Art of reading the opponent

dexon303

dexon303

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How is the easiest way to read an opponent? ... On the basis of gestures, stories or something else ...
 
ratmantoo

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For me "reading" an opponent is correctly placing him on a range and knowing the way he plays that range ; typically from his betting patterns.

Picking up on "tells" ie gestures, shaking hands etc adds to the overall picture as you have more information. As I no longer play a lot of live poker I place a lot of faith in my notes on certain players.

SO to answer your question - take notes and observe your opponents betting patterns, how often they bluff , cbet etc. Poker tracker and HUD are usefull tools for this online.
 
OzExorcist

OzExorcist

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That really depends - I assume we're talking live here?

The answer is actually pretty similar for both live and online: you have to pay close attention to your opponents while they're in a hand. What are they doing, what kind of bets are they making, what could their range be and what kind of hands are they showing down?

Online this is restricted largely to betting patterns and sometimes the amount of time it takes a player to act. Live there are obviously physical tells. Some of them are common to most people and we can learn about through books and other resources, but a tell also has to be validated through observation before we can start relying on it for a particular player.

Long story short it's all about observation and being able to remember what different opponents did in different situations. Betting patterns are probably the easiest place to start because they're common to both live and online play and there's a lot less interpretation needed. It'd probably help to do some reading / study before moving onto physical tells / gestures / mannerisms in live games because some of them can be counterintuitive or misleading if you're new to them.

If you want to do some reading, Read 'em and Reap by Joe Navarro is my personal favourite book on live tells. It's a whole heap better than Mike Caro's Book of Tells.

This thread might be of interest to you too: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/dare-i-attempt-serious-discussion-live-179184/
 
dexon303

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I thought that the live game, because I am weak on the issue of reading the opponent.I know those basic parameters for reading opponents, such as:
1) style rivals
2) whether or gets lost
3) to determine whether steam-if you lose
4) betting patterns
5) body language
6) if you play scared
Josh is probably a million ...
Oz Thank you for the recommendation of the book and the above link and clarification.
 
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