Poker Essays
Reading
your Opponents
From
Card
Academy
July 2007
An
essential component of playing any type of poker is
the ability to read your opponents, and in the case
of playing online, to be able to at least understand
your opponents. Being able to do this will give you
an opportunity to predict your opponent's moves and
with this information making the correct counter move
becomes much easier, with a higher success rate in
your favour. Poker
is often characterised as a game which doesn't completely
revolve around the cards, but more about how a player
reacts to their cards.
Your
own table image
Taking the above into account, it is important to
maintain your own table image to suit your strategy.
This means not giving away too much and letting your
opponents read you like a book! If you can manage
to do this, then every read that you can get off the
other players becomes a bonus and additional information
to you. When playing a live game, try not to change
anything that you do from hand to hand that might
give away any tells. Practice doing all the little
things every hand the same way. This includes the
way you hold your cards, whether or not you place
a chip, or card protector, on your cards, the way
you throw your chips into the pot and most importantly
your facial expressions. If someone is looking you
up when they're trying to make a difficult decision,
then the best way to counter this is to stare directly
into the middle of the table until he makes his decision.
It is usually extremely difficult to pick up a tell
on a player, so if you keep the same practices when
playing your hands, you should be fine.
Appearance
and demeanour
Although it may seem trivial, you can get a general
perception of the type of player a person is by simply
looking at their attire. This is a first up impression
only, however, and useful to gauge the type of cards
a player might have before you've had time to see
what cards the player is showing down. It can be useful
though, because occasionally you can go quite some
time before actually seeing a player's hole cards,
so you take what you can get.
A
player that is looking very clean-cut, with their
shirt tucked in, is more likely to be a conservative
player and doesn't throw caution to the wind. A player
who is in sweat-pants and wearing a t-shirt with frayed
edges and holes in it, will generally be more of a
risk taker and would be more likely to play a larger
range of hands. Be careful though, because this is
hardly conclusive evidence as to the type of player
you are up against. A loud player who sits down and
is full of confidence and doesn't shut up can be safely
put into the aggressive, wild category. These types
of player that like to talk to it up from the word
go are definitely the type of players who will love
to bluff people off pots to satisfy their massive
egos. On the other hand, players who sit tight and
hardly say a word, are normally very timid players
who won't make as many bold plays against you compared
to the loud category of players.
When
online, because you can't see any of your opponents,
you can sometimes find players that like to talk it
up in the chat box. Observing these remarks can usually
pocket you some handy information. So keep an eye
out. Occasionally some players will talk a lot and
try and goad other players into calling, or frustrate
them into playing loose. These are similar to the
loud live game players, who like to play many hands
and bluff a lot.
Sometimes
there will be a hand where a player will go all-in
in a tournament from the small blind and the big blind
has less than another big blind to call. They do so
with a hand like 27 off-suit. Watch for the players
that are outraged by this, because they are the type
of players that will play very conservatively and
find it impossible to ever call with a trash hand
like 27. Even though this is a correct call when considering
pot odds, a lot of players may write a complaint about
how poor the call was, or they may say something like
"sucked in" if the caller lost the showdown. These
players are good targets for bluffing and easy to
get away from when they bet.
In
a cash game, either live, or online, you will find
the stack size a good indication as to the skill of
the player. If you are sitting down at a 1/2 NL game
with a max 200 dollar buy-in and a player is sitting
pretty with a 1200 dollar stack. You can be fairly
sure this player is a good one. On the other hand,
there might be a number of 80 dollar stacks at the
table, which is less than half the buy-in. These players
are usually not very skilled and are the type of player
to commit all their chips with AJ on a Jxx board,
or push all-in with a draw. Try to attack the smaller
stacks on your table and stay away from the larger
stacks, unless you have a very strong hand and then
maybe try and trap them if they are the aggressive
type.
Another
way to discern a type of player online is to see how
many tables they are playing. If a player is multi-tabling
four, eight or even twelve tables at once, then you
can be fairly certain their skill level is fairly
high.
Actions
speak louder than cards
How a player behaves at a table can sometimes be an
extremely confusing piece of information to take in.
