rising fighting spirit

"Wisdom, skill and becoming part of the spirit just go on developing and unfolding throughout all of life. There is no bottom line, no bottom of the well that can be reached. The true master is never finished, he is ever becoming."

We are continuing to stress out the parallelism between ninjutsu and playing poker, the first paragraph was said for ninjutsu and it's also true for poker. Let's see how ninjutsu masters analyses their opponents:

The Five Weaknesses

The five weaknesses are based upon the manifestations above and link to the basic traits that an individual may exhibit. The Ninja was expert in observing these traits and exploiting them for his/her own ends.

• Laziness
• Anger
• Fear
• Sympathy
• Vanity

Laziness is basicly not enough studying in poker, you can notice it in most of the players, they don't know that their range is really weak against some lines etc. You can easily exploit that.

When it comes to anger its tranlation to poker is "tilt". It's very exploitable and one of the biggest weaknesses a player may have.

"Fear". When the ace hits the board on the river and our opponent is already in a spot where he shouldn't have been, there comes the snap check and it's our turn. Who doesn't like to bash the 3rd barrel when we don't have anything actually.

"Symphaty". I recognize it once in a while, when you're playing a session below equity (sucked out in big pots) one of the players in the table may miss some of the value bets that he wouldn't miss normally. He knows that you're going to call and puts himself instead of you and feel bad about making that bet.

"Vanity" the thing I like to exploit the most! "Ego Players" that rather die instead of folding to a min raise. Just min raise them and they will ship it with no pair no draw.

The Five Needs

The Ninja was also able to exploit the needs of an adversary. In doing so it was possible to manipulate events and have debts repaid. The Ninja could then be at the centre of activity yet remain hidden.

• Security
• Sex
• Wealth
• Pride
• Pleasure

We all know the players that doesn't like high variation game and fold to 3-bets more than they should. They like to play a secure poker with no big pots and bluffs.

I don't know how to exploit the sex need in poker, if anyone knows this, please tell me about it. But I know people falling in love with their big pocket pair and not folding it even if a lightning hits them.

Ok, wealth. We expect that a good rolled player would choose high-variance lines rather than safe ones. You can adjust according to that and always you can invite them to HU to a bigger tables when the game heats up and you think you have an edge against them.

Pride. Ever noticed the urge in some players of making hero calls on the river with their 4th pair? That's it. They want to show how smart they are and if they can't win the hand, they will muck their cards and say they had a bigger something.

Pleasure. Ever seen a guy playing poker for fun folding a flush draw on the flop? I haven't.

My advice for you is to learn ninjutsu then start learning poker. The roots of poker lies in the mystical philosophy of the martial arts. I can beat you with my hands bound. Watch some karate kid instead of high stakes poker. Now go!