What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are?

[Valiant23]

This question is prompted by the ongoing discussion in the "Bad Play or Bad Luck" thread. Read the very short summary of the 4 basic types and (truthfully) choose which applies to you best. Tight Aggressive-These players will play very few hands. They recognize when they have the best hand and will make you pay. They are rarely lured into hands they shouldn’t be in, and they will make the most of pots they win. Tight Passive-These players are often called “rocksâ€. They play very few hands and when they do decide to play, they rarely bet or raise. They are content to sit back and wait for an absolute lock and will take whatever the pot will give them. Loose Aggressive Player-This player is in every pot and pushing, pushing, pushing with raise after raise. This style of play brings lots of excitement to a game, but also lots of chaos. The bad beat thread is full of these types. The Loose Passive Player-This player is in a lot of hands. Often called a “Calling Station†because he will call any bet, but is passive because he won’t raise or bet on his own. Now the common perception is that the best style of play is to be tight aggressive. This is something that Gaf in particular aspires to with a lot of success it has to be said. :ok I think that there is another way however, and will try and provide some support for that argument (it could be common knowledge after all)....but in an effort not to influence the vote in any way I won't post my evidence until Tuesday 10th January (to allow people who play the dollar up to take part).

[guesswest]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Not sure what kind of player I am, I alternate between all four. With regards to TAG play being the best play though: Is kinda an extension of the last thing I said on thepro's thread: LAG play is probably the winningest play if you can master it. The problem is that it's extraordinarily difficult to master, that's how Phil Ivey etc play. Most pro's can't play winning poker with a LAG style, it requires huge instinct, encyclopedic knowledge of the maths of the game, and the ability to make massive folds on a consistent basis. Very few people at the top level of the game can play a LAG style well, nevermind us lot. With the kind of play you get in freerolls/micro stakes, you can probably win with any of the above styles except LAG if you just give some thought to what people are playing against you with. But TAG has to be the way to go, a LAG style wouldn't even work there due to it relying so much on people folding to you. Bluffing just doesn't work at low stakes/free online play, people don't fold, so TAG is the common sense choice, because it allows you to get the most money in the pot when you have the best hand, and people will call anyway. That's not to say a TAG player shouldn't let aggressive opponents do the betting for them tho.

[slapdash]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I'm so tight that it doesn't make any difference whether I'm passive or aggressive. :lol But seriously, I think I'm very tight and moderately aggressive, although I like to think that I try to make appropriate adjustments in the later stages of STT's and MTT's. I occasionally experiment with other styles, though.

[GaF]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are?

I alternate between all four.

And that has to be the best way of playing :ok That is my ultimate goal - though I am still relatively new to poker, so I need to get TAG right/better first......

[^Newbie^]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I would have to say , mostly i belong to the 3rd type . When cash prizes is real huge , i will become the first type . However , no matter how good you are , you still need the luck of the draw .

Read the very short summary of the 4 basic types and (truthfully) choose which applies to you best. Tight Aggressive-These players will play very few hands. They recognize when they have the best hand and will make you pay. They are rarely lured into hands they shouldn’t be in, and they will make the most of pots they win. Tight Passive-These players are often called “rocks”. They play very few hands and when they do decide to play, they rarely bet or raise. They are content to sit back and wait for an absolute lock and will take whatever the pot will give them. Loose Aggressive Player-This player is in every pot and pushing, pushing, pushing with raise after raise. This style of play brings lots of excitement to a game, but also lots of chaos. The bad beat thread is full of these types. The Loose Passive Player-This player is in a lot of hands. Often called a “Calling Station” because he will call any bet, but is passive because he won’t raise or bet on his own.

[georgej]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? You missed out my most common playing position - disconnected

[slapdash]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are?

You missed out my most common playing position - disconnected

That's "tight depressive".

[philossify]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I think I used to vary between tight aggressive and tight passive depending on the competition I was in and the mood I was in. However am now starting to play a bit more variable using many of the tricks pointed to on this forum (as I think I was being too ABC) , but again it depends on where and when and how many chips I have versus the opposition amonst other factors. I find that in the early stages of freerolls/cheapo rebuys that playing very tight is best way forward .... its hard to try and represent a threat when people don't recognise them or don't give a damn about losing a dollar. Its only when you get to the final stages of these (where people have invested time and expect to get some money) that the poker play begins to resemble the reality that it should.

[PAULM03]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I'm finding at the minute that playing tight aggressive is the only way I can make money. I only play $5 STTs and find I can make the money the majority of the time playing only 5-10 hands, I'm folding about 85% pre-flop. Last week I won a tourney having played only a dozen hands:lol

[Valiant23]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I thought I'd lost the OP. I was supposed to be running a vote.:wall

You missed out my most common playing position - disconnected

There was going to be an 'other' choice. :rollin Oh well. :$ :$ Thank you for your views, though.

