The value of information

[hackers238]

This got me to thinking about the value of information.

At NL25 FR (where I play), most players are bad. I've been playing pretty regularly for over four months now, and I play at the same time of the day every day. I use PT and PAHUD every session. Yet when I sit down at a juicy table, it's still with roughly 5 people I have 0-30 hands on. I play with a ton of randoms.

As most good players do, I play the player more than the cards. At any limit I think that this is profitable: I don't tangle with the other multitabling regs unless it is to exploit their aggressiveness (which is done rarely), and when I'm OTB against a loose caller with high FCbet I'm raising a2c.

Start real post if you're bored reading my ramble

Most regulars (people I'm going to see again) will play me based on stats and notes. If they see a weird hand like the quote above, then they won't give my CBs any respect anymore, just as melioris said. But because of the advances in technology, I know who is likely to be paying attention. A player playing two tables who I have 1500 hands on is very likely to have just seen that SD. This means that now I can valuebet him to death, where before I had no idea how he would play me.

It boils down to this question: If I make interesting, abnormal and possibly sub-optimal plays against randoms, but play ABC poker against the regs, is this +EV?

Of course this is a theoretical discussion. Now I've dropped tables to work on my game and get out of a downswing, so I have more concentration per table. But when I get back to grinding and 8-12 tabling, keeping track of your image in a regs eyes would be much more difficult/impossible.

[Talking Poker]

I believe that the exact opposite approach would be much more profitable.

ABC against the randoms. Mix it up against the regs to keep them guessing (and to make their stats based reads of you incorrect).

[hackers238]

Makes sense, sounds obvious now