For about a month now, I’ve been playing no-limit holdem. Most of the time I play online. Because I want to improve my skills, I started reading some books and articles from some websites just recently. Well, there’s one thing I notice, almost everything talks about assessing your opponent’s style of play.

I’ve tried to be observant then and started using some of the things I learned to my own advantage. In one of the tournaments I was in, I’ve caught somebody bluffing for a good pot. I’ve also tried to keep written records of the number of flops others saw, pre-flop raises and any bluffs or slow plays I picked up on, however I’m not yet sure if it brought really good results.

Now, I want to ask if what kind of moves by an opponent should I consider the most important. Any idea? And what sort of information should I be recording to effectively evaluate my opponent’s style of play?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Bailey
Bailey,

The most important thing to watch is their betting pattern. How do they bet their hands when they show strong hands? How do they bet when they bluff? Does the amount change depending on the hand? Do they have any mannerisms that give off the strength of their hand? Also, how does this change when they are in position or not? Figuring out their betting pattern is the quickest way to classify an opponent in most cases, especially online.

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For a few months, me and my friend played heads up tournaments seriously. At first, we just want to know who is the best player between the two of us however we ended up having opposed opinions about how the blind structure should evolve.

One time both of us decided to play 15 games which include 7 Stud, Texas, and Omaha. Well, the only limit game back then was 7 Stud, at times PL, Texas was NL and finally Omaha PL. At the start, we got 2000 chips. Blinds were 2.5/5, 5/10, 10/20, 20/40 and every almost half an hour all the way to 100/200.
Eventually, my friend wanted to flip a coin as the blinds were so big. He believed then there was no better than such. At the table, he looked and played smarter while I figured out I was just like having fun, making big bluffs here and there as well as blind stealing, slow playing and long shot draws. No wonder that I lost big part of my chips. However, I don’t know if it was luck, I won.

He felt I was just lucky. But on the contrary I believe I was not. It happened so many times that at lower levels he would seem to win however as the blinds go up I can already catch up and then have all what he gain.

Now, he’s saying he want to play with fixed blinds such as 10/20 however I feel the blinds are not big enough unlike our stacks initially. However, both of us don’t want limit games. I’m wondering if how should we set the blind structure. Also, is there any way to find out who is really the best player between the two of us?

Your help will be much appreciated.

Thanks!

Williams
Williams,

I would recommend playing a mixed game including PL Holdem, NL Holdem, PL Omaha, and PL Omaha 8 or better. The best players in the world play multiple games well. If you want to see who the better player is, then try some mixed games. As far as blinds, if you want to fix the blinds at 10/20, reduce the starting chips to 600 or so. 30 big blind is an average starting stack size. If you want to do 1,000 that is fine. Otherwise, I would recommend a blind structure that doubles every level. Start with 10/20 an then go to 20/40, and then 40/80 etc.

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