and we'd need to rely on unquantifiable factors. For example, a player could sit down and think "I'm going to 3bet with AA preflop 90% of the time when I'm in position and cold-call 10% of the time" and they do this every single time, we can map out their preflop ranges to some accuracy (if we know these figures and know that they won't deviate). But, if someone thinks this but then sees that nobody is ever giving his 3bets any respect and also that the pot is always going to be 4 or 5 way if he just calls, he might start 3betting his AA 100% of the time. Or if everybody always folds to his 3bets he might never 3bet with AA and instead only 3bet J2o and 49o. Etc etc.

I'm not really sure what point I'm trying to make here except that I basically agree with what you're saying -- that I think trying to work out the strategy of a really good opponent is a waste of time. Like you say - nobody knows how to do it, so instead we should focus on picking up minor details and using our empirical and theoretical knowledge to work out how best to use this information to exploit our opponents and make +EV decision vs them (or have them make -EV decisions vs us).

Did I mention it's great to have you posting again?

By the way, what site/stakes are you planning on starting at and what're your poker goals for now?

welcome back, z. while i hope you meet your financial goals, i hope it comes slowly enough that we can get a healthy dose of your posts.

fwiw, i think trying to figure out the exact psychology factors in play against most players is not such a smart tactic. this is especially true online. imho, the interesting aspect of your opponents to look at is the _outcome_ of actions that their psychology produces. this tends to be fairly consistent, even if that consistency is variance. i hear a lot of pro players talk about "profiling" these days, and i find it to be a very useful concept/tool. that is, there are a relatively limited number of base profiles into which most players will fit. furthermore, winning strategies are relatively clear against these base profiles. once you get a base profile on a player, that profile can be refined as further info about the psych of the person is learned.

another interesting idea i've been toying with lately is the range of profiles that a player will have. i know lots of tight players who go stupid when you put a bad beat on them. this is ++++++ev time against these players. i think one of the best things that the top live pros do is induce an opponent's non-A-game and/or notice when the opponent is slipping from their A-game to a lower level. i'm not sure how this pans out online, but i guess that this is where some of the best high stakes players are able to make good money. for example, it seems like sbrugby's biggest leak might be tilt.

thoughts?

I don't know if you've seen this already but here's a clip of Gary Kasparov talking about reviewing mistakes in chess games. It's very applicable to poker. Whenever I watch this he kinda reminds me of you.

WB sir

I can play 6max at the same time but it's pretty much on auto pilot. I prefer to focus on the HU table more than the 6max tables so I play a very standard game there. It's probably still profitable to do that though at most of the lower stakes. I haven't tried playing any more than 1 HU table and 3 6max table as that would get to be too much I think.

I have actually had some success playing NL200 HU (and a little shortstack vs shortstack NL400), the points Roy makes about focusing on one HU match and auto-piloting 2-3 6max tables seem sound to me.