Trusting your reads...

I know the answer to this question is probably "play better" or "just trust them" but I'll throw it out so all the good players can have a good laugh or two. I am a mid to low level tourny player, online and live. Playing poker for a couple years, I am fairly good at figuring out players hand ranges fairly quickly. When it gets to mid to late stages of tournies I still can put players on a hand that is close to what they have, but still end up making a bad play and donking off all my chips.

ex.

Today I was at the Vanitian playing in their tourny. It was mid level of the tourny, I had about 20 bb and was under the gun. Made my standard raise of 2.5 bb with pocket Q's. The player to my left, who is tight and aggresive and had slightly more chips then I do, and has demistrated a pretty good game, Calls. flop come 2h 7d 8d. I put out a 1/2 size pot raise. He min raises me. I put in a reraise, and he shoves all in. I say you have a set, and then make the call. He turns over pocket 8 and lose.

So if you got any techinques besides stop being a retard to throw my way on trusting my read, that would be cool.

Easy. Say, 'you have a set.' then instead of calling, throw it away! Isn't it that easy???

No, it isn't, not for me at least :/. Sigh...

it is an easy say. and looking back at it. i asked him and he said yes. and i still called. yeah i am a donkey. I make the Mike the mouth blow up all the time. I am looking for advice how to stop the blow ups, and cash more often. shockingly I do turn a profit playing tournies. I would make so much more if I could not be retarded.

In your example, on the flop:
You bet: At this point you can have just about anything that you would raise pre-flop, a standard UTG raising range would be TT+, AJs+, so we're looking at an overpair or overcards. Depending on how you've been playing that range could change a bit. Your entire range is likely to bet the flop.
Your opponent raises: An aggressive player will still have some draws and overcards in his range, but more than likely we're looking at a made hand which is A8s/A7s, 77-JJ, occasionally we'll see a smaller pocket pair as well.
You re-raise: Now you've got no more overcards in your range, we're really down to overpairs here.
He shoves: You're screwed. Unless he's an idiot you're way behind.

If that's accurate or not, I don't know, since I don't know how you or your opponent play, but your thought process should be something like what I wrote.
There's really no "trusting your read", it's just narrowing down his range to the point where there's a correct play. Once he shoved, it's a fold.

I know what you mean op; you almost KNOW you're beat but you can't lay down that seemingly strong hand--just in case he's bluffing.

Here's the answer, plain but not simple: discipline

Easy to say, hard to obtain I know. There are a couple of tricks you can use to help you along this road. One thing I started to do is to try and wait at least 5-10 seconds before you click that mouse or call/fold/raise that live bet. Use this time to ask yourself if you really want to do what you're about to do. You'll notice that a number of pros, like Chris Ferguson for example, almost always takes the same amount of time to call, fold or raise his hand. This is what he's said he's doing.

Tell yourself to play the odds, not the gamble and tell yourself you made the correct move afterwards, ESPECIALLY when that miracle card hits after you fold.

This contradicts what you wrote immediately before it.

If you were able to put players on hands accurately you could not end up making bad plays.

I think what you do is this, you notice that the reraise shows strength... you then shout out a big hand that beats you but call anyway.

You then forget all of the times you were wrong about the read as you won the pot and focus only on the times you lost the pot but correctly shouted out the word set before hand.

Now when you hold a strong overpair, you are either going to win the pot or loose to a bigger hand. (its obvious) So what you are doing is training yourself to believe your reads are better than they really are.

If your reads were accurate you would fold more when you think you are beat.. so I would suggest that you are wrong about the set as often as you are right (the QQ stands up.. but you forget this because you won the pot).

So I think its in your head.

Either your reads are good.. in which case you should be following them

OR

Your reads are no where near as good as you think, but you are negatively reinforcing them by putting people on bigger hands every time you hold a strong hand yet call anyway.

Its a win / win situation for your ego.. you either win the pot or make the read.

Its a lose / lose situation for your poker game because you are not really improving your game.. just stating the obvious.. that when someone shows aggression and you have a big hand.. you will only lose to a bigger hand.

So my suggestion would be to note down your 'reads' every time you make one and see how often they are correct. If you put someone on a set and they dont have it.. you loose a read point.. if they do have the set.. you get a point.. see if you are in the plus or minus reads column by the end of each session.

The other big negative reinforcement here is that if you dont focus on the reads you got wrong, just the calls you get wrong, this means that when yo bust out of a session its always down to a call rather than a read. So you believe that if you followed your reads you would do better.. but that isnt true.. if he didnt have a set at that point... you would have won.. only to bust out later.. of course when you bust out.. it is always going to be to a biger hand.. do you see the cycle of negative reinforcement?

Yeah, trusting your reads is good and all... but I dont think I'm ever folding a QQ overpair for 20bb. Sick cooler, there is alot of worse hands he can stack off with there.

Hmmm, you identified the UTG+1 as a TAG, who's been playing a solid game, & yet call a raise & then an all-in shove; it sounds as though it would be more optimal to go with your reads than being attached to your hole cards...if this appears to be a constant in your play? Just a thought.



GL.

You had 20bbs in a live donkament. Not getting AI on any flop is very likely a mistake.

