Help - Reading hole cards

vexvelour · #1 08-12-2005, 06:31 PM

I’ve been re-reading my poker bible lately, Super System. Lately I feel my game has gone down the toilet and have been working hard to figure out what my problem is. Reading through the no-limit section made me realize how much emphasis I’ve been putting on cards lately instead of trying to place players on cards and outplay them. I’ve always had a bit of difficulty with this. Reading Doyle’s words, he makes it seem so easy to do to put players on certain hole cards. Understandably, he’s been playing poker long before I was even born, and I don’t expect to be a master. Between the draw outs I’ve seen in the past few days and this sense of lacking in my game, I feel like I don’t even know how to play anymore. I’m not a weak player and feel like I’m in a downswing right now, which is fine, and I’ve taken a vacation from poker to sift through my books and the forums, as I said earlier.

Now that I’ve realized that this is hindering my game, I’ve been practicing by trying to call players hands while friends play online. I’m still fairly horrible at it. I’m asking a favor from the 2+2ers….can you give me any pointers for making this task possible? Are there better books to read on the subject? I’ve read the section in Sklansky’s TOP but found it to be quite short and more geared towards 7 card stud and other poker games. Any help is appreciated, and thanks for reading.

johnc · #2 08-12-2005, 06:48 PM

What helps me tremendously is to put opponents on a range of hands first and not specific hands. I ask myself little questions when an opponent acts such as "what range of hands would he call that raise with?" or "ok, so he's raised in early (or late) postion, what hands would this spefic guy do this with?" and many, many more, if you're playing online then PT will help a ton. His actions on the flop tell me still more about the range of hands he has. The key is to not let you yourself narrow down his holdings but to let the opponent GIVE you the neccessary info via his actions to do this for you. Only on later streets, maybe even the river will you have a much better idea what you're facing and then you much of the time it'll still be a range of possible hands, albeit much narrower. Then again, sometimes people will show crazy hands that will cause you to scratch your head and say "WTF"! My 2 cents....

Jorge10 · #3 08-12-2005, 07:11 PM

Ok you seem to have no instincts whatsoever, I was just reading a book just for that the other day, go out and buy, The Psychology of Poker, its a 2+2 book, itll help with your lack of reads.

vexvelour · #4 08-12-2005, 07:11 PM

Thanks for the response. I am assuming that PT is pokertracker...which I have never used. Does it keep track of players at your table and what they've done?

Also, and this is addressed to everyone, what do you feel the max number of players in a hand is that you can read their hole cards with a high degree of confidence?

vexvelour · #5 08-12-2005, 07:13 PM

Thanks for the referral to POP. I was looking for more insight than what I have read in books though.

Jorge10 · #6 08-12-2005, 07:14 PM

Poker Tracker keeps track of yourself, it keeps track of all your stats and the stats of others, but then you need player view to know who stinks and who doesnt at the tables. Player view is a program that uses the poker tracker stats and puts them on people at the tables so you know whos who.

imported_anacardo · #7 08-13-2005, 01:06 AM

Pay the $50 and watch it pay for itself in your first session. Poker Tracker is an essential tool for any serious online player.

SNOWBALL138 · #8 08-13-2005, 01:39 AM

You need to play on partypoker and look up villain HH. Books are somewhat useful for handreading, but tend to just give you an idea of how players that the authors sit with bet their hands. These players are probably different than the ones you play with.

I also recommend that you look up a post by Gigabet called "Almost there with success and failure" (without the quotes)

vexvelour · #9 08-13-2005, 02:43 PM

Thank you for the posts. I didn't realize that PokerTracker was such a popular 2+2 tool. I will def. look into it. I believe at one time when I first began playing I downloaded a similar program (for free) and it just screwed up my game royally. I had decided that Poker programs were full of it, and never gave another program a chance.

Snow: Thanks for your post. I agree with you - you can read how others do it over and over and never quite grasp how it's done. Also, they're not playing against some of the online idiots that we all encounter everyday. Thanks for the recommendation, I will check it out now.