How to read players

I've been playing for alittle while now and don't really understand the concept of reading people. How do pros look at a guys betting and assume he's got something like king jack off suit. If anyone could give me some advice on how to improve this it'd be appreciated

Hi there! I have just been reading a book (Harrington on Holdem) that speaks somewhere about it, and I think I have managed to put it into practice quite successfully, reading other players. Obviously, the most experienced players have a difficult game to read, but they are the minority. The rest are rather transparent. Here is an example: A super aggressive player, who raise in each pot. A neutral flop (7-4-J of different colors) and this player just check. Another player bets and he pays. On the turn another neutral card and the same thing is repeated, he just checks, the other player makes a big bet and he pays. On the river the other player goes all-in and the aggressive player pays, then showing the nuts and winning the pot. What can be read from here? Something very obvious, why the player who bets and tries to steal each pot suddenly just checks ?. Another example. A player enters some flops just by calling and when someone raise he folds. Suddenly enters with a rise of 3 blind. Obviously he has some hand.They are simple examples, but they illustrate the idea. You have to pay attention to the way they bet, the amount, the number of times, the position in which they do it, how they react to a raise, how they react to a flop, the cards they show when they win, and basically everything that happens on the table, even if you fold your cards.

Good advice.

Thank you for your poker widom.

It’s basically based on a lot of factors. Based on your observation of a player (how many pots they get into, it tells you whether they are tight or loose). If they raise a lot vs calls, they are seen as more aggressive. But if they fold a lot to pressure (bets and raises) after getting into a pot, they are seen as weak. Putting these basic factors together, you can have an idea of what hands they are playing based on what they do preflop and postflop. If a tight player raises from early position, you can assume they have very strong hole cards... AQ+ or KK+. But if a loose player does it, range widens to say TT+ or AJ+. Range widens the later the position.

How they respond to raise or how often they raise vs their table image tells you more about what they do. How they handle the game post-flop tells you more. How often do they Cbet? How they respond to bets and raises tells you more info. Each action they take helps you narrow their hands (flat calling a flop with 2 suited cards in flop after flat calling pre-flop means they are prob holding low pocket pair or suited hole cards... but even that changes depending on how tight or aggressively they are playing). Even when they fold, it tells you something for future hands. It gives you tendencies and you in turn play your game with those tendencies in mind. In my opinion, the game involves a lot of math and a lot of psychology. Both managing your own, but your read of other people and even awareness of how others read you.

The rules of NLHE poker are simple. But there is so much complexity behind the scenes. Personally, I’m just getting back into the game again and re-familiarizing myself with the game again. It’s an evolving game in that trends seem to change to counter strategies that have worked in the past. Have fun with the game!

b1atch said:

I've been playing for alittle while now and don't really understand the concept of reading people. How do pros look at a guys betting and assume he's got something like king jack off suit. If anyone could give me some advice on how to improve this it'd be appreciated

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Observation ever, it is a skill to be improved working out, watching villains and assemble puzzles about their games.

Сollecting statistics helps, especially in cash games, well, the behavior of the player at the table says a lot, and of course it is advisable to play with one person more hands to choose a strategy for playing with him.

In order to have at least some idea of the opponent’s hand, you need to pay attention to the board structure, how often the opponent enters the game, the timing of the opponent’s decision, use XM2, if enabled, analyze the distribution. Basically, you need to be very attentive at the table.

b1atch said:

I've been playing for alittle while now and don't really understand the concept of reading people. How do pros look at a guys betting and assume he's got something like king jack off suit. If anyone could give me some advice on how to improve this it'd be appreciated

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Reads are mostly a thing in live poker, not so much online. It can be anything from, how fast a guy bet (which also apply to online), if he is talking, his gestures etc. Try to search "live poker reads" on Youtube, you will find some videos about it.

This is not to be confused with hand reading, which is basically putting your opponent on a range of hands, you think, he would play this way. In this forum people share hand histories, and when other players give advice without knowing the results, it is basically hand reading.

Poker is a game where you play against your opponent first. Therefore, it is important to understand what hands your opponent may have. Remember that the essence of the game of poker – to beat the opponent, and not just to collect a combination of cards. So, if you focus solely on your cards, and care about how to collect a better combination – it is unlikely that you will achieve high results at a distance. the opponents 'hands are a very difficult science, and even after many years of playing, you will not be able to guess the opponents' hands with 100% accuracy. However, if you take this discipline seriously - your understanding of the game will improve significantly, and in most cases, you will be able to predict the possible hands of your opponent.

the best way to improve your reading of the game is to train yourself by watching strategic videos. each opponent has a style of playing a frequency of bet of its own. it's easy to see if a player plays wide or squeeze during the game and thanks to that you get some hands on his ranch. if for example one of your opponent is playing in a tight position. he bet preflop and the flop comes A K 2. it is obvious that it has touch and it is necessary to fold your JJ if it is too expensive. it is especially important to train and play several thousand hands to have a good reading of games.

b1atch said:

I've been playing for alittle while now and don't really understand the concept of reading people. How do pros look at a guys betting and assume he's got something like king jack off suit. If anyone could give me some advice on how to improve this it'd be appreciated

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As far as reading tells this youtube channel has some great videos that show some common tells in real game footage that can let you gauge how strong somoens hand is or if they're bluffing.

https://youtu.be/21Gt_zglXCI

Tells aside, poker strategy at high stakes usually follows common rules. By knowing these rules you can narrow down the range of cards that an opponent has.