Often if a player is talking a lot, you should try
to ignore them, because they will often convey the
opposite of what they really want you to think, but
if they know you won't believe them, then they will
often portray the truth. Didn't I say it was confusing?
If a player is particularly good at trash talking
at the table, it is to their advantage if you listen
to them. My advice is not to take heed of anything
that they are saying and concentrate on the hand and
how it has played out till now. There is a general
rule that weaker players, who are much easier to read,
will generally act strong if they are bluffing, or
act meek if they have a really strong hand. So keep
this in mind if playing lower limit live games.
I
find a lot of the time though, you can sense if someone
is weak or not. In most situations, where the action
isn't big, most players won't even factor in their
minds the need to act strong or meek, and will just
behave naturally. So size up your opponent by gauging
their confidence levels. Did they call you confidently?
Or was it more of a, oh well, I'll give it a shot
call. Be careful never to get sucked into someone's
Hollywood performance! If they are showing you some
kind of act, they are doing so for a reason, remember
that.
Betting
Patterns The best way to understand and read an
opponent's hand is to try and pick up their betting
patterns. Most players in the world will have some
sort of strategy in mind before they start to play.
This strategy includes how much they should bet depending
on the situation. For example a lot of players will
have standard raises pre-flop, such as three times
the big blind, or three and a half times the big blind,
etc. A good player will stick to this standard raise
even if they have a monster starting hand to mask
it from the rest of the table. However, if you notice
a weaker player who all of a sudden decides to change
their standard raise, then you should think about
the possibilities of hands they might have. If the
hand goes to showdown and you get to see their hole
cards, then lock this information away in your database,
because the next time they put out the same raise,
they are more than likely to have a similar starting
hand.
That
is the basics of trying to follow a player's betting
patterns. By watching them through the course of a
session, you should be able to figure out if they
like to raise with small pairs in early positions,
or limp with small pairs; or whether they raise with
AK from the big blind, or be happy to see a flop.
Knowing the range of cards a player will have, based
on their initial pre-flop action can benefit you greatly
in the long run. If you know a player never raises
with low pairs, but has raised pre-flop, then you
can be nearly certain your AA is good on a 2 5 7 board
and need not fear that they had hit a set. Conversely
if you know a player only plays pairs in early position
and this player check raises you on a flop of 4 6
9, then you can not be too concerned about throwing
away your AA, because you are fairly certain you are
beat. Decisions such as these can save you most of
your stack, where other players might have simply
re-raised all in and lost a lot of money.
Pre-flop
starting hand information is not the only piece of
knowledge available from reading betting patterns.
It is just as important to know what kind of betting
an opponent is capable of. Conversely, you can also
learn what an opponent is not capable of, which is
equally as significant. Some players never check raise
without the nut hand, some players will do so with
nothing, some players will almost play every hand,
etc. The more you can learn about a player, the better
you will become at reading their hands. Once you can
be fairly certain was an opponent's hand is, then
playing poker becomes significantly easier!
Read,
predict and get it right!
The best way to figure out if your read is correct
is to try and predict your opponent's move. For example,
say someone checks to you on the flop after you had
raised pre-flop. You put in a nice pot-sized bet,
your opponent thinks about it for a little while and
hesitantly calls your bet. Now this could mean a number
of things, so use all the information that you have
garnered about this player to make a decision. For
this player, I decide that he has flopped a monster,
because if he had a good hand, he probably would have
bet it to protect his hand like he had in the past;
plus there were no apparent draws on the flop for
him to go for. I also raised quite a bit pre-flop
and he has been quite conservative and unwilling to
commit many chips. Finally, he has never been hesitant
before and it was quite an obvious ploy to show me
something that he wanted me to see. Therefore, I am
pretty certain that he had flopped a set.
Now
that you have decided this, try and guess what his
next play would be. I am fairly certain that he will
check again to me on the turn, hoping that I will
fire off another round.
Now
the more you play, the better you will get at reading
players. As you get better, you will also find that
your assumptions are correct more often. At this point,
if your opponent is doing what you predicted he would
be doing, you probably have the right read and should
go with your gut instinct. It's impossible to be right
100% of the time, but as long as you are getting it
right often enough, then this skill should save and
make you a lot of money in the long run.
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