Getting a feel for your tournament opponents.

It hasn’t been for not trying, because several software products can handle tournament statistics but users of such poker assist software can be easily misled by those results. The reason for this is because betting and activity statistics cannot accurately include other dominant factors in tournaments that demand further analysis.

Let’s take for example you have an opponent you have tracked for 23 hands with a VPIP of 43% and aggression factor of 3.5. Well if these stats were collected during a single table cash game with 9 players, then you have likely run into a maniacal player more commonly identified in ring games as a loose-aggressive (LAG). Now granted 23 hands isn’t a clear indicator, but you at least know he isn’t a mouse.

Now how about if those same statistics were collected during a multi-table tournament? On the face of it, your first impression may be exactly the same – the dude is wild. However if you are looking at these stats in a poker assist software program like Poker Tracker, Poker Prospector or Poker Sharpener, what you may not realize is that none of those programs can tell you the tournament dynamics at the time you collected those statistics.

What difference does that make? Well there are overwhelming factors in tournaments which can turn a mouse into a jackal, and elephant into a mouse, and an eagle into a monkey. Furthermore, changing your overall game plan as a result of these factors can very well be the correct play given the circumstances.