For example, people playing in early position will play a tighter range of hands (a snaller percent of hands will be played but they will be stronger hands on average). So if sombody under the gun (first player to bet) opens with a raise then you can immediately narrow his range down to relatively strong hands. If somone 3 bets you can further narrow this range down and assume they hold something pretty strong. But then imagine the flop is all low cards and the player who 3bet checks (or c bets). To me that c bet would have a bit less credibility because the way he played preflop told me he had a monster hand and it's that much less likely that it could be paired with a low card on the board since I would assume he holds higher cards. This is just a very black and white example though since some of the hands that a player bets big with can also include bluffs and non premium suited connectors. It also depends on specific player's tendencies and how tight or loose they play. Let me know if you want me to clarify anything in more detail . You can also use board texture and opponent bet sizes to further narrow down ranges.

Check out this extreme example:

https://youtu.be/NSX3_OG5Ojs

And Negreanus reasoning for how he made the read in this video:

https://www.pokerlistings.com/live-reads-explained-negreanu-mind-trick-turns-shlomi-inside-out-99617

Perhaps you should pursue making yourself unreadable.
Keep the speed and size of your raises the same amount.
Make your raise size the same whether you are strong and wanting value from your hand, or playing a weak opponent that you are attempting to force out of the pot with a weak hand.

b1atch said:

I've been playing for alittle while now and don't really understand the concept of reading people. How do pros look at a guys betting and assume he's got something like king jack off suit. If anyone could give me some advice on how to improve this it'd be appreciated

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A man walking in the street carrying in his left hand a shopping bag. Without going close to him can you tell me how much weight he is carrying in his bag? And what kind of things are there in the bag?

If you can answer these questions, then i would say you are a good poker player.

After walking sometime the man sifted his bag to the right hand That suggest that he is carrying enough weight (say, 5 or 7 kg) and want to give relief to his left hand. Tiredness on his face and heavy breathing would also confirm this.

If bag at the bottom is fully filled up that suggest he is carrying rice, wheat or something like that. If at bottom if one side of the bag seems to be empty then he is carrying different things of different sizes.

What i am trying to say is that sometimes we don't know about something but we can reason out to make the fair conclusions.

Now coming to the poker, you don't know what your opponent is holding but his preflop actions will tell you something. Then there will be flop, then turn and then river. More actions you will see and more information you will get and you can fairly judge what your opponent is holding.

Lastly i must say judging your opponent's hand is not the only thing. You must also judge your own hand if it is competetive enough to produce a winning hand.

A great poker player will change up his patterns so you have no chance to read his play.

This is perhaps the most difficult question, but eventually even a program will not say anything that will give you the skill, all is not read, but we can assume based on statistics, how to play a villain, and on this basis to make mooves.

I’m still sure that it is impossible to read the opponent’s hand. Only to guess or guess. analysis of the behavior of players online is minimal since you are online. but to see the technique of playing rivals to know their range to play from a position and not in a hurry you must if you play and not have fun. more practice gives you with each hand an ever new lesson that is fixed in your head. experience gives more confident play in places before motorism. trust more people and fewer alines; it’s better to pick up a smaller bank than to merge the whole stack. good luck at the tables.:fight:

I'll tell you to watch the many hours of live tournaments available on you tube to improve your perception of how certain players play each hand. Good luck there.

For online poker, you should google some terminology like snap-raise, snap-call, timing tells, bet size tells, overbet tells.

For example, what does that mean if somebody usually makes fast decisions, but in some spot, he thinks a very long time, and then he goes to all-in. Is it a bluff, or is he having nuts? For knowing that you should study about "timing tells". By "tells" you can assume what kind of hand he could have. Tells, reading opponents etc. are just concepts of hand reading. In my opinion, the best place for studying this kind of things is pokerstragy.com. By knowing psychology behind "snap-raise/call" (immediate raise/call) increased my poker profits tremendously

Psychology and body language in live poker also can find in Caro's Book of poker tells. There are many intresting concepts.

In online poker i usually use equal delays to prevent reading of my play, but only against good players...

The easiest online read is when player raise flop, makes continuation bet after flop, then bets less on the turn than the flop bet. 99% of the time they have crap.

Timing tells and betsizing is the same online as in live.
When players start eyeing your chips before he bets. Generally means he likes his hand and wants to determine how many chips you have left before he bets again. That’s something I starting to notice live.