Why Do Some Players Become Unreadable at the Table? 😶🃏

Natox said:

I think there are simply people with very good intuition. I've often come across players who make excellent decisions and stay unpredictable. You can see a combination of experience and good self-control. Their knowledge separates them from the crowd of gamblers. Even if they lose, they know what they did and be fine with that. All things that can be learned and improved, in my opinion.

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• value bet stronger hands
• avoid big bluffs
• don’t level myself trying to “figure them out”

Pitonealal said:

Lately I’ve been thinking about one strange type of player you see both live and online — the completely unreadable ones.
Not tight, not loose… just impossible to categorize.

You know the type:

sometimes they snap-call with nothing,

sometimes they fold top pair instantly,

sometimes they shove with hands you would never even consider,

and somehow they always make you doubt your own line.


It’s like they’re playing their own private version of poker.

So here’s the question:
👉 What actually makes a player truly unreadable?
Is it:

total lack of patterns?

emotional decisions?

deliberate chaos?

or a very deep understanding of ranges disguised as randomness?


Curious what you all think. Have you played vs someone like this?
And more importantly — is being unreadable a real advantage, or just disguised bad play?

Drop your thoughts below 👇

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What actually makes a player unreadable?​

1) True randomness / lack of stable patterns​

• What it is: Their actions don’t correlate reliably with hand strength or position. They don’t form a stable preflop range, or they switch lines constantly.
• Why it’s unreadable: Your statistical reads (VPIP/PFR, fold-to-cbet, 3-bet freq) don’t converge — small samples give wildly different impressions.
• Typical source: Recreational players, people learning many heuristics but applying them inconsistently, or someone using “mixed” lines without a coherent plan.

2) Emotional (erratic) decisions — tilt, fear, overconfidence​

• What it is: Decisions driven by emotion rather than logic — chasing after losing hands, spewing when frustrated, folding the best hands when scared.
• Why it’s unreadable: Their play switches with mood; yesterday they were tight, today they’re calling off with air. There’s pattern — but it’s a psychological pattern that changes unpredictably.
• Typical source: Short memory (tilt), recreational stress, drunk/overexcited players.

3) Deliberate chaos / strategic unexploitable play​

• What it is: A player intentionally randomizes to be unexploitable (mixing bluffs/values to avoid reads). Could be a skilled reg using a “balanced” or solver-derived strategy or a pro deliberately mixing to obscure tendencies.
• Why it’s unreadable: They do have a plan — but it’s designed to produce high entropy so opponents can’t pin them down. Hard to read, but not chaotic in the emotional sense.
• Typical source: Advanced players, some pros, or bots.

Pitonealal said:

Lately I’ve been thinking about one strange type of player you see both live and online — the completely unreadable ones.
Not tight, not loose… just impossible to categorize.

You know the type:

sometimes they snap-call with nothing,

sometimes they fold top pair instantly,

sometimes they shove with hands you would never even consider,

and somehow they always make you doubt your own line.


It’s like they’re playing their own private version of poker.

So here’s the question:
👉 What actually makes a player truly unreadable?
Is it:

total lack of patterns?

emotional decisions?

deliberate chaos?

or a very deep understanding of ranges disguised as randomness?


Curious what you all think. Have you played vs someone like this?
And more importantly — is being unreadable a real advantage, or just disguised bad play?

Drop your thoughts below 👇

Click to expand...