Some thoughts about reads

[PrayingMantis]

There were several threads recently focused around reads, so I'd like to share some of my general thoughts on this. Basically, I see 2 different "forms" of reads.

1) A read regarding your opponent's hand ("putting opponents on a hand"). In this case, you've either played with him/her before, or just enough hands, or you simply recognize a pattern you've seen with other players. Villain raises PF, you call from LP, flop comes Axx, he fires a small, weak, bet, not a serious one. With your read of him, you put him on a weak, maybe very weak, ace. You can be wrong of course, but if your read is good, you are correct the big majority of the times.

2) The second "form", is judging what a certain player is going to do under certain circumstances, i.e, how _will_ he act with his hand. Sometimes form 1 and 2 don't go together. For instance, in the previous example, you can figure this player does not have a good Ace, but can still be unsure whether he'll toss his marginal ace to a raise. Actually, you might not be sure he won't call an all-in with it (assume he's a fish). Well, in itself - even this is a "form 2" read. But it's not much than a small extention of form 1, i.e, reading your opponent's cards, and that's all. Since you don't have a good enough read of his expected behaviour, you can't make any sophisticated moves, or use second level thinking. You put him/her on a hand - you play for value or fold. That's many times the case at the low buy-in SNGs.


I think that as we climb in buy-ins, we can and should use more and more "form 2" reads, even against the somewhat (relatively) fishy players, and act upon them. That is, not only putting them on hands, but also imagining what they'll do as reaction to our moves: will they fold to a reraise enough times, try to bluff you out, call a big bet but fold to a smaller, and many other examples.

I think that a strong read is a mixture of form 1 and 2: putting your opponent on a hand, and being able to anticipate accurately enough how will he act with it, against you.

Only some basic thoughts, any comments are welcome.

[Stoneii]

Yes PM, and so it took me a while to work out that, although I may well have put a 1/2 decent read on a player's hand, I never strung it together with their anticipated reaction to my move.

Of course that's what a decent player can do, assess the hand and the reaction of the player with the hand. I forget about part 2 all too often /images/graemlins/blush.gif

stoneii
(on a self analysis/discovery lesson at the moment - wonder why lol)

[ReDeYES88]

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2) The second "form", is judging what a certain player is going to do under certain circumstances, i.e, how _will_ he act with his hand. . .

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many times one of the first notes i scribble down on a player is if he/she has the ability to make a "tough" laydown (either in a hand against me, or another player). this gives me a sense if the player will chase a weak flop w/AK, or pay to play the draws, or call bets with an under pocket pair, or will play top pair with a weak kicker.

if a player doesn't typically stay to the end, and mucks hands on the flop or turn in the face of big bets, reraises, or check/raises, then i'm more apt to give them more credit as a thinking player and subsequently use second level thinking when playing against them.

[Hamilton]

actually, I think there should be a third line of thinking. That's when you are pretty sure the other player has a read on you by using the second line of thinking, you might be able to use that against them. Think about what do they expect you to do with top pair, with weak hands, etc.

Last night in a SNG when there is only 3 players left, I have played very tight even until the end, mainly because I was distracted with some other things, sometimes I just sit out and let it auto fold a few hands while I am gone. Anyway, i had about 1300 chips, and player 1 has about 4200 chips, and player2 had about 2500 chips. Player2 keeps trying to steal my blind (50/100), and I folded most of the time. But whenever I see a weekness, I would call preflop and raise him on the flop and he would then fold thinking I must had at least top pair to raise. In fact, I didn't hit one flop during the time, but when the blind reached 200, I had more chips than he did while he probably thought he played great by stealing my blinds so many times.

[alittle]

I think this is a good description. I think that Form 1 gives you the info around your options, but you need Form 2 to decide what direction to take.

This plays out in my mind as "well, normally I would do X, or maybe Y or Z here, but since he plays like a [maniac, idiot, pro] I'm going to do Y because that should cause him to..."

[Irieguy]

I disagree, PM. I think this is one area of poker where people, in general, are very misguided.

I think that, in general, "reads" are a very very small component of winning poker. I also think that the "read" component of winning poker is somewhat misunderstood. There's really no way to tell what an opponent is holding... no matter what your gut tells you. But there are some valuable poker skills that can be applied to a situation that could be considered "hand reading skils."

