Reading Hands

[rayrns]

Hi my name is Ray. I have been playing Holdem for 5 months and I can't read hands. There I said it and now everyone knows it. Oh maybe now and then, like I hold K-K and open raise from MP. Flop comes Q-T-3 rainbow and EP limper bets. I might remember he limped in and probably doesn't have a set so I will raise. But not really read hands. This was brought to light last night when a 2+2 player sat in a game I was playing.
Poker Stars .50/$1
I am EMP with 7c-7d
Folded to me. I open raise. Folded to 2+2(LMP) who re-raises. Folded back to me. I call. We are heads up.
Flop: Qh-5d-8h
Over cards on the flop. I decide to check to the raiser. Who then checks along.
Turn: (Qh-5d-8h)[Qs]
Now I don't believe he is holding a Q, so I bet out. 2+2 raises. I call. I have no idea where I am at or what he might have.
River: (Qh-5d-8h-Qs)[3c]
What do I do? I take the wuss way out and check. 2+2 checks along and I take down the pot. I still have no idea what he had.
I have observed tables at 100/200 - 30-60 but most of those games never go to showdown to get any "read". Most just go bet, raise, call. Check, bet, fold etc.
And at the limits I am playing, up and including $1/2, when they bet from UTG and then win with 6-4o to 2 pair, I am at a loss as to put them on that either.
So I have been playing the "board". My hand against possible better hands. I am ahead of the game but not where I should/wanna be.
How do I go about learning this part of the game? Also thanks for the 2+2 poster for messing with my mind in that hand. It made me do this post. And hopefully find out how to improve.
Thanks in advance to anyone/everyone who takes time to answer this post.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

There is no easy way to learn to read hands, it just takes experience. The easiest players to read are the straight-forward ones, especially the rocks. When they bet, you know they have at least TPTK. Good players are easier to read than bad ones, even tho they do sometimes mix it up to confuse you, like the hand you mentioned. I can't say for sure what he had either, tho from the play of the hand, it looks like he had a smaller pocket pair than you. I say this because of his reraise pre-flop (the "small pair isolation reraise play"). Also, the flop of overcards would have probably stopped him from betting too. On the turn, he could reasonably put you on AK, and he's now hoping to get you to fold. I wouldn't have believed that a good player would have a queen there either tho, so good read.

You'll get it over time.

al

[me454555]

usually when the hand goes to showdown, if the other player mucks his cards, you can see what he mucked by looking at your hand history. My guess was that he had AK himself b/c I dont think he would reraise w/66 or less preflop

[davidross]

None of us could read hands when we started. You get stuck playing your cards for their absolute value rather than their value compared to the other hands out there. Your first breakthrough will come when you observe hands you are not playing and youstart guessing what they have. It's much easier to process when you are not in the hand. Review the hands in the Small stakes forum and try to guess what the players had. Eventually you will get a feel for what kind of hands the other guy has, and you will start to make reads on hands you are in. It's a very complex skill. You need to deduce based on limited information, and you'll be wrong a lot. A raise from an aggressive player isn't the same as a raise from a passive player. Give it some time. Good luck.

[Al_Capone_Junior]

As an add-on to Dave's post...

Even in S/S, Doyle says (in the "general" section on hold'em) that " you're forced to do a lot of guessing. So is your opponent."

There is no easy answer, no "formulo-matic" way to read hands, it's just a matter of experience.

As you can see, I "read" the hand of your opponent with my response to your post. I know I may (or may not) have been correct, I just took my "best guess" based on the info given. It's something I have gotten used to. I have a pretty good ability to figure it out, but I (of course) get it wrong, same as everyone else. I am just correct more often than a less experienced player.

al

[trillig]

Definitely takes time playing same player, if doing it online, try using their notes feature or scribble on some scratch paper, if at a live game, focus on the people with the big chip stacks or 2 people and try to gain from their play and then get in heads up against them.

So many people have a pattern to their play.

I love smashing down the people who do the 'I'll bet first and maybe they will fold trick' on a rag flop, try reraising them on occasion even with squat!

Mix up your play so you are unpredictable, that is the key.

I got the read on a guy today in a 1 table tournament, we were down to 4 and I was in 4th, and 4th didn't pay... He had 80%+ of the chips at one point.

He doubled me twice (2nd double knocked out #4) and then I kicked his butt heads up after we basically blind killed #3. I am betting he was stunned to go from king of hill to 2nd fiddle.

His errors? Called ALL-IN with 1 card to go with 4 flush [wondering why he chased me when he needed 2 runners for flush and I was betting into him all along] (worse than 4 to 1 shot), called ALL-IN with 2p with 4 to straight on board (I had high end str8) and called ALL-IN with 2p with pair on board (giving me trips).
Never hit him that I might not be a bluffamatic like himself...?
I am aggressive/tight for crying out loud, when I am betting I do not have zero, 90% of the time anyhow... and he should have been a little more cautious perhaps? Hindsight is 20/20 though. LOL!

