when is range important

[nath0175]

when is ur own range important, i dnt realy worry about my own range because i dnt think players think on that level until u get to higher stakes. im also hesistant about thinking about a players range unless i know they are very good players.
am currently playing 25/50, what should my thought processes be ???????

[thefairy]

the biggest mistake good players make is thinking their opponants have the same thought processes as their own. treat all opponants as fish unless proven otherwise.

[Litellio]

Originally Posted by thefairy

the biggest mistake good players make is thinking their opponants have the same thought processes as their own. treat all opponants as fish unless proven otherwise.

I really don't think treating everyone as fish until proven otherwise will get you anywhere, if anything the opposite is true.

[nath0175]

probably doesnt matter for mark as he is a complete nit

[Mike]

You treat people as "unknown", until you can assign TAG, fish, etc. Stats are important, esp to regulars. Good regulars take your stats into account, and do assign ranges. If you're running 40/20 ofc they're going to widen your range up and stack off light when making a decision for example.

[bizkit]

Nobody is really ever completely unknown. Even if its the first hand you've played with them you have several things you can use:

Screen Name: There are many different ways to evaluate this. I'll touch on the simplest one. If a player has a screen name that's like "AHugeDonkey" or "ICMPush" they probably know what they're doing more than your average unknown. Not many really bad players can make up names like this.
Search Feature: This is great when you're facing a raised flop and you have a fairly big hand but wouldn't typically call a raise from a regular. If it's an unknown opponent, first hand in I'm a lot more inclined to fold if he's playing a large number of tables or hidden from the search feature. Both of these are indicators to me that he's a regular.
OPR or sharkscope: Again if you have no hands at all this is sometimes useful in figuring out player motivations. If you're facing a sizeable all in raise on the river on a fairly dry board with aces or maybe say two Queens or Jacks as you raise from EP you see an MP stack shove for 60 bb's it helps to know if he has a high bust early or not in tournaments.
Stack Size: Usually a good player doesn't buy in for anything but the maximum. There are a few exceptions(some players like to play half stacked, at 200 bb tables some don't like to play implied 200 bb stack and prefer 100 bb stack level). But, if you see someone buy in for like 40 or 60 big blinds this usually is an indicator they aren't very good.
Bayes Theorum: This one isn't exactly instant but it is rather interesting. Once you get a few hands on a player you can sort of determine the statistical likelihood that your read based upon these hands is accurate. The examples show high vpip & am I getting 3bet light. Here's the 2+2 link: Instareads: Bayes Theorum

At 25c/50c I don't think you should over think things. Obviously, there are some ok decent regulars that you don't want to get it in full stacked with an overpair most of the time. But if you use some of the above you'll start to realize better when you have to get it in a little lighter or not.

[Mike]

You make some excellent points bizkit. Never even heard of Bayes theorem before, cheers for that.

[nickstrick1]

A good way to keep people from staying as unknowns (esp on stars) is to make loads of notes about players. And when they pop up at a table 3days later you already have some info. The more notes you make about more players the better IMO.

[The Incompetent-Donkey]

Originally Posted by nath0175

when is ur own range important, i dnt realy worry about my own range because i dnt think players think on that level until u get to higher stakes. im also hesistant about thinking about a players range unless i know they are very good players.
am currently playing 25/50, what should my thought processes be ???????

You as a player should be considering other peoples ranges continously, but not nessecarily considering what others think of your range.

A question- are you really playing 25/50?? congrats if you are but for some reason I think its more likely to be .25/.5.

For the first one your game will most likely be filled with fish and reasonably good to excellent players. I would imagine that the level of thinking in these games averages around 3, at which point you would have to consider what your opponent considers your range to be.

In the second your game will be filled with fish and a lot of break even/marginal winner multi tabling regs with some brightsparks, at which point the level of thought probably averages around 2. In these games considering other peoples range is needed (as against any opponent really), but considering what your opponent considers your range to be will in the majority of cases detrimental.

[nickstrick1]

Not sure that I agree that lv.3 thinking is detremental the majority of the time (even at very low stakes) george, but I do like the post. I've never thought about assigning an average thinking level to a table/table limit.