If you are acting before an opponent, you should be able to tell how likely that opponent is to call and with what range of hands. That is what people call "having a read on an opponent." But that is only valuable if a) you can make him lay down a better hand after the flop, or b) you are giving him incorrect pot and implied odds to call with an inferior hand. If you can't extract value in those ways, then the read doesn't do you any good.

If you are acting behind an opponent and they raise or call, then the art of "reading" is really a mathematical exercise. Your experience of playing with that opponent will allow you to estimate the range of hands that he would make a particular move with... you then can figure how likely he is to have a hand that will beat you, and calculate whether or not you should play. The thinking works like this:

-A very tight opponent goes all-in from the CU in front of you. You have pocket 10's. You estimate that this very tight opponent would only go all-in with AA,KK,QQ and AK. There are 6 ways for him to hold each pair, and 16 ways for him to hold AK. He is an 18 to 16 favorite to be ahead of you by about 4 to 1. The rest of the time you will be ahead of him by about 11 to 10. So you can then determine that you would need better than 2 to 1 odds on a call to make it correct.

With experience, you can begin to make these calculations quickly and accurately enough such that it is valuable to know what range of hands an opponent would call with. But if you can't do that, it doesn't help. For example, in the same situation above you think "this guy is very, very tight. He would only go all-in with a big hand. I have pocket 10's, that beats Ak which is his most likely holding... so I'll call." If that's what you do, your read does you no good.

For these reasons, I believe that reads are overrated and poorly applied. That doesn't mean they don't have value... you just have to be very skilled to be able to extract the value. In your example 1) where an ace flops and your opponent bets a certain way; not only do you need to know how likely he is to have an ace, but what range of other hands he could have as well and whether or not you are getting the right price to play... or more importantly, how likely you are to get him to fold with a raise.

So I would say that for all but the most expert of players, the thought "I have a good read on this guy" results in a mistake more often than a good play. My emperic evidence that this is true would be the fact that you can play 8 screens at once for a good ROI at even the high levels. With that many screens going, the utilization of reads is almost none. ABC poker wins the money, and unless you are very, very skilled, relying on reads is more likely to cost you money than win you more.

Just my opinion on the subject... I could be wrong.

Irieguy

[lorinda]

Strange hypothetical question here, but it's fun to think about.

You get AQ first hand in the big blind. UTG raises all in

What do you do?

You get AQ second hand in the small blind. BB raises all in

What do you do?

You get AQ third hand on the button. Everyone folds, you call (You'll understand why for the purposes of this). Same guy goes all in.

What do you do?

You get AQ EVERY hand and flat call. The guy on your left goes all in EVERY time.

At what point to you think "I have to call this guy"?

Lori

[ilya]

The second time he does it.

[PrayingMantis]

Irieguy, I agree with some of the things you say, but still believe that reads, in the very basic way that I've described them, are a very important part of what makes a strong player, even according to your own examples. However, I agree with you that it's many times a misunderstood concept, or area of the game.

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There's really no way to tell what an opponent is holding... no matter what your gut tells you.

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Of course you can't, in the most accurate way. But putting an opp on a range of hands, sometimes even a rather narrow range, can be quite an common ability of a strong player. It's not about "gut" feeling per-se. Your "gut feeling" is all your poker knowledge, and mainly your expirience in the game, and in particular against this specific player. But it can get you very close to "putting your opponent on a hand". I can speak only from my expirience, but it's not very rare for me to "guess" what an opponent has, and be pretty much accurate with it, when I happen to see it at the end of the hand, say. I think it happens with many good players (I'm far from thinking I'm exceptionaly strong or anything), and I'm sure it has happened to you. This is what I've called "form 1". You can actually be out of the hand in order to play this guessing game. Of course - you can say that I'm remembering only the times I'm correct (human nature), but I think it is definetly more than this.

As to your examples: sure, there are many times that putting your opponent on a range of possible hands does not help you in a specific hand. There are many more factors here (position is one of them, as you've mentioned). But still, I think it's crucial to apply it, and we all do it.

