Two of my passions are Real Estate and Poker.  After playing in a tournament on Labor Day and reading some AR posts today, I found myself comparing the two. 

In Poker, you have to ajust to your opponents.  You have to know your opponent and adjust your playing to counter their play style.  In Poker, you try to get a read on your opponents to anticipate their actions and reactions.  So many aspects of Real Estate are similar.  There was a blog today on a  1 visit vs a 2 visit listing presentation, and ultimately it boils down to your read of the seller, and what you think they want.  Negotiations are the same, read the other side of the table and adjust your "argument" accordingly.

There is no hard and fast way to play poker, just some general guidelines.  The most common answer when asking "How would you have played this hand?" is, "It depends."  Real Estate is the same way, everything is situational.  There are some general guidelines to how we conduct business, but in the end, everything depends on the situation.