Hand reading

You raise pre-flop, get 2 callers. The flop comes Qs, 6h, 2s. They both check, you bet into it, the first guy calls, the second guy raises you. What do they have?


Obviously there is not enough information here. You would be hard pressed to say even what you have from the information presented here. Decisions like this can make the difference between winning the tournament and going out first. Should you pursue it? What if you had pocket Jacks...are you beat? Or still ahead? Same question if you had pocket Kings, A/Q or A/K. What if you raised with As, 10S...should you continue the hand?

It is times like this that reading the opponents is important. If you are just sitting down at the table you will not have the information you need. However, if you have been playing for a while there are ways to, if not know, at least make a good guess and the right decision as to whether you should fold, call, or even re-raise.

Too many players play their own cards. Let's suppose you raised with A/Q in the above scenario. You know you have top pair, top kicker. So you assume you have the best hand. However, there are a lot of hands you are losing to; Pocket Aces, Kings, 6s, and deuces, and also any q/6, q/2, or even 6/2. You are also vulnerable to anybody playing suited spades...and if they are playing something like 4s/5s, you are essentially even money. At this point you need to know how likely your opponents have to be playing any of those hands.

If you are against solid players you know you can discount most of these hands; very few players will have that. Good players know there is no point to playing a Q/6 or Q/2 and 2/6 is a horrific 3-gap hand...pocket deuces and 6s they were getting the wrong price for so really they only hand you reasonably fear is pocket qs, a hand that is highly unlikely in view of you having one and the other on the board. So the hands you fear from the better players at the table are something like A/xS where they are drawing to the nut straight, someone playing suited connectors who hit the 6 and are drawing thin, and the poor players who see a face card and play it so could be suspected of having that Q/6 or q/2. Of course, the preferred outcome is to have someone playing something like a K/Q or Q/10 where you have them crushed.

The problem comes with separating them into categories. There is an easy way to do that...pay attention to the hands that are played.

If you see someone playing every hand or nearly every hand you can assume they are pretty loose. They will have a very wide range of hands. They will play anything from pocket aces down to a 2/7. These players are very difficult to read...you cannot reasonably expect to put them on a hand. But you can still get a feel for if you should continue in our example hand.

First, you need to have concentrated on this player for a while. I don't mean concentrated on trying to spot an eye blink or weird way of holding their shoulder...I mean look at how they play their hands. If they have shown down 2nd pair 4 times, how did the betting go on each hand? Did they raise? Check and call? Check and raise? How many other people were in the hand? What was their kicker? Did they have any draws or did they just think they had a pair so would not lay it down? Having the answers to these questions will let you know how to proceed.

But take it further than that. Do they slow-play hands? For example, let's say they are a loose player who falls in love with pocket pairs and will never release them. They might have a set of 6s and you are drawing essentially dead to running Queens or Aces. Are they likely to check their set hoping someone will bet into them or are they going to raise? If they would raise, will it be a normal raise or an all-in?

You can even take it a step further. Assume you are that loose player...maybe you see a Queen, get excited, and play it. Say you have a Q/10 and the Q/6/2 flop hits. The pre-flop raiser now leads out and bets. What is he saying?

He is representing a hand that can beat the Queen. That does not mean he HAS a hand that can beat the Queen...but he is not afraid of it. You have no straight draws, no flush draws...what hands can he have?

If you have played against me much you can put me on a fairly narrow range of hands. Let's say you are in early position, I am in middle position. You limped from early, I raised, the big blind called and you called. I ended up with the button so after the flop when you both checked I raised. What hands could I have?

It depends. You need to know what hands I have played. There are times I am tight-aggressive. If I am playing very few hands, raising or folding, then you can put me on a narrow range" Pocket 6s, pocket Kings, Pocket Aces, A/Q or better. If you can't beat trip 6s or a pair of queens with an Ace then you should fold.

On the other hand, if I am playing my loose-aggressive game you will have seen me in a lot of pots. I could have any pocket pair, any suited Ace, maybe even a J/10 and be betting position.

If you have been watching my play you will have seen the hands I have shown down. If I have shown just top pair or better then you pretty much know I have the queen. If I have been showing a few middle or bottom pairs then you would be much more inclined to think I hit something other than the Queen...or am even betting with something like an A/K or A/10...in which case you would obviously want to stay and perhaps even re-raise me.

So let's look at it again as if you were me. We are playing well...we are folding our trash hands and playing aggressively with our strong hands. We have the Ah/Qd. We hit top pair. The only other people are the early position limper and the big blind. I have yet to see either limp with a big pair, they have raised every time so I am not afraid of the Kings or Aces. They both showed weakness on the flop so regardless of what I have I am betting into it.

Now, assume the first guy calls and the second raises. If I have been watching them I will probably know the first guy likes to check/call with his draws and he will play any suited Ace. He will also call with any dry ace so he might have something like A/6 or A/2. The raiser likes to bluff a lot and loves to check raise. Here I might be in trouble. He could have nothing or he could have trips. The point is, I should be able by now to put a loose percentage on each of his plays.

Let's say he has shown 3 bluffs, 3 made hands, and has won 4 pots without showing. Unless you have picked up a pattern...say, on the bluffs he bets larger than his made hands...or vice versa...then you would simply discount the 4 hands and figure he has a 50% chance of being bluffing. Then you compare the bet being made to your outs, figure your percentage, and you have an easy way to know if you should raise, call or fold.

It all comes down to watching what people play, where they play it from, and how they play it. If you pay attention you will have more information available when you need to choose what play to make.