You have less than an hour during most sit and go tournaments to find out what your opponents? playing styles are. In some cases you may have to discern that information in less than a few minutes! Surprisingly, there are actually ways to do this.

You may have read about player styles and how they fit into a quadrant first devised by a Ph.D. named Alan Schoonmaker in his landmark book, The Psychology of Poker. The matrix style grid I am referring to in that book, lines up on each axis a tight-loose scale compared to a passive-aggressive scale.

For consideration, a rock solid tight player would be 1,1 on the scale as he is the tightest and most passive of all, and a maniac would be 9,9 having the highest rating for looseness and aggression. You can view the poker profiling grid at this link.

Previously I have written about categorizing your players using an adapted version of Phil Hellmuth?s Creature Guide that includes Lion, Elephant, Mouse, Jackyl, and Eagle, along with my own Monkey player profiles. Seems to me a quicker way of identifying your opponents rather than having a grid number like 3,6 attached to player notes. That does not make the grid less valuable, but rather more helpful in placing your opponents more quickly on the grid while giving you somewhat of a double checking sequence.

For instance, if I have identified a mouse at my table, I can pretty much place him in the lower left quadrant as tight and passive. But if later you see him playing J9os in early position you may have to reconsider his grid position and hence his creature profile.

In sit and go tournaments you also have to keep in mind that all players will change their persona as the session progresses and players are taking more consideration of their stack, the blinds, and prize money. These factors can turn a mouse into a maniac, and a Lion into a Jackyl!

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