Even the pros will tell you that doesnt work short term.
The key to good poker is aggression. If you play aggressive with good/bad cards & get luck you look like a genius.
You could be clueless & dumb as mud, but over a few hands its hard to tell with luck.
I forgotted that there is another reason to check a fella’s profile… rank = bank.
Let’s say we are playing a 100k SnG. If that 100k is someone’s whole bank, they will usually either be playing scared or a reckless gambler-type looking for a shortcut to riches. It’s not hard to tell which if you watch them play a few hands.
If, on the other hand, that 100k represents a drop in the bucket of their kabrillionare bank, they will approach the game differently. It’s hard to intimidate a fella like that, you know?
This is an important observation. I often am seated with players for whom a standard-sized buy in (100 BBs) represents a small fraction of their bankroll – some have several hundred (or more) buy ins. Conversely, I have about 25 buy ins at the level I currently frequent.
The point is that standard opening bets (between 3-10 BBs) are, like you say, a drop in the bucket for these players. For me, this is like bringing a water pistol to a tank fight.
Point in case, I was playing three-handed for 20K/40K blinds against a player who had 875 buy ins at that level. This is a smart player who obviously knew how to play as the big dog and was basically bludgeoning the table with constant preflop raises. I folded a lot of blinds preflop.
Anyways, one hand he raises 4X in that small blind. I wake up with AK in the BB and 3-bet to10X. The BN calls and the SB calls. The flop: Jc 2h Ad. At this point, I decide to shove for about 29 BBs. The BN folds and the SB calls.
I turn over my AK and the SB turns over his pocket deuces. A hard player to go up against – smart and chip rich. Of course, I lost.