[MrWookie]

nh, @_L.

Grunch, it seems to me that the only way to arrive at a forest that doesn't involve stats is by collecting tree samples. Without any preliminary datamining stats from PE or whatever, everyone has to start with trees. All we have is the play of an increasing number of specific hands, and our job is to add that up into a picture of a player. I don't see a good way to arrive at these general tendancies that you're talking about without taking in some details.

Now, every good poker player knows not to try to put an opponent on one specific hand. The good players know to put players on a gradually decresing range of hands as more information becomes available, and the very best players know to possibly add some hands that weren't considered in the original range if things change dramatically. By analogy, we shouldn't automatically can a player into a specific read, which seems to be exactly what you're advocating. As we acquire new specifics, we should narrow or expand our read as appropriate. If I observe that a player has a couple of times donkbet a ragged flop with second pair, crappy kicker into a preflop raiser, but he'll check/raise top pair, it's pretty easy to start to narrow his holdings. Then, however, if I spot him check/raising bottom pair, I have to refine my read and add more hands to his possible ranges when I encounter this situation next. It's a big, broad, dynamic process, and I think that's exactly what you're advocating. Maybe your memory is better than mine, but I know that personally, I'd never be able to come up with a decent dynamic read in this fashion without starting by making some notes on the specifics.

Lastly, I really like having VPIP and PFR stats. They give me a lot of easy information that greatly restricts an opponents possible holdings. They're great, as long as you don't use them in an overly restrictive manner. In your Q9 example, it's just a case of looking at an opponent against whom you'd want to tread carefully, but now you have to add in the possibilities of tilt and/or a stretch of cold cards that happened to a serious LAG. Expand your range, but be on alert to keep narrowing it.

Edit: When I said, "we shouldn't automatically can a player into a specific read, which seems to be exactly what you're advocating," it looks like it didn't come out like I wanted it to. I meant that you're advocating a broad, dynamic read, not the canned read. I think the bulk of my post was agreeing with you, but I get there in the same manner as davelin.