Reading Opponents

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Wickedestjr

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I understand that you have to pay attention to your opponents to develop reads on them. However, I have trouble paying attention to hands when I'm not involved. Sometimes I can be very focused, but usually my mind drifts. I think part of the problem is that I don't know what exactly to be watching for.

For those that are good at reading their opponents in online play, what kind of things do you pay special attention to? What tells do you look for?
 
rancidcarp

rancidcarp

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hesitation---cadence change--changes you can feel
 
Marcwantstowin

Marcwantstowin

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Generally as you cannot see their faces I try to look at how fast people bet/ raise and whether they take part in a lot of hands. You can also watch when they go to show down - mind you I normally muck my hands so others cannot see them if the option is available.

In order to combat some of these things you would try to make your bets at specific intervals, however this is not normally possible if you are multi-tabling. Good luck in your quest........:D:D:D
 
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w8888

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Maybe look at their approach to the game, like how they play preflop, cbet, how often they call, etc. and get a read on the range of hands they are playing.
 
gus201

gus201

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Start with betting habits and then position and how they bet or play . you will get a lot more info just in them spots as players dont even know how much info they give away . 1 EX: --- play bets out preflop then c bets right amount then min bets the turn say because he os still drawing and hasnt made his hand . now what you do is up to you at that point . ( raise or make a push to get him to fold ) .

Remember what you gather and use for your info make sure your now not giving back the same info to the table about you and your play :)
 
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Xmaster

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Take a look at the bet size of your opponent, how often he bets and when he bets.
 
Juanes1913

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I understand that you have to pay attention to your opponents to develop reads on them. However, I have trouble paying attention to hands when I'm not involved. Sometimes I can be very focused, but usually my mind drifts. I think part of the problem is that I don't know what exactly to be watching for.

For those that are good at reading their opponents in online play, what kind of things do you pay special attention to? What tells do you look for?

1) Pre-flop raise (very important fact)
2) C-bet on the flop or just check or check/raise (this kind of moves tells very much about your hand)
3) Also pay attention how the villain plays the turn and river...

My advice is to pay more attention in those hands that you're not involved because you can see how the villain plays ;) :D
 
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Weisssound

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A lot of stuff but here are the important ones:

1. How often is a person opening pre-flop, and what is their standard raise? Do they open limp (9/10 times people who open limp are either passive-fish or aggro-fish depending on how they play post flop)?

2. How often is a person folding to resistance/pressure?

3. How light does a person seem call a bet on each street?

4. How often does this person bet the flop if they were PFR, and on what table textures?


These four things tell me about 90% of what I need to know to effectively play against opponents on lower stakes tables.
 
skiptomyloot

skiptomyloot

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takes practice to learn your opponent. do you play 1 table or a few tables at once. To read an opponent, you must write an opponent, that being said you should note down hands they play , hands you play against them, hands they open with, hands they shove with shortstacked, how they play with a big stack.
 
CAMurray

CAMurray

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After establishing my "Agg Read" on everybody at the table which usually takes a level or 2, I rely on JNs intel I've listened to a hundred times while driving or at the gym. EVERYBODY has tells, you just need to catch them and go with your read.
 

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westside1950

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Well I think that any tracking software ( Holdem manager, Pokertracker..) would solve your problems and answer all of those questions you asked.
You just read those stats whenever you come up in a pot with them.
Offcourse, you still need some decent sample of hands to make a quality judgement - but still it helps!
 
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SnowedIn

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Very hard to get actual facial reads off players. Look at what kind of lines they take with certain hands. Amazing how if you play with a player for a couple of hours you can see that he does the same thing with similar hands all the time.
 
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RodrigoCL

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I am mostly aware of things like betting patterns, aggression, how often they get involved, if they are just callers or include check-raising, 3 betting and the like to their arsenal. I don't really give importance to timing tells. Timing in online doesn't mean much. Someone can just seem to tank when they are just multitabling or even watching their fav video online or someone texted them on their cell.
 
IntenseHeat

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I tend to look for patterns, then try to spot deviations from the normal pattern. This does require your full attention. Some important things to pay attention for have already been mentioned above. The key word here is attention. I can't stress enough how important it is to pay attention. You have to remember that even if you aren't in the current hand, that doesn't mean that you're not playing poker. Obviously, if you're multi-tabling, you're probably better off just playing the math.
 
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