In my video series, TPE Theory: Exploiting Tendencies, I spoke about how you can take advantage of your opponents when you have reads on them. In this article I will show you some subtle things your opponent does that can provide a lot of insight into how they play and form those reads . Picking up subtle clues and making educated assumptions regarding what they can mean is a essential part of being a MTT player. Especially since you are often only playing 1-2 hours with a person before one of you gets moved or busted. You have to be able to get reads quickly and extrapolate ideas about their game from small amounts of information. Here are some of the most common and helpful things to look for.
Open limping in the late stages :
When you see your opponent do this you can almost automatically note that he sucks. It is very likely that he doesn't know any of the math that goes with poker because if he did he would be smart enough to know that you shouldn't open limp because its such a obviously terrible play . People who don't know the math are typically going to have much tighter ranges for putting the money in. This is generally the case because it is very counter-intuitive how light you can actually get it in unless you actually put in the work and done the math yourself. So you should generally fold much more to his shoves and re-shoves and reshove and open shove on him more. Be careful of opening up your reshove range too much because he is more likely to have a very tight opening range in which case you might even need to play tighter. You can also assume that he's a little on the passive side when you see this move , limping is a very passive play especially at these stages so its logical assumption to make. So you can generally fold a little more to his bets pre and postflop.
3betting close to 3x the open amount and higher during the late stages :
This is another example of a person who isn't too familiar with basic MTT strategy if he was he would know that 3betting over 2.5x is generally a waste of money in the late stages. So when you see this you can make the assumption that he's not a very aggressive 3/4/5 bettor . This is because most really aggressive preflop players know enough to make their 3bet smaller. However this isn't always true so don't be too loose in your adjustments and pay more attention to get a more refined read. You can also make the very accurate assumption that they will c-bet too big postflop this will make it a lot more profitable when you flop a hand vs him, so you may want to slowplay a bit more than you normally would. It also makes it harder to float him post and worsens your odds when you bluff raise. For example if a guy c-bets 5 into 10 you can c/r to 13 and have significant fold equity and be risking 13 to win 15. However if he bets 10 into 10 you have to make it like 23 and you would be risking 23 to win 20. So calling with speculative hands pre is generally not going to be as profitable. People who 3b too big are also a little less likely to know the maths involved in poker so make the same adjustments that you would make vs the open limpets but just much smaller ones. Also if you see someone who c-bets too big you can make the same assumptions.
A very small 4bet bluff or thin value:
This is typically the sign of a player who knows some of the basic and advanced strategies of MTTs but only if it was done as a bluff or thin value. It doesn't count when people do this with aces because it is a very common play for fish to make. When you see a player do this as a bluff or thin value its very accurate to assume that he knows the math of poker pretty well. It is also logical to assume that he is a aggressive player. So the adjustments you should make vs this type of player is to open less if he is still in the hand, 3bet get it in with weaker hands , fold less to his bets postflop, and cbet less. Reshoving and 3betting more isn't necessarily correct. He can compensate for opening more than the average player by calling reshoves more than the average player , or by 4bet bluffing more. So its not a given that you should 3bet more.
If a guy uses internet forum lingo such as "donkaments" , "DIAGF" , "kitchens" etc :
This typically means that the player reads 2p2 or P5's on most people who read those forums know the math involved in poker so use some the adjustments suggested above vs open limpers.
Location and screenname reads :
If your opponent has a screenname referring to famous online players they probably know the math involved in poker. If your opponent is scandinavian or brazilian you should pretty much never fold to them . If their screenname refers to some internet lingo or somewhat advanced concept they probably know the math involved in poker .
All of this information gained was extrapolated from a small amount of information, it should be obvious how valuable it is to make these logical connections. I can also guarantee that there are more situations where you can gain a lot of information on your opponents that isn't covered in this article, so keep a look out for them!