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-A very tight opponent goes all-in from the CU in front of you. You have pocket 10's. You estimate that this very tight opponent would only go all-in with AA,KK,QQ and AK. There are 6 ways for him to hold each pair, and 16 ways for him to hold AK. He is an 18 to 16 favorite to be ahead of you by about 4 to 1. The rest of the time you will be ahead of him by about 11 to 10. So you can then determine that you would need better than 2 to 1 odds on a call to make it correct

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This is a case where basically only "form 1" that I was talking about is relevant. You put your opponent on a hand (or a range of hands, there's not an essential difference IMO), and make a mathematic estimation of the situation. You only have to call in this case, so your opponent's reaction to your move is irrelevant. However, here come into play also other "forms" of read, in regard to the players acting behind, and even to the way the raiser sees you. These are all part of your read, and should all determine your move. Then, surely, odds, math, and other considerations come into play. But read is still a major element here. The poorer your read of him is, the poorer your decision will be, regardless of other factors.



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But if you can't do that, it doesn't help. For example, in the same situation above you think "this guy is very, very tight. He would only go all-in with a big hand. I have pocket 10's, that beats Ak which is his most likely holding... so I'll call." If that's what you do, your read does you no good.


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I agree.

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In your example 1) where an ace flops and your opponent bets a certain way; not only do you need to know how likely he is to have an ace, but what range of other hands he could have as well

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Of course, but if you know him well enough (and it can happen even on-line), you can very well estimate that there's a good enough probability he has an ace, and a weak one even. You might be wrong, but the whole idea of this game is applying some rough probabilities to things. Reads are not different. It seems that you don't agree with me that many players are quite predictable (in many senses). I strongly believe that most poker players ARE predictable, in a way. That's part of the reason most poker players are rather poor or mediocre player. Relatively few are good (especially in the low-mid SNGs, as we are mainly discussing SNGs here). The fact that they are predictable in a way should make it easier for a stroger player to a) put them on a hand b) anticipate their behaviour, at least some percentage of the time. And as opposed to you, I really think this could be pretty significant in the potential money you can make in this game.

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or more importantly, how likely you are to get him to fold with a raise.

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You never know it for certain, but again, I think in terms of what is probable here. A player I know to make small stabs at pots when he hits some part of the flop, and then fold to a big raise, will fold more times (or much more) than a plyer who takes a stab at the pot when he hits some part of the pot, but just CAN'T let go of his hand. My decision will take all this into consideration.

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So I would say that for all but the most expert of players, the thought "I have a good read on this guy" results in a mistake more often than a good play.

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I partly agree. Yes, mediocre player can very well turn their "reads" into catasrophic mistakes, and could do better simply without counting much on them. But I don't think you have to be a strong expert player in order to take advantage of strong reads you have. I think about it this way: if my reads are better than others, it's a clear advantage I have - so why not act upon them, at least some of time, when I feel certain enough? It's a riskier way, in a way, but part of improving, IMO, is taking more risks when you have the best of it. Exploiting smaller and smaller edges.

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My emperic evidence that this is true would be the fact that you can play 8 screens at once for a good ROI at even the high levels. With that many screens going, the utilization of reads is almost none. ABC poker wins the money

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Even when you play good ABC poker, you are necessarily using reads, at least at some levels. And of course you can be a winning player with good ROI without using, consistently, strong reads. It doesn't mean that using reads will not increase your winnings. But of course, multitabling is not usually appropriate for acting too much upon reads. I completely agree with you. But still, having even rough reads, on "typical" opponents, is a big part of a stong player's game, multitabling or not.

Anyway, I completely agree with your point, that relying too much on reads is a two-edged sword, and for many players it can be a rather dangarous and almost suicidal tool, that should very often be simply avoided.

[PrayingMantis]

It's an interesting question. I fold first hand. The tricky part is the second one, IMO. In the third-fourth hand and on I think it becomes a rather easy call, as his range of hands becomes wider and wider ,so I'm getting closer and closer to being about 2:1 against him. And I'm not going to fold this.

What are your thoughts on this?

[Stoneii]

1) Fold
2) Fold
3) Call - guys a nutcase /images/graemlins/wink.gif
4) I already called him on the button so hand 3

[lorinda]

For what it's worth I call on hand 2 if I'm feeling excitable and hand 3 the rest of the time.

I posted this question to make people think about how quickly they actually pick up reads, whether they know it or not.

On a lesser scale, we do it all the time (Grrr that's the x'th time that guy raised my blind.. etc.)

Although clearly a silly example, I think it shows that reads can be invaluable in this game and although math is fundamentally important, the read changes the math because you are dealing with different equations each time.

Lori