[elmitchbo]

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First comment is that he ALWAYS seemed to know where he was. He raised often enough that I know his standards were at least 3 times looser than mine. Some guys played back at him and he'd let it go...or come back over the top. He got it all in with KK against AK, which was a no-brainer, but he also went to war with QJ on a Q high board, and I was shocked to see both guys with QJ, the way the play had gone I was sure there was 2 pair or better out there.

I don't think anyone can know where they are as well online.

He was very active in level 1 when the weakest player was on his right. After he busted Phil tightened way up for a while, then seemed to choose my blinds for attacking. But when Greenstein took the seat to his left with 30K (soon 60K) in chips, he was limited again.

I don't have a clue what his hand ranges are because he was forced to showdown so rarely. But they are clearly very wide.

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thanks david. when he strated to attack your blind were you weaker than the rest of the table? or was it just a matter of the table positions?

the abillity to know where you are in the hand is certainly the crux of the whole strategy. it's certainly much harder to know where you are in a hand online, but it's not impossible.

how does phil ivey know where he is in a hand? is it mostly by betting patterns and the way a hand plays out, or is it more about seeing that a guy is nervous and doesn't want action? he's not superman with x-ray vision, so there must be some method involved that can be emulated.

i think i disagree to some extent about people just gettting out of his way because of who he is. i'm sure that happens, but i would say that people play against him the same way they play against everyone else for the most part. when they fold to his raise, they would have folded to anybody's raise. my assertion is that it's the fact that he makes that raise when other people don't that is the difference. if anyone made the same raise in the same spot it would yield similar results, phil is just able to identify those spots and pull the trigger.