Leveling

What does leveling mean?? I see it mentioned in some older posts and I am just trying to figure out what this means.

Quoted from a post I found elsewhere:

1st Level: Your cards
2nd Level: What does your opponent have
3rd Level: What does your opponent think you have
4th Level: What does your opponent think you think he has
5th level: What does your opponent think you think he thinks you have

Etc. Etc.

Edit to add - some people call the my card thinking level 0. You get the idea though I'm sure. Levelling yourself is where you get so far ahead of your op's thinking that you end up going full circle.

So Its basically over analyzing?

Sort of.

The point is that if you can figure out the level your opponent thinks at, you can remain one step ahead. But there is no point adjusting your play to be optimal against someone who looks at your decisions and really tries to think what hands would play like that and then acts accordingly, if you're playing against a dufus who just looks down and thinks "I has an ace, yay!"

So levelling yourself would be convincing yourself that your opponent is thinking deeper than in fact they are.

IMO Level 0: Your hand strength and Level 1 is the ability to understand your relative hand strength. Doesn't really matter but there is a jump from knowing 2pair is a good hand to 2pair is shit KQJThhhhX.

Originally Posted by gotigers1234

So Its basically over analyzing?

no. but some people do attempt to go further than is needed with the psychoanalysis thing and end up levelling themselves (which basically means thinking on too high a level for their opponent and making bad plays as a result). basically levelling is getting inside your opponents head so as to take out all the money. it is knowing what they do and why they do it. if you are able to do that, you can crush them.