[friskyfitz]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? is there such a thing as an Eccentric player or Schizo player because thats what I would be - totally unpredictable and rarely know from hand to hand what will happen next

[Jaded]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Lucky! :)

[hayward2k]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I used to be a loose passive player, like most people are when they start out. I then realised how important it was to tighten up, and developed that into my game. I need to work on my aggresion, it's ok playing aggressively but you need to try and control it and use it at the right time. I aspire to be a competent TAG player. :hope

[Ovalman]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Your play REALLY has to vary between all 4 but I would class myself as tight aggressive with a few twists in between. I only play STT's so cash games I cannot comment on but generally if I bet against you, I'm ahead - so fold :rollin

[Mr Bubbles]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I would say in the past I have played as all 4 of the above depending on my mood and what is at stake, the more that is at stake the tighter and generally better I tend to play, However on freerolls in the past I seemed to have swapped styles throughout, going very loose in the first ten or so hands to try and double my stack and then play tight from there.

[Football-Tipper]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I found that I play totally differant on Live tables to that online...

[richygriff]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Im a tight aggresive player generally, but have been known to change my style depending on the game. Depends on the style of the other players in the game and if its a small stakes/freeroll game. In lower stakes games, other players dont even bother trying to work out how you play. Have tried playing nearly every hand in low stakes games, just to see how my post flop play is.Quite interesting to try, has def improved my game.

[ThePro19]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are?

its hard to try and represent a threat when people don't recognise them or don't give a damn about losing a dollar. Its only when you get to the final stages of these (where people have invested time and expect to get some money) that the poker play begins to resemble the reality that it should.

Truer (is that a word?) words cannot be said. Anyway, I consider myself mostly TAG, but as a few have said, I change my play depending on mood (particularly mood!), chip count, and other player's actions. I guess my biggest problem is that I keep playing TAG (emphasis on AG) as we get close to the money in MTT's... and generally come out worse off. This is the time to play TIGHT TIGHT! i.e. fold everything, and I mean everything. I used to do this, but then found that the short stacks would get lucky and I would end up on the bubble with few chips. Like I've said elsewhere, I'm not in it to just get in the money then lose (can't see the point in playing for a measly £2.50), I want to win the tourney. So, I changed my game a little and decided that if I had the chance of taking someone out (and getting closer to the money as well as increasing my chip count), then I would follow my instinct. What I have also found is that, in a MTT, if you play tight, your chip count does not go up very much or very quickly, and so, when it comes to the latter stages, if you decide to play a hand, you put a fair percentage of your chips into the pot, and then it is very difficult to back out. This is why I just said that the better way to play would be to fold everything, except maybe AA... but even that loses pretty often. (Was discussing this exact point with Rednutt last night). In a STT, I would agree that TAG is a very good way to play. I do tend to win a fair amount this way, although, as someone else has already mentioned, you also need the luck. No matter how good a player you are, if luck is not on your side, you are going to struggle to win. I remember once playing a 10 player STT. Never played a single hand (the cards were rubbish all the way) until we got down to the final 3. It's amazing how few chips you can lose. Went on to win it. Finally, a little brag... I've done well today. A profit or about £33 on littlewoods (2 lost $10 6paks, 1 won £10 6pak), profit of about £23 on betfair (1 lost £2 6pak MTT, 1 won $10 6pak), loss of about $6 on bet365.

[Valiant23]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are?

I found that I play totally differant on Live tables to that online...

Ok F-T. Whats your online definition? ThePro - :clap Nice result today mate.:ok

[ThePro19]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? ty

[Football-Tipper]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are?

Ok F-T. Whats your online definition? ThePro - :clap Nice result today mate.:ok

Too tell the truth it changes day to day lol On the +'ve side if I dont know how i'm gona play how would others lol

[Dodger]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Haven't a clue what I am, but many call me a muppet, which is great 'cos it tells you you are winning! On a serious note, the player that is able to accurately classify the play of all his opponents will have a massive advantage. I have loads of notes for particular games I play on a certain site and find it a great help. But playing freerolls across many sites makes it difficult to track your opponents.

[Valiant23]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Ok. The reason I asked everyone about their classification is that I found a paper written by two people (Graham Kendall and Mark Willdig)The University of Nottingham, School of Computer Science & IT Dept. It was a report on how they developed a poker bot that could 'learn' and adapt, and become a better player. Thing is although it was written to describe a computer program, it also provides stitistical analysis to show that it managed to beat each of the four classifications (eventually). What struck me was how it seemed to mirror the 'real' human learning curve. There is a lot of tables which I couldn't recreate, but the paper gave a verbal summary of their trials. The paper in full can be found here; http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gxk/papers/ai01poker.pdf (thanks mate)

Initially, the evolving player plays every hand. This can be seen in epochs (hands played) 1 to 100 in table 5. After this, learning values are being reduced and the number of hands played gradually decreases

Table 5 also shows another interesting result. The percentage of hands played gradually falls, yet the number of hands won increases, demonstrating that the player is learning. At the end of the training period less than half of the hands are being played with over 33% of them winning.

