May 2007

Reading Minds. How To Size Up Opponents by Bill Burton
 

There is a television show I enjoy watching called Psych. The show follows Shawn Spencer who has developed a keen eye for detail after being instructed by his police officer father to note even the smallest details of his surroundings. After Shawn calls in a tip about a crime to the police, he is actually accused of committing the crime. To try to clear his name, Shawn convinces the police that he is a psychic and he begins solving cases for the police. In each episode they zoom in on the key details that only Shawn picks up on and he explains his reasons for drawing the conclusions to solve the crime based on his observations. If Shawn was not busy solving crimes he could just as easily use his talents to make a killing at the poker table. His keen powers of observation and reasoning have been used by many of the world’s top poker professionals.

We have all watched poker tournament television and seen some players make reads on their opponents that might have some of us wondering if they were indeed psychic. Two players will bet down to the river card and one will muck his hand with a comment that his opponent must be holding two specific cards and sure enough those are the exact two cards that the other player has. To many viewers it may almost seem supernatural, but in essence it is one of the skills that separate the great players from their competition. Reading your opponent’s hand is one of the key skills that must be developed in order for a player to succeed in the higher limit games and tournaments.

The Fundamental Theorem of Poker
In his book The Theory of Poker David Sklansky sets forth that poker is a game of incomplete information since you don’t know what cards your opponent is holding. Therefore, the Theorem of Poker is as follows:
• Each time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents’ cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose.
• Conversely every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would if they could see all of your cards, you gain and each time they play their hand as if they could see your cards, you lose.

A Vital Skill
Unless you have X-ray vision, you will not know for sure what cards your opponents hold, so the only way to play your hands as if you could see their cards is to accurately read your opponents to deduce what they may have. Poker pro Phil Gordon contends that by the river card a good player can usually determine with a fair amount of accuracy what his opponent may be holding. Daniel Negreanu said, “What separates average and good players from the great ones is the ability to process information that you’ve gathered from your opponent in the current hand and in past hands, and to use that information to narrow down your opponent’s holdings. Picking up on your opponents’ betting patterns and understanding what they are and aren’t capable of doing, makes this much easier.”
Reading your opponents to determine what cards they are holding is part science and part art or psychology. It is not an easy skill to learn, if it was everyone would be doing it. It takes hard work and patience to develop your reading skill. It also involves paying attention during the game even when you are not actively involved in a hand.
Every time you play a hand and have to reveal your cards at the showdown you are giving up valuable information. The more hands you play, the faster it will be for an opponent to read you, especially if you play a straight forward game.
When you invest in a stock or mutual fund, they always warn you that past performance is not indicative of future returns. However, with many poker players what they have done in the past will be repeated and this will help you post gains in the future. Players who don’t vary their game make it easier for you to read them. In order to know what they have done in the past, you need to be paying attention and noting the cards they showed down during previous hands.

Reading the Board
One of the first skills that a Hold’em player must learn is how to read the board to determine the best possible hand. You need the ability to identify all the combinations of hands that can be made from the board cards. It is extremely important that you can determine how your hand stacks up against the other possible hands that your opponents may hold.
You can’t start trying to figure out what your opponent might be holding if you don’t know what hands can be made from the board cards. By reading the board you can get a range of hands that your opponent may have and then narrow it down by the actions he takes.

Narrowing the Hands
The first thing you must do is to analyze your opponent’s action during each betting round of the hand, whether they call, raise or fold based on the cards that have been dealt face up so far. You need to use logic to help understand why they are making the play based on the information you have. You then have to work backwards from the current point and look at all the preceding action that came in the previous betting rounds to help narrow your conclusions as to what they might have. You will have more information as the play unfolds.
However, you have to be careful in the early stages of the hand not to put your opponent on one specific hand and stay with that conclusion as it could be wrong. In the beginning it is better to put the player on a range of hands and then narrow down the possible hand as the play progresses.

Have a Checklist
One of the best ways to start reading other players and narrowing the hands they may have is to make a checklist that you can use in sizing up the players during a game. There are certain questions I will ask myself at the table as I watch each player.

This has helped me improve my reading skills and if you start doing this during the game it should help you out as well. When you watch the other players note the following:

• How many hands are they playing? It is very easy to tell if a player is loose or tight just by the number of hands they play. Even if they don’t stay in until the end you should note the number of times that a player will enter the pot.
• What cards did they show down at the end? As I noted earlier each time you show down a hand you are giving away information. You want to know the types of hands your opponents are playing and file this information for later. Do they like to play any suited cards, single aces, suited connectors or big cards?
• What position were they in during the hand? You want to note the position the player was in when they entered the pot. Are they playing weak hands from early position? Loose players will play weak hands out of position and this is something you want to note. If a player is tight and then comes in with a raise from early position, you can determine that they have a big hand.
• Did the player raise or call before the flop? You need to know the types of hands that a player will raise with or call a raise with. Any time a player raises you should note their position and the hand they raised with. You should also look at the other players acting after the raise and determine what types of hands they will call a raise with.
• Was the player the aggressor or did he check and call? You should note whether a player is aggressive or passive by the number of times they raise or just limp in preflop. You also want to know the types of hands they may raise with or simply call or check with after the flop. Picking up on their betting patterns is crucial in reading a player.
• Did the player slowplay or bluff? Some players like to slow play hands or bluff more often. You should note if a player will limp in with pocket aces. Did they flop a big hand and try to trap the other players? Some players like to bluff or semi-bluff at specific times. Make a note any time you catch a player doing this.

