"Playing the man" is merely an abstract reference to maths in Poker that a lot of old timers in these (slightly out of date) books couldn't quite put their fing

"Playing the man" is merely an abstract reference to maths in Poker that a lot of old timers in these (slightly out of date) books couldn't quite put their finger on. Super System was a good book for its time, but I think there's a lot of better books out there now (Harrington on Holdem for example). A simple example, common stats software for poker will record what % of hands an opponent raises on the button if it's folded to him. If this figure is 80% you know his hand range is extremely wide. "Playing the man" simply is recognising that in this situation your opponents hand range is very wide so you can often raise the bet and take the pot without further resistance.