how many is good for a read??

Hey all

Everytime I join a table 9/10 are players I haven't encountered before. Which means my stats on them are zero.

Now I've set PO to start showing their player icons when they've played 50 hands. I know this is WAY too small to say that a player is a certain type of player, but I have to start somewhere.

Thing is, in a session of 2 hours or so, there is no point to make it more than 50 since I'll play 3/4 of the time before 90% of the players icons will start showing.

After how many hands at a table to you start to trust the icons (or read on an opponent)?

when you have played very little vs opp you will only have a few reads. ie. you can only consider it a read if it has already happened at the table. opp at lower limits can show you there big mistakes and tendencies after a few hands sometimes, dont expect them to usually play somewhat different.

that make sense??? if opp has called draws after facing big bets then you gain alot of info thats reliable. you dont need to see opp do it a million times in order to manipulate.

I would begin to trust pre-flop stats (VPIP & PFR) after 50 hands, but only if they're one on extreme (loose/tight, aggro/passive) or the other. Post-flop stats I wouldn't even look at until you have at least 100 hands, and I wouldn't make any big bet decisions based on them until you have at least 200 hands.

As for non-stat/HUD based reads, these are useful immediately.

watch the table, turn your silly hud off until you can practically identify players in about 10 hands.

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

turn your silly hud off

Miffed, you so craaaazy.

My HUD is set to show stats at 25 hands. It may not be accurate but it's usually indicative of general tendencies.

sometimes one hand is all you need.

mine start at 5 hands. I don't treat them as law but nice to know if a guy has seen 5/6 hands and raised 1/2 of them. Or if someone hasn't played a hand when the first 5 or 6 pop up, pretty easy to figure out some general tendencies. Besides, if the hud waits till 50 to display, how do you know it's on? lol.


Besides, at $10NL or $25NL, the first 10 are pretty indicative of the play you will see the rest of the time at the table from that player.

When I was reading this thread last night I had a guy sit down to my left whose VP$IP/PFR stats were identical when they first popped up and they stayed that way for the entire session - every hand he played was played for a raise. Same table, another player was 30/6 and his stats stayed in the same ballpark as well. Then there was the 11/0 nit...when he finally did raise, there were no callers obv.

BTW, PO does display the stats, but doesn't give an icon next to the stats, that's what i referred to. when he didn't have an icon, i didn't try to put much reliance on the stats.

Very interesting. Well, i can't make good reads so turning it off or setting it to 5 won't help me, lol. But I realise now how much I need to improve. Think I'm gonna turn it lower to 25 hands or so.
Thanks every1