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We ve heard a lot of people claiming that in live play you should play the players and not the cards.
Well you can do that only when you play against newbies.
Even players at club-houses know how to represent a poker face or a secret poker attitude.
So better do the opposite.. play the cards and not the players. Always.
I would say that you should not adopt either of these two rules as a cast in stone policy. Every game, especially live poker, is different and you need to adjust your game to meet the demands of what you are faced with.
I love bluffing calling stations. Wanna buy a piece of my action? :)
OK.. so...
You only play your cards and give no thought to your opponents?
You play the exact same range against a TAG-reg as you do against a LAG-reg as you do against a semi-competent short stacker, as you do against a recreational tuna?
Every player is unique and has their own tells. It's not about a "golden" tell that will always work for every player. The point of live poker is to out-play your villains by first observing specific tells, then using your knowledge against their range.
Here are a couple of intro videos about what types of things you're looking for. Once you identify a tell, you have to link it to a range of strength. The same tell could mean opposite things from 2 different people.
Joe Navarro
Annie Duke
Of course, there's the authority on tells
Mike Caro
Play your cards, of course, but once you have a set of tells on someone, you can really open up your range against that person. You will have a much better chance of making the correct choices on every street, so you can play more hands.
Always remember: The point of poker is to make good decisions and +EV bets. The point of poker is NOT to "win pots". After all, the best strategy to win the most pots is just to play every hand and never fold. You will win every pot that you possibly could, but you will not profit.
just figure out what people are capable and are not capable of doing and then destroy them.
you have a metric fuckton of time when you are not in hands to decide what people are capable of doing so use it.
You definitely have to take on both.
By simply playing the cards, you may win more hands that you actually go into, but overall it'll be far less accumulated.
If you only play the person, you better have their play style absolutely nailed and rely on them not fluctuating from their typical patterns.
To give an example, I will use my typical play style. I typically play conservative until I get a hand in which play I play my cards and carefully examine the board and what my opponent may have.
If I have a blind and get a crappy hand, I will play it out and most of the times will bluff the best possibility of what the flop gave me. When I do this, I get a very close read on my opponent and make sure that I am not raising him when he is clearly sitting on a winning hand. As I check the board for possibilities, I am watching and taking mental notes of his betting patterns until I am sure that I can either bluff the pot or need to get out ASAP.
It always should be a reaction to the texture of the table. Each table and then hand will be different. Good starting hands turn into crud with the wrong flop. Good reading skills will dictate whether you can bet your way to winning the pot if you don't catch. You should be able to put a player on a range, even if you are wrong. If you just think about your hand you WILL find yourself felted.