hand reading

Fahrenheit451

Fahrenheit451

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Sep 8, 2013
Total posts
222
Awards
1
Chips
0
Can someone suggest good resource on hand reading.
In tournaments, when blinds raise, there are folks who raise huge. Their VPIP is huge and it is clear that they raise with pure shit, but every time I fight back it appears that this was wrong time.
I feel that I need to study this aspect of game.
 
adriantempo

adriantempo

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
Dec 1, 2017
Total posts
2,062
Awards
12
RO
Chips
170
I saw a youtube video of Daniel Negreanu doing some impressive reading.

But I feel you because it had happened to me also. You just have to fight back being strong and confident with good cards. Don't fight with doubtful cards.

You can win a tournament with just a couple of hands played. So, choose wisely.
 
oriole

oriole

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Apr 20, 2017
Total posts
452
Awards
9
Chips
1
I really enjoy watching The Poker Bank and Doug Polk strategy videos on youtube when I have time. I think those are great free resources.
 
gon4iypes

gon4iypes

Legend
Platinum Level
Joined
Nov 6, 2014
Total posts
1,007
Awards
3
GB
Chips
94
what a pity I hadn't read this 15 minutes ago. I had a really good stack but was tilting a bit and had a fought back with a mediocre hand looking for a fold but no way...he called and that was it....tourney busto!!!!
 
adriantempo

adriantempo

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
Dec 1, 2017
Total posts
2,062
Awards
12
RO
Chips
170
It happens to me often

It's hard to resist

But we play and we learn (hopefully)

Adjustments. Adjustments. Adjustments.
Changes in play, brings changes in results (in the long run)
 
okeedokalee

okeedokalee

Glory To Ukraine
Loyaler
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Total posts
5,542
Awards
22
NZ
Chips
163
Believe or not, people bluff less than you think.
 
playinggameswithu

playinggameswithu

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Nov 7, 2017
Total posts
2,250
Chips
0
Just ask yourself their range,how strong they are and why they would rationally behave the way they have with the way the hand has rationally played.That VPIP is just a reference with not a strong enough sample size.
 
S

Sorin Iliescu

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Oct 23, 2017
Total posts
391
Chips
0
it happened to me a few times also; the idea is to use only your very good hands when you are in a tricky situation
 
WindOfBliss

WindOfBliss

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
May 1, 2017
Total posts
21
Chips
0
Without any programs and a long session MTT, I can, with an accuracy of 80%, read the opponent's hand, unless of course he played with me)
 
B

Blair29

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Dec 11, 2017
Total posts
85
Awards
1
Chips
5
Its important to pick the hands you fight back with carefully. Doing it with marginal hands will just cost you chips.

If you have people in the blinds that are defending aggressively pick hands that flop well to raise. Hands like Ax that you would normally raise on the button or HJ lose a lot of value when you know you are going to get 3 bet or squeezed.

Sometimes its not so much about hand reading, its about planning out the hand prior to taking an action.
 
Aballinamion

Aballinamion

Sleeping with the Dark Lady of the Sith
Loyaler
Joined
Dec 4, 2017
Total posts
2,517
Awards
3
BR
Chips
331
I entirely agree with our friend. You don't need to play loose in tournaments and you only need a couple of hands for winning or getting ITM. The last tournaments I got myself in the money I played the maximum of 15 hands! I folded hundreds of trash hands and play those who could improve my positive EV, my pot odds and my stack.
Do not play many hands in tournaments, whether they might seem easy and cheap to play, discard bad games and play strong hands to fight for bigger pots. :D
 
Aballinamion

Aballinamion

Sleeping with the Dark Lady of the Sith
Loyaler
Joined
Dec 4, 2017
Total posts
2,517
Awards
3
BR
Chips
331
It's a very complicated issue buddy but I'll try to help you with my little understanding of the game. (I play poker for about a month or so).
In tournaments, when players are with deep stack, they tend to raise very strong, without any good hand for practical and tactical reasons:
1) The player deep stack got nothing to lose. It is not likely someone would re-raise a raise of five big blinds or more. And if they do re-raise, they are entering into a delicate situation, because the guy with deep stack is not thinking about fold.
2) If nobody calls ou re-raise the deep stack collects the dead money and the blinds, which is not bad for him.
3) there are players low stack in the game, praying for a situation where they go all in with less than 10 big blinds of stack. The player who has deep stack is not worried about short stacks, because no matter what hand they had, the deep stack is ahead in any dispute. For instance, a guy with 220 BB of stack, re-raises in utg position to 6 times big blinds. The guy in the Cut off calls it with his entire stack. Now the hands, the deep stack in utg has 72 off and the guy in the cut off has pocket aces, AA. But it doesn't really matter for the guy who has 220 big blinds as stack, because his adversary might even lose with pocket aces over 72 off suit! It's possible and it happens more often than players use to believe.
Anyway the deep stack player is betting in a huge range of hands, because it's profitable for him in this situation to attack and be extreme agressive.
Now the range of hands. When you are playing you should always ask yourself: "What kindda hands my opponents have to play and do things as they do?". For example, in a tournament were blinds are 10/20, the utg begins limping, the utg 1 limping, utg 2 limping, utg 3 folds, hijack folds, cut off raises to 3 big blinds, the dealer re-raises to 5 big blinds. The small blind position folds, the big blind position calls, the utg folds, and utg 2 calls, and the cut off calls as well.
Which hands made the players bet those particular ammounts? Well, the utg got very weak hands, because he limps and folds to re-raise. The utg 2 might have something because he called a strong raise. Which means, the utg 2 maybe is involved in a good range of hands so as the cut off and the button position in the example above.
Online players do not bluff too much, as it seems. They are betting in hands with equity, with possibility of winning and there are a few of them who bet over any possible hand.
Try to think the range of hands by what yourself would do with x starting hand, in x position. If you got, for example, pocket kings, KK, in the button, what would you do? Would you fold? Well, you might sometimes, but it's very hard to fold a hand as KK. Would you limp with KK pre flop? Maybe not, because it's not good, in general, to make slow games with a hand that could lose to any Ace x (Ax = A2, A3, A4, A5, A9, A10, etc)
So the right move for a player in the button, holding KK pre flop is to raise between 2 and 5 big blinds, in a clear attempt to cast out player who might have a range of hands as A6, A4, A3, etc. If you just limp trying to make slow with pair of KK pre flop, you might allow another player to limp with A2 and get a free Ace in the flop. Raise to "hold" your opponents, to make them fold pre flop and get called only by strong hands.
If you made a big raise and got called, you may expect a strong hand, generally speaking. See what you do, and why you do with the starting hands you get, then start observing and analyzing other's move to catch their range of hands and play more safe.
 
adriantempo

adriantempo

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
Dec 1, 2017
Total posts
2,062
Awards
12
RO
Chips
170

For a 1 month old player you have good understanding

I prefer to bet with KK, even if I lose against AA, because I won't feel bad, it's not a bad beat. But as you say an A2 can be a bad beat. And we don't want bad beats
 
Starting Hands - Poker Hand Nicknames Rankings - Poker Hands
Top