Poker Learning - Hand Reading

This is a great topic. It's so easy to emphasize that hand reading is essential to being a winning poker player. If you know the theory back to front but can't hand read you will be a breakeven player. If you are loose on poker theory but can hand read perfectly, you will be a winning player, no lies.

So what is hand reading? Hand reading isn't putting a player on a specific hand, it's putting a player on a range of hands given his playing style, the board cards and the betting. The better you hand read, the better the decisions you make, as you have an idea already about what he makes this move with, and you can chooe to bet, re-raise or fold more confidently.

Observing Players

First of all it's worth mentioning you have to be observant and make your own reads. Great players are observant without even trying, after much practice, but new players are not observant without trying very hard to watch everything. You must focus on the tables you play, and you must try to understand your opponents before you will become a winning player. When you play big pots against unknown opponents you are massively hurting your winrate in the long term.

Here are a few tips to observing players better:
* Don't have distractions. Turn off messengers, skype, don't talk to friends, don't watch TV, don't surf the web. If you want to do any of those things, stop playing poker for a while to do them, then go back when you trully have free time.
* Don't multi table too much. It's a great way to improve your winrate, but a terrible way to improve your hand reading. My tip is to get the hand reading solid first, then start adding tables. The ideal number of tables to start with is 1. If you are bored with 1, you probably aren't observing enough, watch everything that goes on.
* If you folded pre flop, practice assigning hands ranges to the players in the pot.
* Notice how players bet. Do they limp a lot, do they call a lot, do they raise a lot, do they minraise the flop every time. Pretty soon you will realise how players are trying to make money. If somone limps every hand then minraises every unraised flop, they are trying to steal lots of small pots cheaply, stop that happening. If they call every street with mid or bottom pair, they are calling stations, and can be punished when you hit a decent hand, don't stop betting if you've hit something. Watching bet sizes closely gives a great insight into how to make money off of a player.
* Constantly make notes about unusual plays a player makes. If they raise pre flop with AK, then bet hard with an Ace high board and lose, it's hardly worth noting. But if they raise with A3o and bet hard with an ace high board, it's worth noting. If they call too much, make notes about that, if they lead out with weak bets that they fold to whenever someone raises, note that.

Pre Flop hand reading

If you buy Poker Tracker and PAHUD (or download Gametime+ for free), you can see live stats on the players on your table. These stats can indicate how a player plays pre flop very accurately, showing you how often they put money in to see a flop (VPIP) and how
often they raise pre flop (PFR). On top of that you should also observe as much as
possible to see what type of hands they are calling with or raising with, whether they are limping more than calling raises, and how often they re-raise. You can make notes of any non-standard call or raise, like "Called a large raise OOP with A3o" meaning they are likely to call with any ace hands.

Given the stats and a couple of your own notes, you can pretty quickly assign a hand range to a player pre flop. For example if the stats shown were 28/12/2, they are limping or calling 16% of the hands they play and raising 12% of the hands they play. Pokerstove can assign a general range given a percentage, so if we type in 12%, it says the range is 77+/ATo+/A9s+/KJo+/KTs+/QJs/JTs+. That gives you an indication of what types of hands he might be raising with.

Note that players will deviate on the Pokerstove range depending on their tendancies. Some may play more suited hands, others may play more ace hands, so it is important to get your own reads. Also note that players who play position well, will raise more from the button than from UTG. So 12% may mean closer to 20% from the button for some players, and
only 6% from UTG. Finally, stats are only trully reliable over 100's of hands, so if the player has only played 30 hands, don't trust the stats too much, use it as a rough guide.

So given stats and reads, make sure you act accordingly when deciding whether to bet/raise/call/fold. Big mistakes are made pre flop, and can be amplified by a reasonable flop for you that hits his range better. You can get a tonne of information pre flop if you know how to find it.

Post flop

So you've seen a flop, and hopefully have a hand range of the player given the pre flop actions and the player involved. Now comes the hard bit. Your first decision is what to do given the range you have put them on and the board cards. If you are in position you can at least see their actions, if you are out of position, you have to act first, which is much harder. This is where deeper reads are necessary, and where having a good poker theory also helps.

There is far too much to cover what you need to do post flop, but there are some tips to help identify the best decisions:
* Given the range of hands he plays, work out how often his hands would have hit this board. So if he plays draws a lot and there is a flush and straight draw, be aware, if he plays any ace hand and an ace is on the board, be wary again.
* Re-evaluate the situation on every card. So if he is likely to play draws, called a draw friendly flop bet, then a draw completes on the turn and he raises, what are you thinking? You have top pair, but could be miles behind by now. Make sure you are taking in every card, every bet/call/raise. Use every bit of information available to you when deciding what to do.
* Evaluate betting based on the players history. If this player always folds to a flop bet, but suddenly raises your bet, narrow the range of hands you'll keep playing with down a lot. If they are very aggressive post flop and raise you, think about betting back rather than folding with a decent hand. Each decision should take as many player tendancies into account as possible.
* Attack player weaknesses. If they fold too much, bet them off a pot more often. If they call too much, bet stronger with a decent hand. If they are very passive but only call with strong hands, don't overbet middle pair after they call a flop bet.
* Use your reads! It's so easy to say "I think I might be ahead now" and just call with a flop bet with a marginal hand, but if your read says you are ahead, then re-raise. Allowing him to complete a draw or hit a better pair with the next card cheaply is silly especially when you were ahead given your reads.
* Understand your own image at a table. If you aren't betting much, and you are still getting too much action, what is this saying? If you are betting loose, does this guy assume that and expect you to be holding next to nothing when the cards are turned over. Is this guy likely to have noticed you at all?
* Never assume a bluff. Always think a bluff is possible given this players bluffy history, but still give credit for him having a hand this time around, and add a bluff into the range of hands he might be holding.

So to summarize, I think hand reading is the key that will open a lot of poker doors. If you understand what your opponents do it will make you a lot of money. It takes time, effort and skill to do this properly, but I think the real key is dedication and you will at the very least improve your game if you try very hard to work at your hand reading skills.