I beat up someone else right after that on a 1 on 1 table as well, using quick read techniques. This guy though did ALL-IN me on very first hand and I folded it, after debating for a solid minute, within 5 mins, his was all on my side anyhow.

-t

[sweetjazz]

As a further follow-up -- something I picked up from Sklansky's Theory of Poker I believe:

Since you can't know for certain what hand the opponent has, you should try to read what possible hands he has and what the likelihood is for each holding.

For example, a normally tight passive player comes out betting. You can read that he has a very strong hand. But if you have a very strong hand as well, you need to figure out how strong his hand is. Here, you use the previous betting to figure out all hands he could have that are consistent with how he bet. (For example, you might reduce him to holding AA, AK, or KK and you might reasonably suspect that he would bet each of these three hands this way every time this situation came up.) Suppose your hand is strong enough to beat AK, but not AA or KK. Because AK is more likely to come up than KK and AA combined, you are actually a favorite at this point (if your reads have been right so far; of course, in reality there is always the possibility that your opponent is making a tricky play).

This is all in Theory of Poker, if I recall correctly. I think it even has the AA, AK, KK example worked out completely.

Of course, the other way to read hands is to find an opponent who is willing to hold his cards in the air while sitting with his back to a mirror. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[zamora]

hi Ray,
good post.
my limited experience says that in order to be able to read hands you must give your self a chance to do it. what i mean is that by just checking and calling, your opponents could pretty much have anything and it is impossible to get a read.

The bet, raise, call. Check, bet, fold you see on higher limits is just that. the players are giving out and recieving information so that they can make decisions based on that information.

your example is from an heads-up hand and that is an entirely different matter. i don't have a clue on how to get a read on someone heads-up because a lot of good players tend to be extremely aggressive and very tricky. i leave that to those who has got the skills.
with all the facts out i would guess that the 2+2:er was raising with two hearts or a baby pair.

but, in a ring game, you get the reads by the betting patterns, and if you "control" that by betting or raising the hands you play yourself, you have a better chance to get a good read on your opponents. that is one reason why tight-aggressive is the way to go.

if, for instance, the hand you refered to would have been with more than one (3-4) player, the raise on the turn (especially if there would have been action on the flop)would have told you that the two queens is probably not intimidating to the raiser. and if someone cold-called that raise, it would tell you even more (flush-draw) and you could probably lay those sevens down.

Just like you i am trying to get better at hand reading so that i can get back my money from all those 2+2:ers that are messing with my head.

peace.

[Rushmore]

I still have no idea what he had.

He likely had AK, and was trying to get you to let go of your hand on the turn (which might not be so far out of the realm of reasonable expectation, except for the fact that he made this play on the turn, and waves the red flag).

Or maybe he had 66, and was going for the isolation play preflop, and taking a stab at it on the turn, hoping you held AK.

And at the limits I am playing, up and including $1/2, when they bet from UTG and then win with 6-4o to 2 pair, I am at a loss as to put them on that either

It will never stop. I suggest saving a little bit and playing a little bigger, where it happens, but not as much. I think the first big difference you'll see is between 1/2 and 3/6.

But no matter how big you play, it's still there. You know, that "Huh?" or "Wait. How can you possibly have that?! You were--".

Get used to it. Learn to love it.

P.S. Why did you call our hero's raise on the turn? All you said was that you didn't put him on a Q. He 3-bet preflop. What hands might he do this with?

[L0QTiS]

I'll take a stab at this one.

Your opponent had either AKx or another pocket pair below yours (that missed the board). Given the play on the turn, I think a lower pocket pair is more likely (44 or 66).

Betting on the flop MAY have gotten you some additional information, but my read is that your opponent pegged YOU for AKx and was playing you assuming this was the case.

Check the had history, if you opponent stayed through to the river and your showdown, the cards will be revealed in the hand history

[BruceZ]

You have to do a lot of thinking away from the table about different situations that can come up, like the one you described. Remember to think about different player types, because that drastically changes the hands they can hold, and it means drastically different things when different players bet, raise, check, etc. Like, is the opponent you were up against likely to bet his good hands on the flop, or to wait for the turn? Is he capable of a bluff raise? Also, notice that several posters in this thread mentioned what the other player thinks you have. Be sure to think about that too, as well as what he thinks you think he has. Finally, you don't have to figure out exactly what he has. You just have to figure out the best way to play your hand. You play your hand the same way for a number of different hands that he might have.

[RockLobster]

Hi Ray--

Nice post. Check out this thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=holdem&Number=240569&Forum =holdem&Words=rocklobster&Match=Username&Searchpag e=0&Limit=200&Old=6months&Main=240569&Search=true# Post240569) from April, there's some good info there. You'll get a kick out of our opening statements, they're quite similar.

And here's another (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=holdem&Number=316544&Forum =holdem&Words=rocklobster&Match=Username&Searchpag e=0&Limit=25&Old=6months&Main=316072&Search=true#P ost316544).

Hope these help.