Good read, bad reads

Ok i'll have a crack...

BEST READS

aggro fish, calling station, whale

MIDDLE READS

passive (preflop), generic fish, hyper nit, bad/beta reg

MEH READS

passive (postflop), good reg, merged fish

If we're using potential EV as our yardstick I think it looks something like that.

Do we even need reads as such? Can't we just deduce everything from relevant stats?

If we do, i think the more specific the better, "will attack perceived capped ranges every time for big sizes" is much better than "aggro reg" and "calls any top pair to any size regardless of board texture". Idk if im answering the question you're asking though. Also, why remember, taking a note takes 2 seconds and is gonna be there forever (while the player might have changed, you will know when you took your note, at least with h2n thats the case, and play accordingly)

Yeah that's totally on topic and.. I agree the more specific the note the more confident we can be deviating.

I dunno. I'm not a stats person, so I tend to zoom out and latch on to meta reads. It's a style thing i guess, because unless you're playing nosebleeds where every drop of EV matters, prob more likely tight decisions will boil down to more obvious exploits, which is why I prefer general tags and branching out from there.

I also find detailed notes quite distracting and quickly add up to essay lengths that are hard to parse in tight timescales. Shorthand is the answer but then i'm thinking 'what the F did i mean there?!'. heh. But yes, it's still a good discussion point: are notes > stats > general reads? Maybe

I think its a process. We start with a basic reads, maybe based on some stats or general gameplay. We give them a label. With time, we gather stats and hand histories and then refine them into notes or even instructions on what to do (bluff this guy after xx turn) when we have enough of them. Im definitely not a good player, but i think those are pretty useful even at the micro level, while just raw reads are vague and can even be misleading/dangerous.

90% of your reads should be about fish.

If he is aggressive what line and what hands he likes to bet? Some aggro fish like to bluff a ton but check medium pairs, some completely opposite. Some like to raise a ton, othere just call.

Highest EV reads are if you pick up specific sizing tell on specific player. For example there is a fish in my pool when he pots flop and he pots turn it's nutted but with bluffs he pots flop and goes 1/2 ott, that's super valuable read.

One of the best ones is finding thresholds for river raise/call/x back IP. I have a lot of notes on people not raising or even betting or x back really thick hands like the 3rd nuts.

River raise sizing and other size tells are good too.

I like easy to read notes that tell me the adjustment I can make in game. For instance if I see a player call very light on a river I put VBT, for value bet thin

If I see an action I am suspicious of, such as a river lead I will note it. The more they repeat an action, I add x2 and 3x etc.

I tend to use a hierarchy of in game intuition (knowledge of pool/player/timing) > stats > notes as a default, then as the note becomes more solid I may defer to that over anything else. The danger with notes can be seeing something like "aggro!" and calling in a heavily under bluffed spot.

Similar to what Ceres said, I find its important to not get bogged down in reading essays in game, it takes you out of the moment and diverts brainpower. One way to combat this is to check them now and then in-between action - It always feel better to be prepared early in a hand, rather than being reactive when they shove on you.