To elaborate . . . you are sitting at a table with a player you have tagged as "bad". He wins hands he should not even be in, or she gets her chips in bad but draws out. Though tagged as a bad player you notice that they do seem to pull out results on a fairly consistent basis, low money finishes, moderate cash table winnings, etc.
How often/long does this go on before you reassess what they are doing, how they are playing?
To elaborate . . . you are sitting at a table with a player you have tagged as "bad". He wins hands he should not even be in, or she gets her chips in bad but draws out. Though tagged as a bad player you notice that they do seem to pull out results on a fairly consistent basis, low money finishes, moderate cash table winnings, etc.
I don't consider min-cashing on a consistent basis to be a good player.
Instead of just tagging them as bad adjust your game to exploit them. Sure they may suck out on you but in the long run they will lose.
Look at their showdowns, they don`t lie. You can often make a specific realization to a lack of understanding of the game this way. In the spirit of the OP, it may in fact have been for example a mislick, a random error the player doesn't generally make, or a certain specific leak that doesn't translate to a weak overall sense of the game...it is a good start...however we will look for other facts that suggest our read is correct.
When I see a player do something like this, I will generally adjust towards it, while cautiously watching to see if my read is not so justified...often you can catch the player twice with the same misunderstanding of the game, and then you have a pretty strong indicator that this is the weakness you want to exploit.
We cannot generally gather much significant information against our opponents, and so this means the other "pros" cannot do the same any better than we can. We simply have to play "good poker", and patiently wait and be ready for those opportunities which we can make small gains in relation to the field.
Knowing a players is "weak" or "bad" is really the mark of someone making insignificant adjustments. I often deal with fulltime/partime players that talk about their strategy adjustments in relation to "this player is a donkey". These are not so useful statements.
But seeing a player flat 72s in the BB vs your utg 3x early game, x/call 2 streets with a flush draw, and donk shove the river when they missed, is something we can really sink our teeth in with regards to the overall strategy adjustments we might make.
In this example the BB seemingly has no concept of gap theory, positional awareness, they chose not to semi bluff, and they bluff shoved a giant amount of missed flush draws on the river.
We wouldn't expect they respond this way always, yet we can seek to play dominating hands vs their flatting ranges, value bet thinly, and make some marginal calls when wet boards miss most rivers that would complete hands. These are pretty strong reads that are not likely to be proven wrong, and furthermore it wouldn't take much more information to feel extremely confident about them, and to really rip apart and define the opponents strategy.
Didn't Ted Forrest make some statement about bias that seems relevant here? I think it was more or less that most of us compare our A game to someone else's D game. So as you state, maybe your initial impression was accurate but it doesn't mean the player isn't capable of playing better.
So I think maybe the best answer is that you should reassess every single time you see him do something that challenges the expectations of your assessment. This would also go for players you've tagged as good who are playing well below their A game.
This may have more or less been said in the previous post. I'm playing at the moment and reading on my phone so I'm not looking at anything too thoroughly.
Getem is always the donkey and attack him, his blinds for sure and when he checks in the dark because he flats a lot of preflop raises OOP.....(idiot!)
No seriously, if he flips up hands that are constantly better while chasing things and getting there then folding hands that are not better, whether hes a luckbox and not a donkey are not the same things.....I'd much rather be with donkey than a luckbox!....a luckbox has a grasp of the game.
Comments
How often/long does this go on before you reassess what they are doing, how they are playing?
I don't consider min-cashing on a consistent basis to be a good player.
Instead of just tagging them as bad adjust your game to exploit them. Sure they may suck out on you but in the long run they will lose.
Kind of how I play vs you.
When I see a player do something like this, I will generally adjust towards it, while cautiously watching to see if my read is not so justified...often you can catch the player twice with the same misunderstanding of the game, and then you have a pretty strong indicator that this is the weakness you want to exploit.
We cannot generally gather much significant information against our opponents, and so this means the other "pros" cannot do the same any better than we can. We simply have to play "good poker", and patiently wait and be ready for those opportunities which we can make small gains in relation to the field.
Knowing a players is "weak" or "bad" is really the mark of someone making insignificant adjustments. I often deal with fulltime/partime players that talk about their strategy adjustments in relation to "this player is a donkey". These are not so useful statements.
But seeing a player flat 72s in the BB vs your utg 3x early game, x/call 2 streets with a flush draw, and donk shove the river when they missed, is something we can really sink our teeth in with regards to the overall strategy adjustments we might make.
In this example the BB seemingly has no concept of gap theory, positional awareness, they chose not to semi bluff, and they bluff shoved a giant amount of missed flush draws on the river.
We wouldn't expect they respond this way always, yet we can seek to play dominating hands vs their flatting ranges, value bet thinly, and make some marginal calls when wet boards miss most rivers that would complete hands. These are pretty strong reads that are not likely to be proven wrong, and furthermore it wouldn't take much more information to feel extremely confident about them, and to really rip apart and define the opponents strategy.
So I think maybe the best answer is that you should reassess every single time you see him do something that challenges the expectations of your assessment. This would also go for players you've tagged as good who are playing well below their A game.
This may have more or less been said in the previous post. I'm playing at the moment and reading on my phone so I'm not looking at anything too thoroughly.
No seriously, if he flips up hands that are constantly better while chasing things and getting there then folding hands that are not better, whether hes a luckbox and not a donkey are not the same things.....I'd much rather be with donkey than a luckbox!....a luckbox has a grasp of the game.