Next we consider how the training process affects the number of units the evolving player wins or loses over a specific time period. As highlighted above, the player will soon realise that playing in every pot (and raising it, due to the high learning values) is not the best method of playing poker. As the player begins to adapt, the losing streak eventually levels off and changes into a winning streak, creating a better player, maximising its winnings against a variety of players.

The evolved player beats all the other players, whilst the non-evolving players perform evenly across all of the tables. It is also interesting to note that the evolving player participates in more games, due to a more aggressive nature. However, this does not mean that the player is guaranteed to win. In fact, the opposite is true; the more games played the more likely it is the player will be open to defeat, playing with lower rank cards. Therefore, it suggests that when the evolving player holds a strong hand it takes a very positive approach, by raising frequently. It is an interesting observation that the non-evolving loose players play more hands than tight players due to an overestimation of their hand value. In general, the loose players lose more than tight players and the evolving player does better against the loose players. It is well known that tight poker players will do better than loose players but there is a balance to be struck otherwise a tight player would only ever bet with the best hand. It would appear that the evolving player has found such a balance.

I admit that I have taken some things out of context, but it has helped me to understand that my own inabilities to play TAG poker are not necessarily a bad thing. I am intimidated/antagonised sometimes by my own percieved idea of other players (especially ones I know), and have given up in my attempt to become the atereotypical TAG in order to pursue my own natural game, which can cut through almost every pre-defined classification. The fact that I have accepted that as (to a point) a skill rather than a failing in my poker game has helped me tremendously. The other point I hoped to make is to give some proof to legendkillers thread which asked a similar question, and that was how good is the standard on PL? All of the replies were complimentary - names were missed out not through a lack of respect, but (imo) because there are so many quality players on here. You have almost all answered as truthfully as you believe (I hope), and that is why we as a forum are (average seems insulting) profitable players (that alone puts us in the 4% according to soundbite statistics). Because we all have realised that having the ability to adapt is the best way. This is also reflected in the fact that PL exclusive events are some of the toughest games I've played in. You can argue with me all you like, but this is just a personal opinion. I will respect any differing views on this post, but the passages I've quoted are relevant (even out of context) because they have helped me. As have everyone who took the time to answer. :ok Thanks.:ok

[mcgin]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Valiant, I think you linked to the wrong paper there :) Think the one you meant to link to was - http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~gxk/papers/ai01poker.pdf

[mcgin]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? I've just had a brief look over the paper (nothing too in depth), and while I think it is interesting I think anything that is concluded in the paper should not be taken too seriously. The main thing that leads me to say this is, the playing styles of all the non-evolving players is absolutly rigid, i.e. there is a definite way of responding to a situation, no variation from any of the players. Another reason is of course it's done on a variation of Draw poker and not Hold'em. And finally of course the betting structure is absurd - raising 25 with a pot of

[brael]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Forgotten I hadn't answered this thread yet... In a word... carp!! :lol

[Valiant23]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? Like I said.... DON'T TRY AND ARGUE!!!!!!!!!:@ :lol :lol :lol :lol :lol But I think it does help to explain the process of becoming a better player yourself, and also the difference between the players on here who want to learn and improve, and some of the fish out there, because I think they do play without evolving. Of course you can argue that if we all continue to improve we'll be weighed down with WSOP bracelets, but obviously a plateau will be reached.

[ubermonkey1]

Re: What Kind Of Player Do YOU Think You Are? i try 2 rotate my play as much as possible this makes u alot more difficult 2 read.the hustlers of old would use this of course with the old im a fish routine play like 1 for a while then hit a big hand ,this still works now by throwin a bit around at the start of the tourny u can get good rewards back.but if ur playin a player u know, tags the way 2 go it helps alot later on in tight situations where u need 2 bluff or 4 stealing some blinds .if i am playin tag i wll show em the ks if they all fold ,if they consistantly see good cards when uve bet big pre flop the message gets thru and eventually u see a lot less callers creeping in , even on bb because unlike tight play they know if u have gotta hand u wont hang about with it .but like i say rotate it around a bit as well i love a slo play because the tag play makes people think u will bet big evry time on a good hand ,this is why i feel that tag play is the best staple way of playing because it lends itself well to easy changes that bring good results