Emperor IX
Cardschat Elite
Silver Level
Ok, bare with me here, I don't have much evidence to support my theory, but I think it makes complete sense (and it HAS been brought up by pros like Doyle Brunson before )
Whenever you sign up for a site, you nearly always have to pick a screenname to represent you. I for instance always choose either Metalhead6six6 (for metal sites) or Emperor IX for everything else. But some people like to be a little bit more specific. Notice that a lot of the names on our nifty little board here are related to Poker...well duh, it's a poker site! Now I'm going to jump ahead a bit here, since I think you should be getting my point.
Poker is full of vocabulary. There's the usual:
Donk
Blinds
Luck
Fish
pot odds (everyone knows what they are, but few understand them)
RIGGED
etc.
But then there are the words that only people who truly study the game know:
expected value
Isolation plays
Squeeze plays
the wa/wb concept
nit
tag
lag
etc.
Now, suppose you're playing in the $1.20 donkaments that I do all the time. You assume that all the players are really bad, right? But why is that? Because of the stakes? Well yeah, you're probably right. But what if the occasional good player (such as me ) is in those tourneys, how would you know? Good players rarely get to showdowns, and people rarely show their cards if they win before it, so how are you suppose to consider who's good and who's not?
Obviously watching certain players you suspect to be experienced can be beneficial when they do get to showdown, but how do you narrow down that list of suspects?
One easy way is to look at their screen name. Take a look at this hand:
pokerstars GAME #11817934191: TOURNAMENT #59971012, $1.00+$0.20 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL VIII (200/400) - 2007/09/01 - 19:59:53 (ET)
Table '59971012 1' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Emperor IX (7315 in chips)
Seat 4: giank-ev (7830 in chips)
Seat 7: Aruula (3050 in chips)
Seat 8: THE BOZZINI (8260 in chips)
Seat 9: Melie76 (545 in chips) is sitting out
Emperor IX: posts the ante 25
ThaFreshness: posts the ante 25
Aruula: posts the ante 25
THE BOZZINI: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts small blind 200
Emperor IX: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Emperor IX [2d 2h]
ThaFreshness: raises 400 to 800
Aruula: folds
THE BOZZINI: folds
Melie76: folds
Emperor IX: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Jd Tc Ac]
Emperor IX: checks
ThaFreshness: bets 400
Emperor IX: folds
Ok, so he min raises pre flop. Donks do this ALOT with big pairs or AK, so I call, hoping to stack if I can hit my set. But unfortunately the flop brings all sorts of bad news, and I have to fold.
But what if his name wasn't something random like "ThaFreshness"? It doesn't SCREAM donk, but it doesn't exactly scream professional either.
But what if his name was something like giank-ev? Sure, it seems just as random as any other name on PS, or FT. But look at the last part, -ev. That's what I did. -EV for those of you don't know means negative expected value (meaning it's a losing play in the long run) but the average donk doesn't know what EV is, so if this guy has -ev in his name (whether he's insulting himself or not) he's played before.
Taking this into consideration I made sure to keep a close eye on him. And sure enough, there he was making standard raises with AKs,AQs,AJo, big pairs only for a while. Now even the average donk can be a tag, but then I noticed something peculiar: He'd played the EXACT same way and came in with J8s, and flopped trip jacks and won a nice sized pot. This is what we call "switching gears".
After noticing he was switching gears, he still never changed the way he played. He played his AKs just like 85o. It was pretty impressive how much he was able to muscle the table. Now let's take a look at the previous hand I posted, but with giank-ev being my villain:
POKERSTARS GAME #11817934191: TOURNAMENT #59971012, $1.00+$0.20 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL VIII (200/400) - 2007/09/01 - 19:59:53 (ET)
Table '59971012 1' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Emperor IX (7315 in chips)
Seat 4: giank-ev (7830 in chips)
Seat 7: Aruula (3050 in chips)
Seat 8: THE BOZZINI (8260 in chips)
Seat 9: Melie76 (545 in chips) is sitting out
Emperor IX: posts the ante 25
giank-ev: posts the ante 25
Aruula: posts the ante 25
THE BOZZINI: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts small blind 200
Emperor IX: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Emperor IX [2d 2h]
giank-ev: raises 400 to 800
Aruula: folds
THE BOZZINI: folds
Melie76: folds
Emperor IX: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Jd Tc Ac]
Emperor IX: checks
giank-ev: bets 400
Emperor IX: calls 400 (Here I think he's c-betting whether he has a pair or not, so I figure I'll wait until the turn to get a better read)
*** TURN *** [Jd Tc Ac] [Js]
Emperor IX: checks (If this has missed him and he has the Ace he'll bet, afraid that maybe I've it hit. If it hit him he'll bet a bit going on previous reads)
giank-ev: checks (No bet. He's missed)
*** RIVER *** [Jd Tc Ac Js] [4d]
Emperor IX: bets 1200 (I fire my bullet)
giank-ev: folds
See how just his name made me play that hand so differently?
This is NOT, I repeat, is NOT a foolproof concept. I've seen total suckers with clever names, so make sure that you only use the name as a priority in scouting out whose play you should be studying, and who knows, maybe you'll save yourself some chips, or earn your selves some on those c-bets.
