the number of times they suck out on you with an unlikely or stupidly played hand is vastly outweighed by the number of times you take their money
I agree. But as stated, I am considering the prospect that maybe my success thus far has been down to "good poker" rather than placing villains on hand ranges. "Good poker in the dark" if you will.

And this concerns me for all good players can place their opponents on hands. And as my intention is to be able to move up the buy ins then this is going to be quite essential, is it not? Especially when spotting bluffs, dealing with close calls like when you feel both of you have got a piece of the flop, or figuring whether your hand is still in the led despite missing the flop. And of course, knowing your opponent's range, means it's easier for you to run bluffs.

With regards to the reckless play, I am probably seeing it more as I've been playing MTTs recently, mostly freerolls. And they're madhouses in the early stages and then in the latter. And are extremely painful when you lose when they were so far behind as to be outta sight.

In these tourneys, I find it very hard to quantify as 8Q goes all in as often as AA.



I suppose you could expand the question to "how do you read loose aggressive players?"

I've also been tying myself in knots these past few days, as I've ran into every single "sterotypical bluff play" that have actually been monsters. The insta all in bet when a scare card appears - the guy really did have it; slow playing rockets, to the end, despite flush draws, so it's been even harder to gauge where I'm at as I think "well I doubt he has anything 'cos he'd slow play trip K but then again he may have the nuts and very eager!" or "his min bet means he's missed but then again he may be intending to look weak" and as a result I don't know where I am in the hand and it's down to suck it and see"



BTW, comments like "if you open your mind up" aren't exactly helpful. Especially as it is, hence me being here.