Friday, January 30, 2009

Color Coding players

A few of my readers have asked about this, so I'll make a quick post about color coding players. The screen shots I post, indicate that I take a lot of notes on players.  While the notes are important, for me the color codes carry an added benefit, especially since FullTilt started publishing them in the lobby.  

As far as I'm concern, the #1 benefit this feature gives me, is the advance knowledge of knowing the player's skill level, and in the context of HU SNG's, this is very big.  If I open up a HU SNG lobby, and see the player sitting there has a color code indicative to me that he's a shark, then I'm not going to play him.  At the end of the day, it's about finding the 'edge' and winning money that counts.  Sure I can sit, and take the challenge, but I'm not really interested in doing that, when there are plenty of poor players out there.  In fact, for those that do play these games, you'll rarely see the 'shark's playing against each other.  You'll see one waiting at one table, and another at a different table.  I mean if they really wanted to play, they could play each other, right?  

In the context of MTT's, having the color code is really helpfull.  Obviously when a table first opens up, if you have no info on the players, you need to play for a while, before you start understanding who's who.  Now imagine if when the tournament starts, all or most of the players at your table are color coded....thats a big advantage.  You know who you want to take hands against, and who not mess with.  You understand which players are capable of making plays, and which players don't have a clue, so as to not make plays against them.  I can't tell you how invalueble having this is, especially when you play the 45 man SNG'.s  At this point, I sit down in these, and have over half the field already color coded.  

I've been tagging players now for quite some time, so one thing I recommend is that after every session, you save the notes files.  I put it on a USB drive, and take that around the several computers I have, and that I play poker on.  You'll find that file in the root of the Fulltilt program directory, and it's called 'yourFullTiltname.XML'.  Just make sure the client is closed before copying the file.

I've been running a bit sour the last few days, nothing you can do about it, especially when your getting your money in good, and are getting outdrawn.  It happens, and we all have to deal with it.  Sucks when it does, thats for sure.  

I did manage another 2nd in one of those 45 man SNG's last night, so that help minimize the damage:



Colorfull lobby huh?  

2BA



5 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the post.

So for example, on the lobby included with this post, you have 4 different colors---turqoise, greenish, orange, and yellow. So would the turqoise be "good players" as they were in the final 4 with you?

I ask because I currently use a paltry 3 color system (red = shark, purple = fish/donkey/, and green = general observations about style of play of an average player) which I'm not terribly pleased with...

Fred aka TwoBlackAces said...

I think you have to go with what works for you. You have 14 colors overall. I split half/half, between skilled and unskilled. The differences are very much tuned to my perspective. You'll have to define your own, everyone's judging gage is different.

Riggstad said...

I always used the coding system as a specific color for where i saw that player the most.

As an example, when I played a whole lot on tilt, I had always color coded guys for what game I played with them the most.

Purple for PLO, green for SNG's, yellow for MTT's, etc.

I would then leave a note that reflected the action that I recognized the most often from that player.

I like your system though as it can be used to judge who you want to play against before getting to the table. Good Post

Jordan said...

good stuff, tba. i'm definitely going to revamp my notes system.

OhCaptain said...

I've been sitting on this post not marking it read in reader for a while. I'm really fascinated with what people do for note taking. Since I play mostly sngs at low stakes, I'm not really sure how valuable they are. Sometimes I do make note of someone that I think has some skills, but mostly I find the information kinda worthless. Players keep changing over time at this level. A lot times they get better, for a lot of them, they've got no where to go but up.

I'm guessing I'm labeled green in your system. My game is no where near consistent. Sometimes I feel like I play well, and others I walk through the minefield reading a book and listening to my headphones.

I'm gonna give your system a try. I've actually got a note on every player I've played. The date and game type. The only other tag I have is bloggers are all pink. That was mostly so I could find them quickly.

Thanks for the post!