[Albert Moulton]

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Who actually thinks "What does he think I'm thinking?"


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Wow, I hope you're kidding, either that or you're playing a different type of poker than I am. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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I just play the patterns. I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.

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My guess is that when you play the "patterns" you are doing the same thing as the "levels" of thinking is explaining, it's just that you don't articulate it very clearly for a new or intermediate player to understand what you're doing.

For example, if so-and-so makes a bet in a certain situation, and your experience recognizes the pattern of play up to that bet as typical of a steal attempt when you are representing weakness (i.e. you check the turn after a cb on a low flop), then you might treat it as a steal attempt and act accordingly. Etc. But that is not too much different than, "I have a good hand that raised pf, and cb'ed the flop. He called the pf raise and cb with range {x, y, z, ...}. When I check the turn he must think I have {a, b, c, ...} against which he'll most likely bet the turn expecting me to fold {b, c} because he'll think that I'll put him on a range of {x,y} even though I know his range is wider. So, when he bets representing {x, y}, but I know his range is most likely {x, y, z, ...} I can take advantage of my knowledge of the fact that he probably has a much wider range than what he is representing to raise/fold/call...

It gets wordy when you write it out. And over time and experience it become second nature. So, my guess is that what you call "patterns" is just an intuitive way of performing multiple levels of thinking that isn't easily expressed in writing, and isn't easily learned without gaining lots of first hand experience to recognize those patterns.

The "levels" thing is a fairly simple concept that a new player can read, digest, and apply to build experience more quickly so that that kind of intuition becomes more second nature than deliberate questions and answers at a table.