Everyone’s heard the degenerate at the casino claim, “I play the man, not the cards.”
While this can be effective, it’s a losing strategy at any mid- or high-stakes game. The reason is that this type of opponent is a textbook case of a “level 2” thinker.
In this article, I will discuss how professional poker players classify opponents and adjust their strategy moving forward.
Poker is about knowing how your opponent thinks. Once you know this, you can develop a strategy that will be most profitable given the opponent’s strategy. With 8 other players at the table and after hours of playing, it can be hard to determine how every opponent will react to every situation. To simplify things, professional poker players assign different “levels” of thinking to their opponents. To take advantage of these players, you have to be exactly one level above them. If you are thinking at too high of a level, that is called “leveling” yourself. It’s not the most profitable way to play and might even force you to be a losing player! For example, if your opponent is a level 1 opponent, you want to be thinking on level 2 in order to play the best against them.
Below, I have laid out what different levels mean:
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There is now a level zero.
Level 0: This opponent is only seen in nickel & dime home games or occasionally the extremely intoxicated individual playing 1/2NL at your local casino. These players are basically choosing to bet, call, or fold on a seemingly random decision making process. One hand they might raise K-5 and fold K-T in the exact same situation. These players are easy to play against; you simply play a level 1 strategy against them.
Image may be NSFW.
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Level 1 (L1): A level 1 opponent is the guy who “plays his cards.” His thought process is only “what do I have?” and does not even consider “What does my opponent have given the way he has bet and played in the past?” He bets with good hands and folds bad ones. He might try an occasional bluff, but the bluff will usually not tell a good story and can be picked off by higher level thinkers. This player also has no regard for relative hand strength versus absolute hand strength. This means that top pair has the same value to them whether there is no betting or whether the opponent bet the flop, turn, and river. Typically, most of your casual 1/2NL live players are level 1 opponents.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Level 2 (L2): This is your classic “play the man and not the cards.” His thought process is “What does my opponent have?” This player pounces on a L1 player’s weakness. When an opponent checks, he recognizes that the opponent probably doesn’t have a strong hand and can win the pot with a bet. The problem with this strategy is that he is not worried about his opponent figuring out what he has. This player will often run ridiculous bluffs (where they might bet the flop, turn, and river) and are relatively easy to pick off.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Level 3 (L3): “What do I think he thinks I have?” This level is where poker starts to become an intense game theory problem as opposed to a casual game that requires minimal thought. This player is aware of how his action (whether he bet, raised, or called) influences what his opponent thinks he has. Basically, this type of player will destroy the L2 opponent because he will be able to know the right times to act weak with a strong hand. When this happens, he will know that the opponent is betting to force the player to fold as opposed to betting because the opponent actually has a strong hand. Remember, even if you are capable of thinking on level 3 against an L1 player, you should use L2 decision-making.
As the levels get higher and higher, thought processes become much more convoluted. You’ll start asking yourself “What do I think he thinks I think he thinks I think he has?”
The key take-away from all of this is that assuming your opponent is smarter than he is can be a huge mistake. It’s perfectly fine to play in an exploitable way if you know your opponents are not intelligent enough to exploit you with it. Any poker book will tell you that you need to raise the same amount before the flop with your entire hand range (both with A-A and 8-7). However, the truth is that at some low stakes games, you can afford to just call the big blind with hands like 8-7 of hearts and raise your big hands like a pair of K-K or A-A. While it’s obvious that you are playing big hands differently than non-big hands, your opponents may not be able to pick that up. In those instances, you can play even more profitably than a non-exploitable strategy.
For my next couple of articles, I will be posting hands that I played to show you how my level of thinking differs for different opponents.
Jonathan Schoder won $236,921 at the 2012 WSOP Main Event. He is a student at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.