Question: Reading your opponent

How do you develop a good read on your opponents and what are some things you can look for to be able to narrow down your opponents hole cards to at least something accurate?

The main thing is to pay attention. Pay attention to betting patterns, and what they show down at the end of the hand (if they do). If they're involved in a hand, and end up mucking at showdown, take a look at the hand history and see what they mucked to get an idea of types of hands they may be playing with, and the type of betting they're doing. There's really no set behaviors to look for, IMO, as everyone/every situation is different.

Okay, so let's say you get involved in a hand with some guy whom you have not seen play, not because he is tight but because the tournament started or he just got moved from another table?

You might be able to get a general sort of read within a few hands on someone, but for a read to be even the slightest bit reliable, you need to have observed the player over a number of hands.

This doesn't mean you can't play hands with them in the meantime, but you probably need to proceed with caution - don't go making outrageous bluffs or plays that require some subtlety of understanding on your opponent's part until you get an idea of how they play.

Okay, thanks alot for your help so far. So how should I go about developing my reading abilities? I see pros like Daniel Negranu making some amazing reads and decisions that I just can't possibly imagine myself making. Is it just a result of playing alot of poker over time or is there some way to help develop it?

The thing you've gotta remember about Daniel Negranu is that you're invariably seeing edited TV highlights - for every amazing read he makes where he says "I think you've got jacks" and it turns out to be true, there's another dozen hands where his read isn't as accurate. Those hands just don't get shown on TV.

That said, he is a generally good reader of people. And he got to be one of those at the poker table by playing thousands upon thousands upon thousands of hands and paying close attention to the way people play. No substitute for experience there unfortunately.

Alright, thanks alot man, you've been alot of help. I'm really liking this site already, real helpful members!

I just bought Caro's Book of Tells. It should help me in this area.
Bet someone else has read it and can give you more details.
Cheers

Yea tells would probably get to be pretty important in live games, but I play mostly online, so I can't rely on tells too much, plus sometimes tells are unreliable, from my experience at least.

You have a point there, but I guess I am just going to have to read the whole book and see if there is anything in it that I can apply to on-line play.
Cheers

I found Caro's book very helpful in terms of live play, but didn't think that much (if any) of it transferred to online play.

^^ Jackpot

Another thing to keep in mind is that you're not trying to figure out their exact hands though, the thing that most players do is decide a players RANGE (Such as 77+, AJs+) and then figuring out if anything in that range is beating you.

All the action in the hand can help you narrow down ranges on opponents, and by paying attention, it can benefit you by learning how loose/tight/passive/aggressive they are, which only further narrows the ranges.

Well suppose this player mixes up his/her play very well and consistently, how would you go around trying to figure out the range of his/her hand if they have no apparent pattern?

Now you're delving very much into a black art

The short answer is there really is no easy way, especially if they're actually good at mixing up their play. Patterns or glimpses of reads should still start to emerge over time (for example, very general reads like this person is only playing TAG style hands, or they're playing a loose style), but in the first instance you probably just need to concentrate on playing solid poker yourself - scale back the buffing and subtle moves and just play things by the books until you get a better handle on the player.

There's another option too, of course, and it's probably the easier one - unless you're playing heads up, there should be a bunch of other players at the table. So just avoid the player you can't read, and focus on taking chips from the other players instead. You don't always have to beat every player at the table - you just need to be able to take money off a few of them.

Good answer Oz!!!!!!!
That's what I was thinking. Let the other folks at the table take the risk. Just watch and snag chips from the ones you CAN read................

That really is some good advice, Oz. I'll be sure to incorporate everything that you and everyone else has told me into my play, hopefully it'll pay off. I also hope to improve my own play and my reading ability. Thanks so much guys.

Thanks

I don't claim the stuff that I'm posting is particularly original, BTW - the 'pick on the players you can beat' idea is straight from Phil Gordon's Little Green Book, for example. Give that a read if you get the time, it's most educational.

Best of luck

Pay attention to things like how they are dressed and how they stack their chips. Sounds stupid, but people that are dressed neatly and stack their chips in the same manner tend to be more conservative. People that have a "sloppy" appearance, either dress or chip stacking, tend to be looser.

Any advice on getting reads on people when 4-tabling? Currently I'm just paying attention to obvious things (like people betting way to much preflop and postflop) and I use my PA HUD a lot.

for me i look at their movements, dress code and even at the bit of background information i get before i start to play...

This may be too advanced for what you're looking for, but for on-line one exercise that I have yet to try (I will soon) is to play with a sticky note over top of your cards. You base your play entirely upon your reads of the other players. I've also heard of people doing the same but with only one card showing, as well as people playing live without looking at their cards either.