When you ask yourself these types of questions after every hand, you can very quickly gauge whether your opponents are good, whether they are tight, loose, and whether they are aggressive or passive players.

Simple Reads
Some reads are fairly simple to make based on the predictability of some players. A good example of this is a player who will always raise when he flops top pair. For example: You raise before the flop with pocket queens and get a caller. The flop is king-7-2. You bet and are raised by a player who you know has always raised with top pair in the past. You also know this player is fairly tight and would fold a small pocket pair to your pre-flop raise, so it is an easy read to determine that he has a king.

A player raises after the flop when there are two suited cards on the board. The turn card is not the third suited card and everyone checks to the raiser who also checks. You can deduce that this player is on a flush draw and was raising to see a free card on the turn.

Another common read that is easy to determine is when a player raises before the flop but then checks when three low cards are turned over for the flop. This player most likely is holding ace- king. If they held a large pocket pair they more than likely would have come out betting after the flop rather than checking.

Putting It Together
After you start noting the items on your checklist you can put that information into practice at the tables. A perfect example of this can be found in Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players by Sklansky and Malmuth.

No one raised preflop and the flop is king-queen - 2 of different suits. The first player bets and the next player raises. The third player to act is also in early position and raises again. What cards does he hold? Looking back you note that there were no raises pre- flop, so it is unlikely that the player has a set (three of a kind) since he would probably have raised with pocket kings or queens. Because the player is tight, it is equally unlikely that he would have been playing a pocket pair of deuces from early position. There are not two suited cards on board so you can eliminate a semi-bluff to a flush draw.

This player would probably have also raised preflop with ace-king, ace-queen or a suited king-queen. Since the player in front raised representing a pair of kings it is unlikely that the player would have re-raised with a hand such as a suited or non-suited king-jack, king-10. Therefore it is likely that the re-raiser is holding an unsuited king and queen for two pairs.
This is the type of logic a good player will use in reading a player’s hand by taking into account all of the information they have collected during the game. You look at the action before the flop and note that there were not any raises. You also take into account the types of players that are involved in the hand as well as their position. (The re-raiser was tight and so probably would not have been playing pocket deuces from early position).

Bad Players
It is much easier to read a good player than it is a bad player. A good player will have a logical reason for making the plays that he does. A weak player who plays a lot of hands is likely to be playing any two cards without regards to position, pot odds or any other logical reason. In fact, in many of the low-limit games, trying to read a player and putting them on a specific had will not be possible because they could be playing any cards at all. There is a direct relationship between a player’s skill level and their ability to read other players. I have referred to this as a player’s level of awareness.

Level one: What do I have? Players at this level are looking at their two cards and reading the board trying to determine their best hand. They are wearing blinders and are only focused on their hand. This type of player is usually oblivious to any of the other players involved in the hand. They may be tough to put on a specific hand, but you might determine if they are playing hands such as any suited or any ace.

Level two: What does my opponent have? Players at this level are paying more attention to the other players at the table. They are looking beyond their own hand trying to figure out what cards their opponents have.

Based on betting or previous play they try to put their opponent on a range of hands and then determine their chances of winning the hand. They will make decisions based on what they think the other player has and their odds of winning the hand. This is where you should be as you start developing your reading skills. With practice a player can learn to read the other players at the table.

Level three: What does my opponent think I have? Players at this level are trying to get inside the heads of their opponents. These players are experts at reading their opponents based on previous betting and actions they have made in the past. They do more than put a player on a hand. They take into account the playing style of their opponent such as whether they are tight or loose to further size them up. They try to determine what the other player thinks they have for a hand and how they can exploit it to their advantage. You are going to need to be at this third level if you want to counter the read of a good player — but that is another subject that goes beyond this article.

Practice Makes Perfect
Perfecting your reading skills of other players is a continuing learning process. Some can pick it up faster than others, but for most it must be developed with time. It is not a mystical or psychic ability that you have to be born with. The best way to learn is just to practice every time you sit down at the table. Start off slowly and concentrate on one or two players during a session. Use the mental checklist that I gave you and you will be surprised how much more information you are gaining against your opponents as you play.

— Bill Burton is the Casino Gambling Guide for About.com. (www.casinogambling.about.com). He is the author of 1000 Best Casino Gambling Secrets and Get the Edge at Low Limit Texas Hold’em (www.billburton.com). Bill is also an instructor for Golden Touch Craps. For information visit (www.goldentouchcraps.com).