Topic 3. Ranking Players

[Brett Kay]

This is by means a definitive way of trying to rank players and decide upon their hand ranges. This is more of a simple way to decide if the player is good average or bad. And whether or not you can get the most value out of your hands from them.

Little bit of a brief background.
Back in 1998 i was introduced to the internet. It was cool, exciting, extremely slow. But most of all, it was a new world to explore.

Unfortunately for me, i had bugger all of an idea about how to explore the internet, and ended up using lycos as a search engine. Lycos also had a gamesite attached to it. Which i decided to check out one day.

After the half hour it took to load up the server, i was introduced to card games online against real people. What was even more interesting was that they were ranked card games as well. The rankings were based on points 1200 was the start point. And that each ranking had a colour attached to them.

Red being above 1600 points - Very good Players
Orange 1400-1600 - Good Players
Purple 1150-1400 - Average Players - Enjoy the games and friends
Blue 1000-1150 - Simple players - No strategy - enjoy games and friends.
Green below 1000 points - Good players on a bad streak, or the real bad players.

Now me being a competitive soul, i wanted to be red just so i could say i was that darn good. However the rankings usually had me as a purple. Which was average. Eventually i was able to work myself up to an orange, but never achieved the red in the games i really enjoyed and thought i was good at (Spades, Euchre).

Also with the advent of personal messengers such as MSN and also ICq (at that time). You just could never be too sure if people were being honest in the game or not.

How does this apply to you local NPL game?

If you play week in and week out at the same venue against the same players. You are getting information on what kind of players they are. What kind of hands they play? What kind of bets they make? Any tells that they may have? Do they fold to re raises? Do they limp into a lot of flops? E.t.c.

So using the above colour scheme we can then try and associate with a colour with certain player and develop a strategy to get the most chips out of them.

E.g
Red - Tricky players, can bluff, can read hands well. Hard to play against. There won't be too many in an NPL game, mainly because the structure hampers their game. So they will play down in a lower category.

Orange - Decent players, Understand a lot of the concepts in the game. Always consistent. Plays a lot of the top 20 start hands. Usually when they bet they have a big slice of the hand. Need to play cautiously against these players. Because if you make a mistake they will punish your chip stack.

Purple - Average players, Understand a few of the concepts in the game. Play a lot of different hands. Limp in to more flops that they should. A lot of the time play ABC poker.

Blue - Limp into flops with decent holdings (pairs, suited connectors, Paint cards). can't fold good hands E.g. High pairs with ace showing. Chases draws without the right odds. Pushes all in with aces preflop e.t.c.

Green - Calling stations, limps into too many flops, hardly folds a hand if he has connected sometimes if he hasn't but has an ace. E.t.c.


So we have a ranking system of these players. How do we play against them?.

Reds - Try and play premium hands against them, look for cheap draws. Got to be on your toes at all times. Bring your "A" game.

Orange - Same as above. Try and force them to make a mistake with drawing hands e.t.c.

Purple - Since a lot of players are in this category, Think about the board, Try and work out what they are trying to play or represent? If you feel like you are behind fold. This is the one where the information you have, you can make better decisions.

Blue - Try and keep pot sizes small. They can still have outs. If you feel a large bet might try and scare them out, bet it see what happens. Try and avoid firing a second shell though, otherwise too much money goes into the pot and you lose a lot from your stack.

Green - Try and keep pot even small. Small bets to keep them building the pot if you have a hand. If they overbet the pot, easier to fold and try and find a better position to get the money out of them.

Easier to observe the new players as they come to the table, and then quickly try and fit them into a category. Always remember though, people can go up and down categories until your happy with how you think they play.

Cheers,
Brett.

[muzzington]

I rank people in 5 categories:

Drunks

New People

Wannabe Pro's

Happy Go Lucky

Pete Atkinson-Crawford

[Ondie J]

Ha!

[Alex Kidd]

Very Funny and not too far off the mark

[BigPete33]

Thanx muzz

[David]

Hmmm
There's a little bit of Pete in each of those categories

[Scotty]

Not a bad basic guide for people. Although i assume the first line was meant to read,"This is by NO means ..."

[Scotty]

I rank people in 5 categories:

Drunks

New People

Wannabe Pro's

Happy Go Lucky

Pete Atkinson-Crawford

4 years of medical training, and this is the best faux list you can come up with?

[Bob B]

Well done Brett. It's nice to see you have the goods to offer us guys who are still trying to grasp the other side of the game M8.

I have just read your links and and found them to be very informative. Obviously I will need to read them quite a few times more to be able to lock the calculations in a little better.

I'm not one for reading books so, your simplified presentation is great for me and I assume it will help quite a few other NPL players.

I don't want to be seen doing my calculations on the felt or a wet finger on the padding trying to calculate my outs and pot odds, LOL.

I watch a lot of the poker on Fox and I still can't believe the pros are still reading and writing about how to play this game!!!!

So many of them say they are still learning and have made a good living from it over many years.

Well done M8 I appreciate your effort, regards Bob B

[Scotty]

I don't want to be seen doing my calculations on the felt or a wet finger on the padding trying to calculate my outs and pot odds, LOL.

I still can't believe they confiscated my chalk ....