Whenever you sign up for a site, you nearly always have to pick a screenname to represent you. I for instance always choose either Metalhead6six6 (for metal sites) or Emperor IX for everything else. But some people like to be a little bit more specific. Notice that a lot of the names on our nifty little board here are related to Poker...well duh, it's a poker site! Now I'm going to jump ahead a bit here, since I think you should be getting my point.
Poker is full of vocabulary. There's the usual:
Donk
Blinds
Luck
Fish
pot odds (everyone knows what they are, but few understand them)
RIGGED
etc.
But then there are the words that only people who truly study the game know:
expected value
Isolation plays
Squeeze plays
the wa/wb concept
nit
tag
lag
etc.
Now, suppose you're playing in the $1.20 donkaments that I do all the time. You assume that all the players are really bad, right? But why is that? Because of the stakes? Well yeah, you're probably right. But what if the occasional good player (such as me ) is in those tourneys, how would you know? Good players rarely get to showdowns, and people rarely show their cards if they win before it, so how are you suppose to consider who's good and who's not?
Obviously watching certain players you suspect to be experienced can be beneficial when they do get to showdown, but how do you narrow down that list of suspects?
One easy way is to look at their screen name. Take a look at this hand:
pokerstars GAME #11817934191: TOURNAMENT #59971012, $1.00+$0.20 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL VIII (200/400) - 2007/09/01 - 19:59:53 (ET)
Table '59971012 1' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Emperor IX (7315 in chips)
Seat 4: giank-ev (7830 in chips)
Seat 7: Aruula (3050 in chips)
Seat 8: THE BOZZINI (8260 in chips)
Seat 9: Melie76 (545 in chips) is sitting out
Emperor IX: posts the ante 25
ThaFreshness: posts the ante 25
Aruula: posts the ante 25
THE BOZZINI: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts small blind 200
Emperor IX: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Emperor IX [2d 2h]
ThaFreshness: raises 400 to 800
Aruula: folds
THE BOZZINI: folds
Melie76: folds
Emperor IX: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Jd Tc Ac]
Emperor IX: checks
ThaFreshness: bets 400
Emperor IX: folds
Ok, so he min raises pre flop. Donks do this ALOT with big pairs or AK, so I call, hoping to stack if I can hit my set. But unfortunately the flop brings all sorts of bad news, and I have to fold.
But what if his name wasn't something random like "ThaFreshness"? It doesn't SCREAM donk, but it doesn't exactly scream professional either.
But what if his name was something like giank-ev? Sure, it seems just as random as any other name on PS, or FT. But look at the last part, -ev. That's what I did. -EV for those of you don't know means negative expected value (meaning it's a losing play in the long run) but the average donk doesn't know what EV is, so if this guy has -ev in his name (whether he's insulting himself or not) he's played before.
Taking this into consideration I made sure to keep a close eye on him. And sure enough, there he was making standard raises with AKs,AQs,AJo, big pairs only for a while. Now even the average donk can be a tag, but then I noticed something peculiar: He'd played the EXACT same way and came in with J8s, and flopped trip jacks and won a nice sized pot. This is what we call "switching gears".
After noticing he was switching gears, he still never changed the way he played. He played his AKs just like 85o. It was pretty impressive how much he was able to muscle the table. Now let's take a look at the previous hand I posted, but with giank-ev being my villain:
POKERSTARS GAME #11817934191: TOURNAMENT #59971012, $1.00+$0.20 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL VIII (200/400) - 2007/09/01 - 19:59:53 (ET)
Table '59971012 1' 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Emperor IX (7315 in chips)
Seat 4: giank-ev (7830 in chips)
Seat 7: Aruula (3050 in chips)
Seat 8: THE BOZZINI (8260 in chips)
Seat 9: Melie76 (545 in chips) is sitting out
Emperor IX: posts the ante 25
giank-ev: posts the ante 25
Aruula: posts the ante 25
THE BOZZINI: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts the ante 25
Melie76: posts small blind 200
Emperor IX: posts big blind 400
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Emperor IX [2d 2h]
giank-ev: raises 400 to 800
Aruula: folds
THE BOZZINI: folds
Melie76: folds
Emperor IX: calls 400
*** FLOP *** [Jd Tc Ac]
Emperor IX: checks
giank-ev: bets 400
Emperor IX: calls 400 (Here I think he's c-betting whether he has a pair or not, so I figure I'll wait until the turn to get a better read)
*** TURN *** [Jd Tc Ac] [Js]
Emperor IX: checks (If this has missed him and he has the Ace he'll bet, afraid that maybe I've it hit. If it hit him he'll bet a bit going on previous reads)
giank-ev: checks (No bet. He's missed)
*** RIVER *** [Jd Tc Ac Js] [4d]
Emperor IX: bets 1200 (I fire my bullet)
giank-ev: folds
See how just his name made me play that hand so differently?
This is NOT, I repeat, is NOT a foolproof concept. I've seen total suckers with clever names, so make sure that you only use the name as a priority in scouting out whose play you should be studying, and who knows, maybe you'll save yourself some chips, or earn your selves some on those c-bets.