Knowing Your Opponents...

[eljizzle]

How critical is knowing your opponents? This is something that is seldom talked about, but I've noticed it is a HUGE part of my success and failure.

I learned poker in an out of state underground community that has roughly 100 regulars and maybe 25 "staples" including myself. All the games are NL (I've never really played limit) and all the top players are solid and could probably easily be mid stakes pros if given the bankroll and opportunity.

That being said, I have found that one of my biggest strengths, at least in the games back home, is my observations over the years and the analysis of all that information. I feel I do that MUCH better than most of the rest of the players. I may not know as much about poker theory as some of them, but I definitely remember more hands and how they were played against all these people. When someone puts me to a decision (or I put them to a decision) it is based off of the analysis of hundreds if not thousands of hands I've seen them play, both against me and others. Since I'm pretty certain I am better at cataloging, analyzing, and applying that information, I did pretty well against these guys in the long run.

Conversely however, when I play in casinos, I'm not nearly as good as getting reads on my opponents, even if I've been at the table for 8+ hours. In my mind, that is such a tiny sample of their play, it's essentially irrelevant. Sure I can give someone a label (weak, tight, passive, whatever) but I assume they are decent and just because they did something a couple hours back, is not enough of a reason in my mind to assume they'd do it again, or vice versa.

How much of a role do you think this plays in the overall success of winning players. I mean if you look at the guys who play the biggest games, there are very few of them, and a lot of them have been playing for a long time together, it would seem that whoever is best at mixing up their play, and drawing on the years of playing together will likely do the best.

Long story long, I guess my point is that when everyone at the table already plays solid or beyond, and they all know one another's game intimately it just becomes an "outsmarting" process of reverse psychology and upper level thinking...agree or disagree?