Quote:
Originally Posted by LadyHoldem  You say you watched the player with the headphones for five minutes, and knew he wasn't a threat..
How did you come to that conclusion? Playing style? Body Language (Specifically?)? Conversation? |
Good Questions, I'll do my best to answer.
The simple answer is 8 years of experience playing professionally
, but let me expand on that a little bit.
General Profiling -
The first thing I do, normally before even sitting down at the table is size up the opponents. I try and determine who plays good, who plays bad, who is a threat. If there are multiple tables, I check to see which game is the best. When you sit down, listen, watch, take mental notes, who feels comfortable, who doesn't, what do they say?, How do they say it? Do they know what the hell they are talking about, or are they clued out?
All I generally need to observe is a small sampling of hands a player plays, taking note of their value of starting hands by position, whether they come into the pot raising or just calling will tell you a lot about their "Style", whether they are weak and passive, or strong and aggressive. As noted in the article this player really misplayed a few hands early missing a lot of bets. Good players don't misplay hands the way this guy did, he had a serious case of "FPS", Fancy Play Syndrome.
Body Language - It's a bit of a generalization and stereotype, but generally speaking guys who wear big head phones are wannabees. In fact in 8 years of playing I'm not sure I've ever seen any great players wear big bulky headphones and here is the reason why: Your giving up to much information, there are all kinds of verbal clues, and hints that players unknowingly give up all the time. If your listening to music, how the hell are you going to hear that free information??
Conversation - after misplaying the first hand, he tells everyone out loud that he played the hand bad (Gee, you think). Even if you are an idiot, you don't normally stand up and say so. Then two minutes later he makes basically the same mistake, missing multiple bets with way the best hand. Mistakes happen, but the idea is to learn from them, not repeat them
So my basic profile of this guy was that he was a wannabee, plays passively, and makes a lot of mistakes so he isnt' a threat.
Jason