Had a great read today when I got queens. The guy made a raise 2.5 times the BB from out of position, i reraised him from the button and he called. I had seen him play one hand before where he 3bet someone and got all in with aces against their kings. We saw a flop and there was an ace and some lower cards, the ace was a scare card but i decided to bet it anyways, he thought about it for a few seconds and called. From preflop I realized he didnt have aces or kings, on the flop he could have had AK but he was pretty loose so I think he would have reraised me. Before the turn came I was like, he has jacks. I was confident in that and i continued to make small bets through the end and he called all the way down, sure enough he turns over jacks and I took the pot .

Why do you call if you "know" his hand?????
The read has been good, so just fold next time....

What's up with the 2.5 BB raises with QQ's and JJ? You know if you had raised more with the QQ the TAG player most likely would have folded pocket 8's to a big raise. a 2.5BB PF raise, I'll be in there with ducks. Hell I'd be in there with two cards with nothing printed on them.

You sure you play at the Vanitian? Or is it the Vatican? Or did you mean Venetian? Are you sure you play there I'm pretty sure all their chips either have Palazzo or Venetian printed on them so it'd be hard to not know how to spell it. If you play there a lot

Waaat lol i didn't say I play anywhere . What are you talking about lol this was online.

salim271, I think Sean Pilgrim is primarily referring to the OP &/or the system didn't pick up a multi quote (which happened to moi earlier tonight).

I really don't vary my pre-flop raise based on the strength of my hand. My problem wasn't with the call of my opponents, it is my play post flop. QQ KK AA, i usually want a call. I guess the bigger raise comes down to the "win a small pot, lose a big pot" line of thinking.

In response to the very friendly pilgram guy(insert sarcasim here), I dont think i said I played there all the time, must be your reading skills are like my writing skills. I understand that my spelling, hell english for that matter, isn't that great. and I'll appoligize if i got your panties in a bunch for spelling the name of the casino wrong, it wasn't really the most important detail of the question.

I nailed a guy's hand the other day at a live game. I had Q9s from the BB, he's under the gun and limps. The flop comes QJ9 rainbow. I bet, he sighs, and minraises me.

"You flopped a straight, didn't you?" I factored in that if a Q or a 9 hit I'd get him to stack off, and so I called his small raise, and whiffed the turn. A K came. Well, if he didn't have a straight already, he had one now.

I checked, he bet less than his raise was, I call, hoping to catch and stack off. I whiff again. I check. He bet an insanely small amount for value. Now, instead of just saying "Yea, he flopped the straight - dump you stupid two pair here" I decided to call, to make sure my read was right.

And sure enough, it was, he had T8.

Knowing what your opponent has only saves you money if you have the discipline to lay it down when you're behind. I know each of these streets it was a bad play, and I was factoring his implied odds for my four-outter. Even once I missed, he was able to extract value from me = leak in my game. I should have folded on the flop when I put him on his hand.

But how often are your reads wrong?

If you always put your opponent on a bigger hand than your own you get the win/win for the ego

You either get the read wrong.. win the pot and forget about the bad read

OR

You lose the pot but made the correct read.

(I am assuming you guys are all tourny players but the same would apply to a lesser extent cash players when they go all-in)

As long as you dont play spwey.. every time you bust out of a tournament because you always make a read that has a player on a bigger hand than your own, you always bust out having made a good read and bad call.. over time this leads you to believe you make good reads and bad calls.

So the reads made on the final hand of a tournament are the worst reads possible to evaluate your game by, because if your tendency is to make a read of a hand bigger than your own.. then every time you bust out you will be making a correct read.

ALWAYS trust your reads. It's the only way to improve your game. Even if your read is wrong, then you can learn from that and improve. If you are always second guessing your reads, you are going to be making a lot of wrong decisions.

After rereise you can think that he bluffing, but after second rereise you must be fold(((((( But on preflop with QQ on UTG I bet 3,4-4BB not smaller

I think its just plain wrong to try and put an oppenant on any specific hand and more often than not you will be wrong, its always better to assign a range and if you find that villain is at the top of his range do not worry about it, as villain would almost always do exactly the same thing with the bottom of their range to.

Also online I think its damn near impossible to put someone on an exact hand and online tourney play its often your stacksize dictating your decision aswell as villains range, so I think you should give up trying to soul read anyone and just play your cards in relation to your stacksize and a standard range for different types of oppenants like nit, TAG, LAG and retard.

Topdonk.....so far the best reply to op in this thread IMO

thankyou sir

I will try, to show where you went wrong...
If i'm UTG, i'm shoving with Queens> i'm at 20BB, it's a coin flip for him to call..


Thought. i would of raised 4BB, to get anyone out of the pot , or i would shoved all-in on him..

well, actually it's "maam"--but you're quite welcome...sir?

Are you more likely to do that with top pair as with a pocket pair? I think people get attached to their pocket prs, and pre-decide if the flop is unders to commit their chips. Whereas top pr on the flop people can fold easier.

There is a study that says the brain makes decisions several seconds before we are conscious of them, so your decision to reraise or go all in was before your read that he had trips. Maybe wait a few more seconds.

U just took the words from my mouth. I think u need experience in order to control yourself. Usualy calling bad hands come from being tilted and under the big preasure of small stake. I have the same problem . I do not have much experience .. just started playing poker 6 mounths ago.. i know by theory what happens to me in that moment .. and still play the bad hand. Usualy when u play freerolls or small by-in tournaments ... players do not bluff in late stages. Losers bluff at the begining or go all in like crazy ... but at the late stages they only play secure. So if u miss the flop and u are called after the flop .. u have to ring the bell. The rest is theory ... number of chips u bet , number of chips the other player bets ...